Nature-positive solutions (NPS) seek to address the negative effects of climate change, restore biodiversity, and sustainably manage land and water resources through strategies implemented at farm and community levels, drawing on both traditional and scientific knowledge, while ensuring that agriculture stays within planetary boundaries. Given gender differences in livelihood roles, control over resources, and influence over livelihood decisions, men and women have different needs from and preferences for nature-positive solutions.

Scientists have declared that the earth is now “well outside the safe operating space for humanity” as a result of our destruction of the natural world. A recent report was the first to assess all nine planetary boundaries and found that six have been transgressed.

Seeds of cereals (wheat, barley) and legumes (faba bean, lentil, chickpea, grasspea) are important exchange materials for farming, crop production, and research at national, regional, and international levels, but with the exchanges comes the danger of introducing new pests (fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes, and insects). ICARDA’s Germplasm Health Unit (GHU) is responsible for the monitoring, clearance, and documentation of safe germplasm movement at the Center.

Enset is a staple crop of the southern Ethiopian highlands. Small-holder farmers cultivate enset as part of mixed subsistence farming systems, in which enset provides substantial food security services. While its cultivation is unique to this region, enset production systems take on many forms, varying with environmental and agronomic conditions, crop diversity and (co-)staples produced, the importance of enset for the household, and socio-economic and cultural differences.