Women’s and men’s opportunities are influenced by gender norms which shape their respective behaviours, roles and decision-making power. Gender norms thus influence farming outcomes and the ability of women and men to secure their livelihood objectives. We study gender norms and normative change in a smallholder farming community in Uganda. We argue that gender norms operate in sets and that multiple sets of gender norms may co-exist in the same location.

Cassava breeding faces obstacles due to late flowering and poor flower and seed set. The acceleration of breeding processes and the reduction in each cycle’s duration hinge upon efficiently conducting crosses to yield ample progeny for subsequent cycles. Our primary objective was to identify methods that provide tools for cassava breeding programs, enabling them to consistently and rapidly generate offspring from a wide array of genotypes. In greenhouse trials, we examined the effects of the anti-ethylene silver thiosulfate (STS) and the cytokinin benzyladenine (BA).

Participatory approaches for crop variety testing can help breeding teams to incorporate traditional knowledge and consider site-specific sociocultural complexities. However, traditional participatory approaches have drawbacks and are seldom streamlined or scaled. Decentralized on-farm testing supported by citizen science addresses some of these challenges.

In the context of climate change, high temperature is one of the main abiotic stresses hampering durum wheat production. Through the characterization of an international panel of 271 genotypes, this study investigates the effects of heat stress on quality traits and identifies which glutenins (Glu-1, Glu-2 and Glu-3 loci) alleles are the most important to obtain high gluten strength under optimal and high temperature conditions.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, countries with a greater percentage of overlapping days in their school and farming calendars also have lower primary school survival rates. In theory, greater overlap between the school and farming calendars should indeed reduce schooling investments, and farm-based child labor too, as it constrains the time allocation opportunity set for both productive activities.

Durum wheat is a staple food of the Mediterranean Basin, mostly cultivated under rainfed conditions. As such, the crop is often exposed to moisture stress. Therefore, the identification of genetic factors controlling the capacity of genotypes to convert moisture into grain yield (i.e., water productivity) is quintessential to stabilize production despite climatic variations. A global panel of 384 accessions was tested across eighteen Mediterranean environments (Morocco, Lebanon, and Jordan) representing a vast range of moisture levels.

This report is generated as part of a scoping study to identify possible areas that should be prioritized for intervention to improve performance and sustainability of the dairy industry in Uganda. The evaluation relies on primary and secondary data collected by IFPRI and DDA in 2021. Ten primary datasets are used for the results informing the several interventions and secondary data relies on literature review and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) dataset. The results underline five issues namely low productivity, low milk quality, and constrained markets.

Climate change is resulting in increased frequency of extreme weather events, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) already characterized by highly vulnerable malnourished populations. Unsurprisingly, there are many empirical studies of the linkages between extreme weather events and undernutrition, especially stunting and wasting in early childhood, and several existing reviews of this literature.

Matching crop varieties to their target use context and user preferences is a challenge faced by many plant breeding programs serving smallholder agriculture. Numerous participatory approaches proposed by CGIAR and other research teams over the last four decades have attempted to capture farmers’ priorities/preferences and crop variety field performance in representative growing environments through experimental trials with higher external validity.

Armed conflicts are among the major disruptions affecting local food systems in low- and middle-income countries, having devastating effects on populations’ food security. The understanding of the mechanisms linking conflicts to food insecurity is limited, however, by a lack of data on how these conflicts affect the different actors of local food systems. In this study, we aim to address this gap, using empirical data from the northeast region of Burkina Faso where an active conflict is occurring.

Southern Malawi has historically been less food secure than the rest of the country, and the current lean season will be no different. The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee expects 2,460,000 people in the Southern Region (29% of its population) to require humanitarian assistance at the peak of the lean season in February and March 2024, compared to 1,560,000 people in the Central Region (18% of its population) and 388,000 people in the Northern Region (15% of its population) (MVAC 2023).