Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important grain legume for food and cash of the smallholder farmers worldwide. However, the total potential benefits to be derived from the common bean as a source of food and income, its complementarities with non-legume food crops, and significance to the environment are underexploited. Intensification of common bean could provide approaches that offer new techniques to better manage and monitor globally complex systems of sustainable food production.

Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) is a Non-Governmental Organization established in May 2000 by several women’s organizations in Uganda to promote and support the use of information and communication technologies as tools to share information and address issues of sustainable national development collectively. WOUGNET and the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), have collaborated over the last decade during which time they have undertaken several partnership activities.

This study aims to describe recent developments in the Southern African region by documenting a set of mega-trends defining social, economic, political and environmental conditions. It includes analysis of the recent past as well as projections of future trends. To the extent possible, the report is based on information from 2010 to the present, except in some cases where more recent information was not available.

Creation of Ethiopia’s digital agro-climate advisory platform, a collaborative partnership between government institutions and CGIAR centers, represents a breakthrough in providing climate-information and timely decision-support tools to smallholder farmers to strengthen adaptive capacity and resilience. Partnership between Ministry of Agriculture and EDACaP team with Ethiopia’s FANA Broadcasting Corporate led to dissemination of agro-climate messages to 13-15 million smallholder farmers across FANA’s 11 regional broadcasting centers in Ethiopia.

Little is known about the responses of endangered Rosewood species to drought and heat stress. These stresses are expected to increase in the Greater Mekong Subregion where the species co-occur and are endemic. Our results indicate contrasting relationships in water relations, photosynthetic pigment levels, and total soluble sugars in the two species, matching their ecological niches. The results support effective regeneration and conservation of the species in degraded habitats and in the face of climate change.

This report presents a spatial analysis conducted at global scale to identify areas of high suitability for implementing the Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI) approach. The study used multiple global spatial datasets, and the related data were arranged under three categories – water supply, water demand and water storage – to assess global UTFI suitability.

The biodiverse, predominantly crop-livestock mixed-farming in India is key to ensuring resilience to climate change and sustainability of smallholder farming agroecologies. Farmers traditionally grow diverse crops as polyculture, and agriculture is mainly organic/biodynamic with spirituality in food systems deeply ingrained.

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a staple food crop in Nigeria, but root yields hardly exceed 10 t ha−1. Intensification of small holders’ cassava production is key to improved food security and income generation. We tested, in two demonstration trials and 20 on‐farm trials, different intensification options: cassava growth type (erect and branching), fertilizer application (with and without), and cassava − legume arrangement (0.5 by 2 m/1 by 1 m spacing of cassava) in demonstration trials. In on‐farm trials, farmers tested a subset of these treatments.

The Scaling Community Seed Banks and Farmer Seed Enterprises in East and Southern Africa workshop was held in Entebbe, Uganda on 2-4 October 2019, to share experiences about community seed bank management and to develop national pilot scaling proposals. The workshop was organized under the umbrella of the Resilient Seed Systems for Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Livelihoods in East Africa project.