While many have extolled the potential impacts of digital advisory services for smallholder agriculture, the evidence for sustained uptake of such tools remains limited. This paper utilizes a survey of tool developers and researchers, as well as a systematic meta-analysis of prior studies, to assess the extent and challenges of scaling decision support tools for site-specific soil nutrient management (SSNM-DST) across smallholder farming systems, where “scaling” is defined as a significant increase in tool usage beyond pilot levels.

Supporting women’s groups and their collective action is considered as one of the key ways to increase their climate resilience. Women’s groups are a means to reach women with capacity building activities, and also serve as a platform where they exercise collective and individual agency to take adaptive decisions. Strengthening the capacity of women’s groups on climate information services (CIS) and climate smart agriculture (CSA) innovations is a key pillar for gender-responsive climate smart agriculture intervention.

The project intervention communities of The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) in Ghana are vulnerable to climate variability and change, which continues to pose a threat to food crop production. Increasing the resilience of the communities includes building their capacity on climate smart agriculture practices (CSA), climate information services (CIS) and One-health (OH) innovations. A Training of Trainers workshop was organized and Thirty-six Master trainers (mainly extension officers) received training on CSA, CIS, and OH innovations.

Using radio for extension service has the potential to reach many rural women with the needed climate information services (CIS) and climate smart agriculture (CSA) innovations. However, radio extension is not necessarily gender neutral. In this Info Note we present insights from designing and implementing a gender-smart radio extensions programme in Ghana.

The approach was used to disseminate site-specific climate-information services, agro advisories, and climate-smart agriculture technologies for AICCRA Ghana Cluster priority value chains

Oral presentation on Agroforestry Practices for Sustainable Intensification, Food Security, and Climate Adaptation in Dry Areas: Challenges, Applications, and Examples – delivered on August 28th. This communication occurred during the 6th General Assembly of the IOFS in Tunis, Tunisia, as part of the Regional Conference on Resilient Agriculture in IOFS Member States, focusing on Climate Adaptation and Food Security (28 August 2023 / 04-12-13 September 2023).

"Shamba Shape Up" is a popular television show in East Africa that focuses on agricultural education and improvement. The show features a team of experts who visit different farms, providing practical demonstrations and advice to farmers on various aspects of agriculture, such as livestock rearing, crop cultivation, farm management techniques, and sustainable practices. It aims to educate and empower farmers with valuable information and skills to enhance productivity, increase yields, and improve their livelihoods.

Climate change can manifest in various ways, including altered precipitation patterns, increased temperatures, and more frequent extreme weather events. These factors can adversely affect crop yields, jeopardizing food security and the livelihoods of the majority of the population dependent on agriculture. Agriculture in Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) is a major contributor to the national economy and is estimated to contribute about 17% of SADC’s gross domestic product (GDP). Smallholder farmers in Southern Africa contribute up to 90% of food production.

The inventory of CSA approaches, practices, and technologies was compiled as an output of the CSA Writeshop that CCARDESA convened in October 2022 under the auspices of the AICCRA and GCCA+ projects with the primary objective of developing the CSA Handbook as well as a training manual for use in SADC region. The CSA Handbook has provided an elaboration of best-bet CSA options that have been categorized along the three pillars of CSA: increased productivity, adaptation, and mitigation.

The concept of regenerative agriculture has rapidly gained momentum among agri-food companies, governments, NGO’s and farmers. Although there is no widely accepted definition, different interpretations of this concept emphasize the importance of restoring and enhancing soil to generate multiple benefits for society and for farmers. The premise is that regenerative agriculture, by strengthening soil health and associated ecosystem services, helps to make agroecosystems more productive and resilient, while improving farmers’ livelihoods.

This report presents results from a survey conducted to understand the extent to which HEIs in Zambia have integrated CSA-CIS in the curricula and identify the needs & possible approaches for integrating the CSA and CIS in the HEI programmes. Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change.