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.

A 3-year field experiment was setup to address the threat of underground water depletion and sustainability of agrifood systems. Subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) system combined with nitrogen management under conservation agriculture-based (CA) maize-wheat system (MWS) effects on crop yields, irrigation water productivity (WPi), nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and profitability. Grain yields of maize, wheat, and MWS in the SDI with 100% recommended N were significantly higher by 15.8%, 5.2% and 11.2%, respectively, than conventional furrow/flood irrigation (CT-FI) system.

Humanity is challenged with making progress toward global biodiversity, freshwater, and climate goals, while providing food and nutritional security for everyone. Our current food and land-use systems are incompatible with this ambition making them unsustainable. Papers in this special feature introduce a participatory, integrated modeling approach applied to provide insights on how to transform food and land-use systems to sustainable trajectories in 12 countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Finland, India, Mexico, Rwanda, Sweden, the UK, and USA.

The uptake of conservation agriculture and farm mechanization in Southern Africa has been slow and low. As a result, most smallholder farmers continue to grow crops under degraded soils using conventional tools and human powered farm operations. This leads to low productivity. Therefore, spatially visualizing areas where conservation agriculture and farm mechanization can be targeted can be crucial to guide targeting and scaling.

Se examina el context de la ganadería en una parte del complejo de paramo Chiles- Cumbal,Nariño, Colombia, su impacto asociado a la erosión del suelo, la pérdida de biodiversidad y las consecuencias para la seguridad alimentaria. Se identificaron varios factores clave, como la deficiente capacitación técnica de los productores en temas técnicos y ambientales, conflicto en el uso del suelo debido a diferencias sociales, y presencia de grupos al margen de la ley.

The CWANA (Central and West Asia and North Africa) region was once considered the birthplace of civilizations and played a significant role in sustaining ancient empires like the Romans through its agricultural productivity. The area is characterized by diverse agroclimatic conditions, which vary across the countries in this extensive region in terms of climate, soil, and topography. Agriculture continues to make a significant contribution to the GDP of many CWANA countries, creating job opportunities and ensuring food security.

Evidence suggests that intensive tillage, crop residue removal/burning, and frequent soil wetting-drying cycles in rice-wheat rotations have led to declining soil organic matter and increased greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and a consequent deterioration of soil quality (Jat et al., 2023).

In Nigeria, rice remains a major staple food source for the rapidly growing population of an estimated 210 million people. However, traditional rice production carried out in flooded soil is associated with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mainly anthropogenic methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) in Nigeria. Both CH4 and N2O are harmful GHGs that raise the temperature of the planet by retaining heat in the atmosphere.

Gendered inequities in access to and use of energy sources and technologies affect all five impact areas that CGIAR is contributing to: poverty alleviation, food security and nutrition, climate action, environmental health, and inclusion. This policy note identifies indicators that reflect women’s and men’s agency in the context of energy use and develops a first version of the Women’s Empowerment in Energy Index (WEEI) to measure changes in women’s agency over time.