Under WP 1, CIAT/PABRA promotes beans as means of contributing to the wellness of the food system, including climate adaptation, as well as the business environment. The nutrition component implemented its planned activities through partnerships with NARES and private sector players (SMEs). Eight NARES partners were engaged (three in SABRN and 5 in ECABREN) and eleven private sector players were engaged (seven in SABRN and four in ECABREN). As a result, more than 731 field demonstrations using food basket approach were mounted (100 in Zambia, 17 in Uganda, 9 in Zimbabwe and 605 in Malawi).

Sub-Saharan Africa has the least mechanized agriculture in the world due to various reasons including low effective demand at farm level, low policy attention, and ineffective mechanization strategies. However, the situation has changed since recently in favor of mechanization while limited empirical evidence is available on how mechanization can be enhanced among smallholder farmers.

Smallholder farmers in low- and medium-income countries lack sufficient access to agricultural production credit that can help them adopt new technologies and improve their farm production. Compared to men, women smallholder farmers face additional social, and economic barriers that further limit their credit access. Bundling agricultural credit with insurance, or risk contingent credit (RCC), provides a mechanism for addressing some of the credit access constraints and reducing credit rationing among smallholder farmers.

This manual is a product of the Alliance of Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and the University of Kassel, as part of the outputs of the Innovation for Africa Climate Risk Insurance (InACRI) project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The InACRI project addresses the current poor performance and uptake of index-based crop insurance products in Kenya.

Solar irrigation pumps (SIPs) are gradually replacing diesel pumps in relatively water-intensive agricultural production systems and geographies to reduce carbon emissions from food systems. However, beyond its climate change mitigation potential and fulfillment of Nationally Determined Contributions commitments, the adoption of solar irrigation also has direct co-benefits for farmers. Taking the case of Bangladesh and anchored on primary data collected among solar and diesel pump users, this article analyses the role access to solar irrigation has on household and farm-level outcomes.

Alleviating the climate-related constraints faced by agri-food systems in sub-Saharan Africa requires an accelerated adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) innovations by farmers. However, little is known about the best-bet (most appropriate) CSA innovations, and the enabling conditions for their widespread adoption in a given biophysical and socioeconomic context.

Micro Small and Medium-Enterprises (MSMEs) in many developing countries play an important role in the agri-food systems. They provide employment opportunities as well as source of foods for urban consumers. In Kenya, the MSMEs provide an interesting disruption in the rapidly growing traditional markets. Efficient sourcing of foodstuffs is one of the challenges faced by MSME food vendors in Nairobi. Traditionally small-scale food vendors travel by informal buses to wholesale wet markets several times a week to source limited volumes of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Field trials of rice and bean dynamic mixtures were carried out in low input and hill farming systems of Nepal from 2019 to 2021 to improve productivity and resilience. The rice trials were conducted in two locations (Jumla and Lamjung) and those on bean in Jumla, using a randomized complete block design with three replications. Dynamic mixtures were constructed from landraces, improved varieties and breeding lines for both crops.

Accurate and timely agricultural weather information is crucial, given the evolving environmental dynamics and increased climatic variability. The report emphasizes the significance of tailored weather and climate-based advisories for farmers and highlights the dispersed nature of essential information across various organizations and formats. Despite advancements in meteorological analysis capabilities, there are still gaps in effectively translating data into tangible actionable advisories.

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies have great potential to minimize climate risks, sequester carbon, improve food security, and achievement of Sustainable Intensification (SI) goals. This makes their adoption a necessity for achieving sustainable agricultural systems. Despite the benefits and all efforts, smallholder farmers in developing countries still have low adoption of CSA technologies. This study explored the determinants of intentions to start and continue adopting CSA technologies.

Introduction: Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are increasingly producing soybean for food, feed, cash, and soil fertility improvement. Yet, the difference between the smallholder farmers’ yield and either the attainable in research fields or the potential from crop models is wide. Reasons for the yield gap include low to nonapplication of appropriate fertilizers and inoculants, late planting, low plant populations, recycling seeds, etc.

Local agrobiodiversity in remote areas such as the Moroccan High Atlas is poorly studied, despite being of great importance for the sustainability and resilience of mountainous populations. This includes important species such as wheat (Triticum spp.), barley (Hordeum vulgare), fava beans (Vicia faba), peas (Pisum sativum), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). This study aimed to better understand varietal naming by farmers and the traits they use for assessing the current diversity of the five species, in 22 locations, distributed across three hubs of the High Atlas.