The Support to Responsible Agricultural Investments (S2RAI) Project promotes internationally recognized principles and guidelines to ensure food and land tenure security for communities in the context of large-scale commercial land investment as well as strengthen the institutional frameworks and coordination structures at federal and regional levels in relations to responsible agricultural investment in Ethiopia.

The Support to Responsible Agricultural Investments (S2RAI) Project promotes internationally recognized principles and guidelines to ensure food and land tenure security for communities in the context of large-scale commercial land investment as well as strengthen the institutional frameworks and coordination structures at federal and regional levels in relations to responsible agricultural investment in Ethiopia.

A new report by Small Foundation and Palladium looks at the viability of geomapping as a tool to close the smallholder farmers’ financing gap and improve their livelihoods.

Aiming to evaluate the status of key agroecological and digital ecosystem aspects, this report presents a study on major livestock practices, the use of digital tools, and the flow of information that have been carried out among actors working in the region of Novo Repartimento, Anapú and Pacajá (Para-Brazil), whereby ATDT project plans to implement its year 2 activities (2023) in partnership with Solidaridad.

Peru is promoting the adoption of agroforestry systems with the aim to halt the deforestation of tropical forests caused by smallholder farmers. However, deficient soil conservation practices and nutrient management are common among the targeted smallholders, hampering the success of this strategy. In this study, we explore the potential of valorizing municipal biowaste as compost to be used as soil amendment in coffee agroforestry systems and in silvopastoral systems. The analysis was concentrated in four Peruvian regions and the most populous city in each of them.

KEY MESSAGES
◼ Socially inclusive digital tools are necessary to support diverse smallholder farmers’ access to digital services such as technical advice and access to markets. Improving smallholders’ access to digital resources and providing tool functions and features that enhance social inclusion are both necessary.
◼ Tool features that enable two-way communication, multiple channels of communication, co-creation of practices, and farmers’ demonstration plots support more inclusive technical advisory services.

Enhancing farmers' access to improved seeds is essential to increase productivity and ensure food security in the Global South. However, for many socially marginalized groups, seed access is constrained by the weak institutions governing the input supply chains and the dissemination of information.

Climate change and the consequent increase in the incidence of drought and flood will remain a major threat to smallholders. Hence, it is crucial to adopt an appropriate adaptation strategy to overcome this threat and increase farmers’ income. Because seed is a primary input, the adoption of stress-tolerant rice varieties is a potential mitigation strategy to combat climate risks.

Mobile phone apps can be a cost-effective way to provide decision support to farmers, and they can support the collection of agricultural data. The digitisation of agricultural systems, and the efforts to close the digital divide and to include smallholders, make data ownership and privacy issues more relevant than ever before.

Intercropping is a common practice among smallholder farmers cultivating common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) and maize (Zea mays L.). It affects agronomic performance, dry matter partition- ing, and grain yield. Simultaneous intercropping of common bean with maize can influence growth, development, and dry matter partitioning of grain of common bean.

Despite decades of investment in agricultural extension, technology adoption among farmers and agricultural productivity growth in Sub-Saharan Africa remain slow. Among other shortcomings, extension systems often make recommendations that do not account for price risk or spatial heterogeneity in farmers' growing conditions. However, little is known about the effectiveness of extension approaches for nutrient management that consider these issues.

This paper examines the newly established mineral markets in Tanzania. These markets aim to ensure tax revenue collection and enhance the transparency of mineral trade within the artisanal and small-scale mining sector. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Geita Region, we show that the enhanced transparency facilitated by these new markets has benefitted artisanal and small-scale gold miners. However, the living conditions of the miners and opportunities for profit have not changed significantly and the miners do not expect that a more transparent value chain will improve their lives.