The challenges identified in the proposal of the CGIAR Research Program (CRP) on Livestock, for enhancing livestock production and productivity, have been the shortage of quality feeds, inefficient utilization of feed resources, degradation of rangelands, and lack of knowledge and skills of stakeholders in the feed production and utilization value chains. To address these challenges, the research and development work, innovations developed and tested, results-dissemination and concerted efforts towards capacity building have been presented in the following three main sections.

Forest degradation causes carbon loss and indirectly contributes to climate change. Thus, the objective of this study is to assess the contribution of land use systems in the commune of Coumbacara to climate change mitigation through an estimate of woody diversity and their carbon stock. Thus, an inventory of woody vegetation was carried out on 72 plots of 30 m x 30 m in the forests adjacent to the fields and 50 m x 50 m in the hut and bush fields.

Banana (and plantain, Musa spp.), in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), is predominantly grown as a mixed crop by smallholder farmers in backyards and small farmlands, typically ranging from 0.2 ha to 3 ha. The crop is affected by several pests and diseases, including the invasive banana bunchy top virus (BBTV, genus Babuvirus), which is emerging as a major threat to banana production in SSA. The BBTV outbreak in West Africa was first recorded in the Benin Republic in 2010 and has spread to the adjoining territories of Nigeria and Togo.

Within the “Transdisciplinary co-creation of innovations in Agroecological Living Landscape-ALL” Work Package (WP) of the Transformational Agroecology Across Food, Land and Water Systems Initiative (AE-I) , it is proposed to use/apply participatory methods to build collectively a vision of the desired agroecological pathways in each ALL. This activity aims at developing the most suitable agroecological transition pathways in each ALL identified and agreed upon among actors.

The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa project (AICCRA) working through CCAFS, intends to make CGIAR-led cutting-edge science practices/technologies/tools available throughout Africa; especially in Sub-regions extremely vulnerable to climate change. The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a network of 150 universities in 38 countries spanning the whole African continent is a partner in the AICCRA project.

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is cultivated in many villages of DR Congo as a means to sustain food security and alleviate poverty. However, the extent of the existing diversity has not been studied in details thus, considered as an orphan. A survey covering 540 farmers in 54 villages was conducted in six major yam growing territories covering three provinces in DR Congo to investigate the diversity, management and utilization of yam landraces using pre-elaborate questionnaires. Subject to synonymy, a total of 67 landraces from five different species were recorded.

Seasonal forecasts coupled with crop models can potentially enhance decision-making in smallholder farming in Africa. The study sought to inform future research through identifying and critiquing crop and climate models, and techniques for integrating seasonal forecast information and crop models. Peer-reviewed articles related to crop modelling and seasonal forecasting were sourced from Google Scholar, Web of Science, AGRIS, and JSTOR. Nineteen articles were selected from a search outcome of 530.

Understanding the information about the organizations that provide the data helps to identify the problems and challenges that arise in the generation and distribution of data in those organizations and help them to better solve and make them more efficient. The impotent issue identified through this survey is the low trend in the use of satellite-based data in information generation. Therefore, to avoid this, and strengthening the geospatial literacy, it is important to develop training programs on the use of Earth observation data.

A paradigm shift is required in policies to make food systems sustainable. The climate foresight workshop highlights the critical role of collaborations between farmers and corporate, governmental, and entities involved in extension and training services as well as research and development. The workshop demonstrates that stakeholders (Fig. 2) at different dimensions of the climate service value chain and across different industries may collaborate to achieve shared, synergistic aims