Credit allows borrowers to access funds required to make an investment before returns materialize. For smallholder farmers, who must invest in agricultural inputs (i.e., seeds, chemicals, equipment, land, and labor) during the planting season before earning income from the sale of agricultural produce after harvest, credit helps alleviate liquidity constraints and promotes the ability of local agricultural production to support nutrition and food security. In rural Nigeria, access to credit—especially formal credit from financial institutions—is limited.

India’s National Food Security Mission, guided by the National Food Security Act, initiated a submission on nutri-cereals focusing on millet crops. In the wake of contestations surrounding different frames of food security and food sovereignty, millet has emerged as a critisector pcal link between women’s labor and local food systems. In Nagaland, the North East Network is leading the revival of millet crops involving local communities, particularly women. In Odisha, a state-supported mission, the Odisha Millet Mission is creating new markets through an institutional process.

This brief addresses two dimensions of women and seed systems development ̶ what women do for seed systems development, and what seed systems interventions could do for women ̶ in the context of South Sudan. In South Sudan, women play key roles in seed systems, as custodians and managers of seeds and seed related information, but these roles are not always recognized, respected, supported and rewarded. The brief proposes a number of seed interventions to empower farmers, with special attention paid to women.

This technical report presents a comprehensive overview of the pilot initiative for site-specific and season-smart fertilizer recommendations (SSFR) implemented during the 2022/2023 wheat farming season in Ethiopia. The initiative, led by key demand partners such as Digital Green in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), utilized the advisoryintegrated with the Ethiopian Digital Agro-Climate Advisory Platform (EDACaP), targeting smallholder farmers through various dissemination channels.

A national flour blending policy is about to be implemented in Kenya. This requires maize flour (the country’s main staple) to be blended with at least 10 percent of either one or a composite of traditional crops, such as sorghum and millet.1 The blending ratio is expected to increase gradually, with the goal of ultimately reaching 30 percent. The policy envisages achieving several goals. The first is to improve the nutritional quality of maize flour: sorghum and millet (and other candidate blending crops) have micronutrient characteristics that are absent in maize.

Seasonal price variability for cereals is two to three times higher in Africa than on the international reference market. Seasonality is even more pronounced when access to appropriate storage and opportunities for price arbitrage are limited. As smallholder farmers typically sell their production after harvest, when prices are low, this leads to lower incomes as well as higher food insecurity during the lean season, when prices are high. One solution to reduce seasonal stress is the use of improved storage technologies.

Women farmers in Bangladesh face several challenges when it comes to accessing technology and information, and this limits their ability to improve their agricultural productivity and enhance their livelihoods. The gendered digital divide is a significant contributor to inequities in agriculture and has important implications for women’s empowerment. Lack of access to information affects their ability to make informed decisions, access markets, and secure their rights.

The sub-national Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan enacted Farm Services Centers Act, 2014, to establish Model Farm Services Centers (MFSCs) and Farm Services Centers as “one stop-shop” based on public-private partnership principle to strengthen extension system.

Climate information services (CIS) are critical for making important decisions in agriculture in order to assess and manage risks associated with climate change and climate variability. The partnership between RUFORUM and IRI aims to develop and increase accessibility of climate information services curricula for training in African universities as well as ensure utilization of among key stakeholders in agriculture such as extension workers and farmers. The CIS for agriculture is piloted to increase awareness and adoption of climate relevant curricula in African Universities.

KEY MESSAGES
â—¼ The integration of local traditional wisdom with academic-scientific knowledge has the potential to generate innovative and more effective solutions to challenges faced by farmers.
â—¼ Adopting co-creation concepts for developing digital innovations can be an alternative to developing digital tools that meet the needs and expectations of farmers and extension agents, hence, fostering a sense of ownership and increasing adoption.

Lao PDR is undergoing a rapid agrarian transformation, underpinned by a growing commercial production of commodity crops such as cassava by smallholder farmers. The global nature of commodity crop markets increases the exposure of potentially vulnerable smallholder farmers to global price dynamics. We apply a cross-scalar and mixed-methods approach to investigate the role of institutional structures and the global-regional-domestic context in local price formation mechanisms at the farm gate.

YouthMappers are using open geospatial tools in support of initiatives seeking to achieve SGD 2 Zero Hunger and SDG 1 No Poverty in Northern Ghana. Students and researchers designed survey questions and a field data collection workflow using simple but cost-effective technology to catalogue a database of farmers, properly demarcate farm sizes, and give farmers, in particular impoverished women, the opportunity to project farm yields and increase the efficiency of their output.