Maize is an important staple crop for the majority of the population in Uganda. However, in tropical and subtropical climates, maize is frequently contaminated with aflatoxins, a group of cancer-causing and immuno-suppressive mycotoxins produced by Aspergillus section Flavi fungi. In Uganda, there is limited knowledge about the causal agents of aflatoxin contamination. The current study determined both the aflatoxin levels in pre-harvest maize across Uganda and the structures of communities of aflatoxin-producing fungi associated with the maize.

Management practices such as tillage, crop rotation, irrigation, organic and inorganic inputs application are known to influence diversity and function of soil microbial populations. In this study, we investigated the effect of conventional versus organic farming systems at low and high input levels on structure and diversity of prokaryotic microbial communities. Soil samples were collected from the ongoing long-term farming system comparison trials established in 2007 at Chuka and Thika in Kenya. Physicochemical parameters for each sample were analyzed.

In response to major shocks, governments and international humanitarian agencies often use direct seed distribution as a first level response to help communities stabilize or restart their farming systems. In contrast, CRS uses Seed and Voucher Fairs (S&VFs). After many years of successfully implementing S&VF, CRS developed a new type of seed fair that specifically focuses on the relief-development continuum and diversity, both in household dietary diversity for improved nutrition, and crop diversity for increased farming system resilience.

Increased adoption of improved agricultural technologies is considered an essential step to address global poverty and hunger, and agronomic trials suggest intensification in developing countries could result in large yield gains. Yet the promise of new technologies does not always carry over from trials to real-life conditions, and diffusion of many technologies remains limited.

The degradation of tropical pastures sown with introduced grasses (e.g., Urochloa spp.) has
dramatic environmental and economic consequences in Latin America. Nitrogen (N) limitation to
plant growth contributes to pasture degradation. The introduction of legumes in association with
grasses has been proposed as a strategy to improve N supply via symbiotic N2 fixation, but the fixed
N input and N benefits for associated grasses have hardly been determined in farmers’ pastures.

The on-station study was conducted at Sakhula, Bunda College (LUANAR), and on-farm in Golomoti Extension Planning Area (EPA). The objectives of the study were to assess constraints to goat production, to assess pre-weaning body weights of local Malawi goat kids, to analyze the nutrient content of selected tree and grass fodder species and to evaluate effect of feeding goats with Faidherbia albida pods and Gliricidia sepium based supplements on feed intake, growth rate and carcass quality.

Nigeria is the main yam-growing country of the world. In the country, various plant-parasitic nematodes have been reported constraining yam production and the storability of tubers. This study established the damage level of nematodes on white yam tubers (Dioscorea rotundata) across the major production areas in the country for management purposes.

In its updated Nationally Determined Contributions, Vietnam raised the Agriculture-greenhouse gas mitigation target by 16MtCO2-eq; 100% of Ag-unconditional target will come from rice. With IRRI-CCAFS contributions, climate-smart rice production was introduced to 17,000 extension staff and 75,800 farmers within Vietnam's extension programs; while the Vietnam-Sustainable Agriculture Transformation project almost doubled the low-emission technology adoption area, reaching 163,418ha. Alternate Wetting and Drying and rice straw removal are outscaled in An Giang province.

The Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD)
Partnership is a private-public collaboration led by USAID,
which aims to increase resilience to climate change in
developing countries through the development and
dissemination of climate services. The partnership
began with initial projects in three countries: Colombia,
Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. The International Center for
Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) was the lead organization for
the Colombian CSRD efforts – which then expanded to

The different cases or stories presented in this booklet are the results from the experience capitalization exercise and give insights into the specific lessons learnt by the workshop participants, through analysis of their involvement in diverse activities of the Vijabiz project and the influence on their businesses.
This booklet is produced by the Youth Economic Empowerment through Agribusiness in Kenya (Vijabiz) project, implemented by CTA and USTADI Foundation from Kenya and supported by IFAD.

Termites are widely used as a food resource, particularly in Africa and Asia. Markets for insects as food are also expanding worldwide. To inform the development of insect-based foods, we analysed selected minerals (Fe-Mn-Zn-Cu-Mg) in wild-harvested and commercially available termites. Mineral values were compared to selected commercially available insects. Alate termites, of the genera Macrotermes and Odontotermes, showed remarkably high manganese (Mn) content (292–515 mg/100 gdw), roughly 50–100 times the concentrations detected in other insects.

This work provides a preliminary inventory of West African Coccinellidae.
This was based on the West African Coccinellidae (WAC) specimens in the holdings of insect collections at the Laboratoire de Zoologie des Invertébrés Terrestres at the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire Cheikh Anta Diop (IFAN), Senegal and the Biodiversity Center at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITAB), Benin.