Most food in sub-Saharan Africa is produced on small farms. Using large datasets from household surveys conducted across many countries, we find that the majority of farms are less than 1 ha, much smaller than previous estimates. Farms are larger in farming systems in drier climates. Through a detailed analysis of food self-sufficiency, food and nutrition security, and income among households from divergent farming systems in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda, we reveal marked contrasts in food security and household incomes.

The formation of agricultural cooperatives has been widely promoted as an agricultural development policy initiative to help smallholder farmers cope with multiple production and marketing challenges. Using a nationally representative survey dataset of smallholder maize producers from rural Nigeria, this study assesses the impact of agricultural cooperative membership on technical efficiency (TE).

User’s preferences of cassava and cassava products along the value chain are supported by specific root quality characteristics that can be linked to root traits. Therefore, providing an evidence base of user preferred characteristics along the value chain can help in the functional choice of cassava varieties.

Digital technologies are slowly spreading in agriculture sectors globally. But their adoption is hampered by the digital divide which requires significant public investments, improved policy and incentive frameworks to be bridged. Only after that, digital transformation will take place at scale. Digital Agriculture Profile (DAP) is meant to assess the country's readiness for this digital transformation by identifying main bottlenecks, opportunities and risks for digital transformation.

The CCAFS-CIAT CSA Prioritization Framework (CSA-PF) is a participatory and multi-criteria decision-making process, co-designed as a holistic tool to support information-based CSA investments. CSA-PF has the objective to help decision-makers identify best-bet CSA investment portfolios that achieve gains in national food and nutrition security, farmers’ resilience and adaptation capacity to climate change, and, where possible, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the food system.

For rural communities in Ghana, neglected and underutilized crop species (NUS) are important for nutrition, food security and income generation. However, little is known about their diversity and potential; very little has been published about NUS in Ghana. This review summarizes the main findings of a review of recent literature.

Livestock are critical for incomes, livelihoods, nutrition and ecosystems management throughout the global South. Livestock production and the consumption of livestock-based foods such as meat, cheese, and milk is, however, under global scrutiny for its contribution to global warming, deforestation, biodiversity loss, water use, pollution, and land/soil degradation. This paper argues that, although the environmental footprint of livestock production presents a real threat to planetary sustainability, also in the global south, this is highly contextual.

The working paper reviews the evolution of the CCAFS gender and social inclusion agenda towards gender equality and empowerment in relation to climate resilient agriculture. Climate change research typically shows glaring gaps in understanding the different adaptive strategies and capacities of men and women, and the technologies, practices, and enabling environments that will empower women.

There is a wind of change blowing through the sector of international agricultural research for development (AR4D), mainly as a result of comprehensive reorganisation and transformation of one of its largest players, the CGIAR. In January 2020, Food Policy published a Special Issue providing valuable external and high-level reflections, challenges and recommendations for One CGIAR. One of the papers by Coffman et al. (2020) provided five Challenges and related Recommendations to the One CGIAR.

This factsheet answers if climate and security policies coherent and integrated. The results show that there remains a practical disconnect between climate and peace and security-related policy fields. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that the research community should put an effort in creating policy-relevant and actionable understandings of what climate security and climate-peace opportunities mean, to enable policymakers across different contexts and scales to have a common understanding.

This training guide provides users with principles, concepts and practices on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and community-based adaptation (CBA). It is composed of seven modules spread under a three-part document. This training guide was designed to enhance the capacity of users to facilitate processes leading to community-based adaptation to climate change, and to:
• Understand the principles, concepts and practices related to climate change, CSA and CBA
• Learn the application of participatory approaches and social learning processes in CBA