We conducted a preliminary value chain actors mapping for major crops grown and livestock kept by smallholder farmers in Mbire and Murehwa districts of Zimbabwe. Accordingly, in this report we mapped value chain actors for 11 crops and livestock commodities: namely, sorghum, cotton, sesame, maize, groundnut, sweet-potato, vegetables (tomato and onion), cattle, goats, poultry, and honey/beekeeping. Except sesame from Mbire, most of the crop and livestock commodities are channeled to the main markets in Harare and Marondera for Murehwa.

Digitalization of agriculture (DA) has emerged as a powerful rural transformative force. However, the dynamics of how digitalization is changing smallholder farming practices at the heart of rural life remain underexplored. Here, we employ a mixed-method approach (1565 survey respondents, 16 focus group discussions, and 22 interviews) to examine farmers' experiences with digital agriculture services in Northern Ghana through a social practice theory (SPT) lens.

Current food systems fail to address the triple burden of malnutrition — undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overnutrition (Popkin, 2019; Béné, 2019; Fanzo, 2020). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that approximately 462 million people worldwide are underweight, while 1.9 billion adults (39%) are overweight or obese. In 2020, globally, 149 million children under the age of five were stunted, 45 million were wasted, and 38.9 million were overweight or obese (FAO, 2021).

The detrimental impact of hydro-meteorological risks on agriculture frequently leads to food insecurity, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Hence, the agriculture communities require climate-informed decision support tools that guide adaptation measures against climate change in the agriculture sector. The climate-informed crop capability prediction tool is one of these tools to benefit user community in making tactical and strategic decisions on inputs needed for agriculture and food security sectors as early as the crop-growing season.

CGIAR submitted this report in response to an open request from the Plant Treaty Secretary, for submissions regarding, a) contracting parties’ and stakeholders’ capacity building needs for accessing and using digital sequence information (DSI)/genomic sequence data (GSD) and b) ‘technical assistance’ and ‘actions taken’ by stakeholders (including CGIAR) ‘to reduce the existing gap on capacity regarding DSI/GSD’.

Background: Maize agricultural policy in Mexico has focused on a monofunctional vision of maize as a basic
commercial product, through a bimodal vision of production systems (commercial and subsistence). However, the
evidence suggests that the challenge of thinking about the multifunctionality of this crop must be faced due to the
complexity of its relationship within different strata of society, to more adequately reflect the diversity of systems
based on maize, as well as their flexibility to respond to new challenges and opportunities, and to have better

Analysis of hydro-climatological time series and spatiotemporal dynamics of meteorological variables has become critical in the context of climate change, especially in Southern African countries where rain-fed agriculture is predominant. In this work, we compared modern unsupervised time series and segmentation approaches and commonly used time series models to analyse rainfall regime changes in the coastal, sub-humid and semi-arid regions of Southern Africa.

This study assessed mineral fertilisation impact on tuber yield and food quality in yam genotypes—Dioscorea alata and Dioscorea rotundata. Four genotypes, each from D. alata and D. rotundata, were used in field experiments conducted in Ibadan, Nigeria, during the 2017 and 2018 cropping seasons. Experiments were conducted under low soil NPK fertility conditions with and without Fertiliser treatments. Plots subjected to fertiliser treatment received recommended NPK rate for the area.

Agriculture is a significant and primary sector of the Indian economy and is crucial for ensuring the food, nutrition, and livelihood security of about 80% of the population. Even though India has achieved ‘selfsufficiency’ in food grains production through Green Revolution, it faces challenges like loss of soil fertility, waterlogging, ground, and surface water pollution, intensified pests and diseases, increased farm input prices, and regional disparity (Cummings, 2019).

We study the impact of one-season transfers framed for agricultural investment combined with agricultural support services on decision making among smallholder households in Senegal and Malawi using data from randomized control trials. In Senegal, we find evidence that the program increased the decision power of male household heads at the expense of other males in the household after two years. We cannot disentangle the impacts of the farm planning program and the lump sum transfer that comprised that program.

There is growing evidence on the impacts of site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) from Asia. The evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where SSNM developments are more recent and where conditions concerning soil fertility and fertilizer use differ importantly from those in Asia, is extremely scarce. We evaluate a SSNM advisory tool that allows extension agents to generate fertilizer recommendations tailored to the specific situation of an individual farmer’s field, using a three-year randomized controlled trial with 792 smallholder farmers in the maize belt of northern Nigeria.

Under the CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS), International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Council for Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) jointly organized a National Stakeholder Workshop on “Policy Coherence for Food, Land, and Water” in India on 16th June 2023 at India Habitat Center in New Delhi.