Effective scaling up is a key measure of success for these innovations. Too often, however, the decision to scale up is made with incomplete information. Given the high costs involved, decision-makers (governments, development partners, NGOs, and the private sector) must carefully decide which innovations are ready for investment. A good understanding of the scaling-up process and a conceptual framework that informs the scaling vision, analysis of the scaling readiness of innovations, and impact pathways to achieve that vision are critical for informed decision-making.

Climate change is causing serious challenges for smallholder farm households, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The overarching objectives of this study are as follows: (i) to estimate household resilience and vulnerability indices, (ii) identify factors that explain these indices and (iii) to examine the impact of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) on households’ resilience and vulnerability, and (iv) to identify which CSA package performs better in enhancing resilience and reducing vulnerability.

Irrigation is an important mechanism to mitigate risks associated with the variability in rainfall for the smallholder subsistence farming system. This study analyzed how practicing small-scale irrigation (SSI) impacts the key livelihood assets on farm households’ human, physical, natural, financial, and social capitals in Ethiopia’s upper Awash sub-basin. The household-level survey data, collected from the 396 sample households, was used to carry out the current study. A Propensity Score Matching (PSM) analytical model was applied to match the SSI user and nonuser groups.

Background
Digital technologies are promoted as transformational for smallholders in Africa through the potential to enhance access to knowledge, increase productivity and food security. Despite the anticipations for agricultural digitalization in Africa, smallholders' engagement with digitalization is empirically underexplored. Hence, we surveyed 1565 rural farmers in Northern Ghana to explore how farmers interact with digital tools and services, and the variations in their engagements.
Results

In this brief, we present AICCRA Zambia's scaling vision. Our scaling strategy employs a number of interconnected and mutually reinforcing channels. These include public and private sector scaling partnerships, individual and collective investments, financing mechanism for SMEs, institutional capacity building and multistakeholder dialogues (Figure 2). AICCRA works with Zambian partners to scale actionable climate smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information services (CIS) innovation bundles that contribute to smallholder farmers’ water and food security and build resilience.

Climate variability and extreme weather events such as floods and droughts continue to increase due to climate change. These changes will have significant impacts on low- and middle-income countries. Without transformative climate adaptation solutions, millions of smallholder farmers will face severe losses because of increased climate variability.

In multifunctional landscapes, expanding economic activities jeopardise the integrity of biodiverse ecosystems, generating conservation-development trade-offs that require multi-stakeholder dialogue and tools to negotiate conflicting objectives. Despite the rich literature on participatory mapping and other tools to reveal different stakeholder perspectives, there is limited evidence on the application of such tools in landscape-scale negotiations.

Purpose: This study examines the adoption drivers of scale-appropriate mechanization in Nepal's maize-based farming systems. The authors also assess the contribution of scale-appropriate mechanization to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of zero hunger (SDG2) and no poverty (SDG1). Design/methodology/approach: Propensity score matching (PSM) and doubly robust inverse probability-weighted regression adjusted (IPWRA) methods were applied to estimate the effects of mini-tiller adoption.

Application of biocontrol products containing atoxigenic isolates of Aspergillus flavus to reduce aflatoxin content in crops is an effective strategy for managing aflatoxin in several regions throughout the world. We report the development and validation of two aflatoxin biocontrol products, Aflasafe TZ01 and Aflasafe TZ02, for use in maize and groundnut in Tanzania, a country frequently affected by aflatoxin contamination. Each product contains four atoxigenic A. flavus genotypes native and widely distributed in Tanzania.

This paper explains the need for digital tools and how they enable commercialization and scale, the impact on users, and the risks and benefits with examples of projects and partners along the value chain. This approach is being applied across all HarvestPlus activities and digital projects are researched and reported as part of the CGIAR Digital Innovation Initiative.

Governments in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are keen to expand irrigation to improve food security and are placing particular emphasis on adoption and use of smallholder private groundwater irrigation. Yet private irrigation is a multi-stage technology, the adoption of which is affected by fiscal support and extension services offered on different investment stages but also by uncertainties around actions that need to be undertaken in these stages.

Colfer and Prabhu build on concerns highlighted in the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use, recognizing the ‘wickedness’ of climate change and other problems bedeviling the Earth and its peoples. This chapter, in response, argues for the use of collaborative, bottom-up approaches where learning and adaptation are central features. These authors build on the longitudinal experience – some of two decades or more – of multiple teams of researchers who have worked at the community level using the ACM approach and highlighting their many enduring accomplishments.