Sustainable land-use systems (SLUS), such as agroforestry with cocoa, implemented with organic fertiliser, with prescribed post-harvest practices and rainwater irrigation, can potentially increase farm productivity, while reducing pressure on natural resources by decreasing deforestation and providing legitimate incomes for rural households. SLUS also contribute to peacebuilding by providing sustainable income sources and enhancing social cohesion. Despite evidence of their potential and global efforts to promote their use, SLUS adoption rates remain low.

Can farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) boost crop yields and improve food availability without using more mineral fertilizer? This question has been at the center of lively debates among the civil society, policy-makers, and in academic editorials. Proponents of the “yes” answer have put forward the “input reduction” principle of agroecology, i.e. by relying on agrobiodiversity, recycling and better efficiency, agroecological practices such as the use of legumes and manure can increase crop productivity without the need for more mineral fertilizer.

This manual was developed as a training guide to empower and equip members of the farmers’ cooperative with the essential knowledge, skills, and best practices required to adopt and implement CSA technologies and Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs).

Although soil microbial biomass (MBC) comprises less than 5% of soil organic matter, it responds rapidly to changes in soil management practices and, therefore, is generally used as early indicators of changes in soil carbon. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of tillage practices (conventional tillage and no-tillage) and fertiliser types (synthetic, organic, and no fertiliser) on soil MBC. The field experiment, located in Bue, Southwest region of Cameroon.

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) account for much of the global fish catch, but data to assess them often do not exist, impeding assessments of their historical dynamics and status. Here, we propose an approach to assess 'data-less' SSF using local knowledge to produce data, life history theory to describe their historical multispecies dynamics, and length-based reference points to evaluate stock status. We demonstrate use of this approach in three data-less SSFs of the Congo Basin. Fishers' recalls of past fishing events indicated fish catch declined by 65–80% over the last half-century.

This report presents the outcomes of Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) Zambia Stakeholder Consultation Workshop for Additional Financing (AF). The consultation was held on September 21, 2023, from 09:00 to 14:00 CAT at the Inter-Continental Hotel, Lusaka. In total, 100 participants (31 females and 14 youth) participated in the consultation.

While many have extolled the potential impacts of digital advisory services for smallholder agriculture, the evidence for sustained uptake of such tools remains limited. This paper utilizes a survey of tool developers and researchers, as well as a systematic meta-analysis of prior studies, to assess the extent and challenges of scaling decision support tools for site-specific soil nutrient management (SSNM-DST) across smallholder farming systems, where “scaling” is defined as a significant increase in tool usage beyond pilot levels.

Gender-transformative change requires a commitment from everyone involved in agricultural research for development (AR4D) including organizations at international and national level, individual researchers and practitioners, farmers, development agencies, policy-makers and consumers, to transform the existing values, practices and priorities that (re)produce and perpetuate gender biases and inequities in agrifood systems.

In this chapter, we propose a framework of market-based incentive mechanisms for the adoption and scaling of sustainable production standards throughout rice value chains and review evidence of two mechanisms that have been piloted in Vietnam: “internalizing” and “embodying.” The evidence suggests that sustainable production standards can be successfully “internalized” in rice value chains through policies (public governance) that provide an enabling environment for vertical coordination and private governance of standards (e.g., through contract farming).