Economic crises take different forms and occur for various reasons, such as political conflicts and pandemics. What all these crises have in common is that they cause disruption to rural-urban food supply chains, resulting in food shortages for the urban poor, with the most direct impact being an increase in food prices. It is within this challenging context that we present empirical examples of the role of urban agriculture.

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.

Zambia has historically qualified as a regional model of stability and peace. However, this status is being undermined by several socio-political factors, including deeply entrenched patterns of social inequality and gender discrimination, high levels of poverty and youth unemployment, as well as recurring episodes of electoral violence. Climate and extreme weather events compound most of these vulnerabilities and even create new ones, generating societal dynamics that will likely increase social tensions with greater risk of insecurity.

This Study forms part of the research under Work Package #4 (WP4) of CGIAR Research Program: Building Systemic Resilience against Climate Variability and Extremes (ClimBeR), which has the overarching goal of “setting up a bottom-up polycentric governance framework for promoting multiscale transformative adaptation options and targeted climate investments”.

Shifting and intensifying migration flows are causing profound changes in household structures, livelihood portfolios, and rural landscapes worldwide. Yet, migration trends, including who migrates within the household, whether migration is permanent or temporary, and the relationship the migrant maintains (or not) with the household, have strong geographic particularities.

This paper examines the gendered trait preferences for rice and their role in the adoption of improved rice varieties among men and women rice farmers in Ghana. Four hundred rice farm households and 261 consumers were surveyed across 20 communities using a simple random sampling technique. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, Tobit, and the multivariate probit regressions were used in the analyses. The results show differences in preferences for cooking quality traits and postharvest traits among men and women farmers.

This study focuses on the valuation of ecosystem services in Kenya and Vietnam, two countries that have received much attention from the international development community for their biodiversity significance, opportunities for scaling, climate and poverty challenges, and political will. Using The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) framework and the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), this study estimates per hectare values of ecosystem services in Kenya and Vietnam based on a systematic literature review of studies on the values of ecosystem services in both countries.

Conservation agriculture (CONS A) is a sustainable agriculture system based on crop rotation with no tillage. It has various environmental advantages compared to conventional agriculture (CONV A): decreased water evaporation, erosion, and CO2 emissions. In this first study of its kind, we aim to evaluate the impact of this type of agriculture on sheep gastrointestinal parasites. Two lamb groups aged between 5 and 10 months were randomly included to graze separately on CONS A and CONV A pastures.

This guide explains the integration between fish culture and conventional crop agriculture and discusses
how farmers can maximize benefits from using these resources. The main concept for any system of
integration is that the outputs of one organism or system function as a source of inputs for another
organism or system. For fish farmers, this concept applies to the relationship between fish and crops, as theoutputs of the fish can be a rich source of nutrients for crops.