Introduction: Sheath blight (SB) is the most damaging fungal disease in rice caused by a soil-borne pathogenic fungus, Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn (R. solani). The disease resistance in rice is a complex quantitative trait controlled by a few major genes. UKMRC2 is a newly developed elite rice variety that possesses high yield potential but is susceptible to sheath blight disease indicating a huge risk of varietal promotion, mass cultivation, and large-scale adoption. The aim of our present study was the development of varietal resistance against R.

This chapter assesses ACM’s potential as a pathway to address the flooding problem of Greater Jakarta, significantly exacerbated by land subsidence and climate change. It is based on a thought experiment by the authors to envision application of this approach to the problem and is not the result of empirical work. A background of Jakarta’s flooding is first provided and subsequently its framing as a ‘wicked problem’. Results of the thought experiment are then discussed, focusing on three questions: (i) Can ACM be applied, given Jakarta’s flooding governance structure?

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.

This chapter begins by reiterating the calls by the Glassgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use and others for more effective attention to climate change. To respond to these calls, we argue that globally we will need to change ‘the game’ from one based on commodification to one that recognizes the systemic nature of human and natural life and builds a caring economy of stewardship.

During the last decade, post-harvest losses (PHL) reduction has been topping the agenda of governments as a pathway for addressing food security, poverty, and nutrition challenges in Africa. Using survey data from 579 households, we investigated the factors that affect farmers’ decisions to adopt post-harvest technologies: mechanized shelling, drying tarpaulins, and airtight storage validated for reducing PHL in Tanzania’s maize-based systems, and the impacts on households’ food security and welfare.

Maize (Zea mays) stover produced in the drier lowland areas on the volcanic foot slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro serves as an important additional fodder for smallholder zero-grazed dairy cattle farming in the humid highland areas of the region. The obtained cattle manure is used to replenish nutrients and manage soil fertility in banana-based agroforestry homegardens of the highlands, which contributes significantly to sustaining crop production, thus food security and the livelihoods of the community.

The biomedical domain has shown that in silico analyses over vast data pools enhances the speed and scale of scientific innovation. This can hold true in agricultural research and guide similar multi-stakeholder action in service of global food security as well (Streich et al. Curr Opin Biotechnol 61:217–225. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2020.01.010, 2020).

Developing optimal strategies for nutrient management of soils and crops at a larger scale requires an understanding of nutrient limitations and imbalances. The availability of extensive data (n = 1,781) from 2-yr nutrient omission trials in the most suitable agroecological zone for maize (Zea mays L.) in Nigeria (i.e., the northern Guinea savanna) provides an opportunity to assess nutrient limitations and imbalances using the concept of multi-ratio compositional nutrient diagnosis (CND).

The Amazon Basin features a vast network of healthy, free-flowing rivers, which provides habitat for the most biodiverse freshwater fauna of any basin globally. However, existing and future infrastructure developments, including dams, threaten its integrity by diminishing river connectivity, altering flows, or changing sediment regimes, which can impact freshwater species.

In southern Africa, conservation agriculture (CA) has been promoted to address low agricultural productivity, food insecurity, and land degradation. However, despite significant experimental evidence on the agronomic and economic benefits of CA and large scale investments by the donor community and national governments, adoption rates among smallholders remain below expectation. The main objective of this research project was thus to investigate why previous efforts and investments to scale CA technologies and practices in southern Africa have not led to widespread adoption.

This report presents the consolidated outputs of the CGIAR researchers involved in the first cohort of the CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator. The Food Systems Accelerator was established to bolster Ukama Ustawi, a CGIAR initiative focused on transforming agri-food systems in East and Southern Africa (ESA). This program, spanning from 2022 to 2024, aligned scientists with agribusinesses to bring CGIAR innovations to scale in ESA.