Sheep fattening is a practice that involves feeding and managing sheep for a specific time to increase their weight and improve their quality of meat production. In Ethiopia, particularly in rural areas, sheep fattening is a popular business venture among small-scale farmers. It provides an opportunity for farmers to generate income and improve their livelihoods. The practice is also important for meeting the increasing demand for meat in the country, which is expected to grow in the coming years due to population growth and urbanization.

Globally Food, Land, and Water Systems (FLWS) are being degraded rapidly. Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on natural resources. Agriculture plays a significant role in India’s $3.5 trillion economy, employing 43% of the available labor force. The share of agriculture and allied sectors in total gross value added (GVA) of the economy is 18.8% during 2021-22.

The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project aims to enhance access to climate information services and validated climate-smart agriculture technologies in Africa, to help these countries strengthen the resilience of their agricultural sectors to the threat posed by climate change. Strengthening the capacity of next users, particularly agricultural extension and advisory service (EAS) providers who work to support farmers in Senegal and five other target countries, is crucial for achieving this goal.

Decision making in agriculture has been based on general (blanket) recommendations made by technicians, the farmer's own knowledge or local practices that are adopted as customary for generations. Recognizing the need to generate information to help make site-specific decisions based on traditional agronomic research, this study uses Machine Learning (ML) models and a Global Harmony Search (GHS) methodology to find an optimal solution to the combination of practices that a farmer could implement according to his soil and climate conditions specific to his land.

Smallholder farmers in northeastern Nigeria face the triple threat of food insecurity, climate volatility, and conflict. Northeastern Nigeria has some of the highest levels of food insecurity in Nigeria. Additionally, delayed, shorter, and more volatile rainy seasons have led to massive floods, depleted soil quality, and disrupted agricultural growing seasons which ultimately constrain agricultural productivity.

The In-situ Monitoring System in the Dry Corridor of Guatemala represents a testing ground for automated agricultural. Located in the region's challenging dry corridor, this innovative plot, supported by CGIAR, CUNORI University, and the CGIAR initiatives on Digital Innovation and AgriLac, is designed to enhance decision-making and efficiency for small-scale farmers. It achieves this through advanced in situ sensors and technologies that deliver precise data on climate and soil conditions.

Because of differences in access, resources, productivity and priorities, agro-advisory systems will need to be customized towards the different needs of smallholder women, men and young farmers. Women and marginalized communities need to be intentionally included in the design, content and development of CIS – including Ag-Data Hubs – to ensure they are not excluded from benefits (Dinh et al., 2022). The experience of the CGIAR in reaching under-served groups with CIS can inform strategies for more inclusive advisory system

Temperate food legumes (faba bean, chickpea, field pea and lentil) are important food and feed crops in West Asia, north and East Africa regions. The productivity of legume crops is affected by Aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum and Aphis fabae) and pod borer (Helicoverpa armigera). Due to climate and farming systems changes, the impacts of insect pests are increasing, and farmers are discouraged from including food legumes in their cropping systems. Besides direct economic damage, many aphid species play important roles as vectors of legume viruses like Pea seed-borne mosaic virus.

Integrated pest and disease management (IPDM) represents a range of environmentally-sound approaches to crop protection and is increasingly recognized as an essential component of sustainable agricultural development. To promote the use of IPDM, it is necessary to validate and disseminate effective IPDM options to farming communities. To this end, the CGIAR Plant Health Initiative (PHI) has initiated nine Innovation platforms (IPs) in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, to develop and validate pest management solutions for major crops in real-life environments.

Contract farming is one potential mechanism that smallholder farmers in developing countries can use to participate in and benefit from domestic and global value chains (Okello and Swinton 2007; Barrett et al. 2012; Minot and Sawyer 2016; Ruben 2017; Ton et al. 2017). Linking smallholder farmers more directly with national and global consumers should increase both the demand and producer prices for their fresh produce. Increased access to and participation in such value chains increases farm income earned by smallholders.

Management of postharvest food loss and waste (FLW) is an important strategy in efforts to sustainably meet the food and nutrition needs of the world’s growing population. Sustainable food systems are critical to achieving food security and nutrition for all, now and in the future. Food systems cannot be sustainable when a large proportion of the food produced using limited resources is lost or wasted in the supply chain.