Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp) is a vital legume crop for Zambia’s urban and rural households. The crop is an important legume used as human and animal food and as a component of the agricultural production system, which improves the fertility of many depleted soils because of its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. Government through the ministries of health and agriculture recommend its’ use. Despite the importance of cowpea in the nation, there is limited information on the crop along with its’ value chain components.

Scaling of innovations is a key requirement for addressing societal challenges in sectors such as agriculture, but research for development programs struggles to make innovations go to scale. There is a gap between new complexity-aware scientific theories and perspectives on innovation and practical approaches that can improve strategic and operational decision-making in research for development

Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) is a leguminous and oil crop with rapidly growing importance and demand in Africa following the increasing demand for oil and livestock and poultry feed in sub-Saharan Africa. However, soybean productivity is low in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in West Africa, where productivity is below one ton per ha. Hence, concerted soybean varietal development and testing efforts have been underway by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), collaborating with the various African and US-based soybean breeding programs.

This paper analyses the ways in which CGIAR Centers use digital sequence information (DSI) in their efforts to conserve and sustainably utilize the world’s most important crop and livestock genetic diversity.

This paper highlights how farmers in a northern Lao village transformed their customary land rights – in the face of incoherent overlapping state territorialization attempts – into a territorial strategy to secure their land tenure. By planting rubber, some villagers have engaged in a crop boom to lay claim to land which has recently been zoned for upland rice cultivation (and conservation) as part of a state-led land use planning initiative.

Building Systemic Resilience against Climate Variability and Extremes (ClimBeR) is a Climate Resilience Initiative of CGIAR which aims to transform the climate adaptation capacity of food, land, and water systems in the Philippines and 5 countries in Africa (Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, and Zambia) and Latin America (Guatemala).

The colonial legacy of irrigated agriculture in Egypt continues to reinforce food security and poverty. Marginalized tenant farmers along the tail end of Drain 7 in Kafr El Sheikh face challenges of polluted, unreliable irrigation water, low crop productivity, income and food insecurity, and poor health.
Low value agriculture work is increasingly performed by marginalized women, whose work and time is undervalued and taken for granted.

The Bangladesh polder zones cover 1.2 million hectares of agricultural land and are home to around eight million people with women playing a critical role in agriculture and food systems. With limited access to and control over productive resources and incomes, women are disproportionately vulnerable to climatic risks. Their ability to make important decisions can have positive outcomes on the governance of natural resources, agricultural productivity, and livelihoods.

The Climate Risk Planning and Managing Tool for Development Programmes in the Agriculture and Food Sector (CRISP) project, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)/ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), aims to address the shortfall in climate risk screening tools. The project is a collaboration between Eurac Research (Italy) and the Alliance of Bioversity and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

This fact sheet describes the course that provides guidance on driving reforms that strengthen policy, legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks for responsible agricultural investment (RAI). Specifically, the course provides support to design the reform strategy, establish multi-stakeholder consultation processes for decision-making and enhance the role of regulatory processes in creating an enabling environment for responsible agricultural investment.

Abstracted from executive summary:

The Indian Central Government introduced three agricultural reform bills in June 2020. These Bills, known collectively as the farm laws, were passed by the Indian Parliament at the end of September. Opposition figures and protesting farmers complained there was little consultation over the legislation. On 19 November 2021, after nearly a year of mass protests against the laws, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, made a surprise announcement that his Government would repeal the farm laws.

Gender and land rights are closely intertwined with each other. Globally, more than 400 million women work in agriculture. Women comprise 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries, yet they account for less than 20 percent of landholders (FAO 2011). These disparities are even higher in some regions. In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, 60 to 70 percent of employed women work in agriculture, with similar rates of land ownership (that is, less than 20 percent).