Plenary presentation on “Fail to Scale: The persistent Problem of Technology Transfer and Possible Solutions Based on Key Agroecological Principles” – delivered on October 11th. This communication occurred during the 20th International Scientific Day of INRGREF in Tunis, Tunisia “Sustainable Ecosystem Management for Agroecological Transition and Food Security” (10-11 October 2023).

East and Southern Africa is a climate hotspot, with more than US$45 billion in agricultural production at risk from higher temperatures, shorter growing seasons, and more extreme droughts and floods. Women play a strategic role in agricultural development and food security, often in labor-intensive activities. Efforts to quickly address the current water and climate challenges through innovative ways have been underscored. One of such innovations emphasized has been production technologies, recognized as potentially effective in improving agricultural incomes for farmers.

VALUE4HER is a continental initiative of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) aimed at strengthening women’s agribusiness enterprises and enhancing voice and advocacy across Africa. The initiative aims to increase the performance of women entrepreneurs through access to markets and trade, access to finance and investments, learning, networking, and global advocacy aimed at addressing some of the key barriers to women’s business growth and market participation in agriculture.

Sustainable mechanization can help reduce women smallholder farmers’ time and labor burden while increasing farm productivity and building resilience. However, the reality is that most agricultural innovations and technologies do not cater to women’s needs or preferences and are primarily designed for middle-income male farmers. While the adoption of mechanization in Bangladesh is rapidly increasing, women smallholder farmers face sociocultural constraints that can make operating machines difficult.

Ecological intensification has been embraced with great interest by the academic sector but is still rarely taken up by farmers because monitoring the state of different ecological functions is not straightforward. Modelling tools can represent a more accessible alternative of measuring ecological functions, which could help promote their use amongst farmers and other decision-makers. In the case of crop pollination, modelling has traditionally followed either a mechanistic or a data-driven approach.

Peatlands cover only 3–4% of the Earth’s surface, but they store nearly 30% of global soil carbon stock. This significant carbon store is under threat as peatlands continue to be degraded at alarming rates around the world. It has prompted countries worldwide to establish regulations to conserve and reduce emissions from this carbon rich ecosystem. For example, the EU has implemented new rules that mandate sustainable management of peatlands, critical to reaching the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

The expansion of agroforestry could provide substantial climate change mitigation (up to 0.31 Pg C yr−1), comparable to other prominent natural climate solutions such as reforestation. Yet, climate-focused agroforestry efforts grapple with ambiguity about which agroforestry actions provide mitigation, uncertainty about the magnitude of that mitigation and inability to reliably track progress.

There is a scarcity of published literature about farmers’ level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding improved forage varieties in East Africa, particularly among the populations where development projects have been and continue to be implemented. This study was carried out to address this knowledge gap and strengthen future scaling activities. We rely on cross-sectional data with a sample of 353 respondents equally drawn from treatment and control areas across 3 districts in Kenya and Uganda respectively.

The mobile seed cleaning machine improves the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Tunisia by significantly enhancing seed quality, increasing crop production, reducing workload and costs, and promoting local value chains and social cohesion.

Soil erosion and land degradation are critical challenges in Northern and Central West Tunisia. This report assesses the profitability of different forage mixtures used as a key rotation practice to mitigate these challenges. Various soil and water conservation (SWC) practices were put in place using a sample of 33 small farmers in the framework of the SWC@Scale-ProSol project. Cost-benefit and a partial budget analysis were conducted to assess the profitability of the implemented agricultural practices on the selected demonstration plots.

Water scarcity is already set to be one of the main issues of the 21st century, because of competing needs between civil, industrial, and agricultural use. Agriculture is currently the largest user of water, but its share is bound to decrease as societies develop and clearly it needs to become more water efficient. Improving water use efficiency (WUE) at the plant level is important but translating this at the farm/landscape level presents considerable challenges.

The importance of land restoration has garnered increasing attention on the global stage through large-scale initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge. However, policies and strategies are often gender-blind and designed in compliance with entrenched
social hierarchies, exacerbating pre-existing social inequalities that affect restoration initiatives. The challenge of developing gender-responsive policies and initiatives is accentuated by a persistent lack of sex-disaggregated data concerning men's and