A two-day advanced training session on semen cooling technique was conducted at the Doyogena
CBBP site in Ethiopia. The training specifically targeted researchers involved in implementing sheep
and goat CBBPs. In Ethiopia, ICARDA and its partners, under the previous CRP program, established
ten low-cost reproductive technology laboratories across different regions. These laboratories are
equipped with mobile equipment for semen collection, evaluation, and insemination for sheep and
goats. More information about these labs can be found at

Climate change has intensified food security challenges, especially in Africa, where a significant portion of produce is reliant on smallholder farmers in rainfed conditions. Prolonged flooding and droughts, driven by erratic weather patterns, have significantly elevated the risk of food scarcity. Floods, in particular, have been responsible for severe crop losses, raising concerns about increasing import costs if this issue is not mitigated. Africa is actively working to mitigate the impacts of flooding and enhance food security, although progress has been gradual.

Diseases have been threatening banana plantations across the world including Burundi; causing the lack of clean planting material. Stakeholders of banana sector have been producing plantlets from vitroculture or macropropagation and acclimating them in community nurseries before distribution. Where it is possible, communities’ members were trained on how to establish and manage macropropation units and nurseries.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), one of the research centers within the global Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has a long history of gender research relevant to its mission of reducing poverty and ending hunger and malnutrition. One of the concerns with women’s empowerment beyond the household – in public spaces, including community decision-making processes – is that women lack key pieces of information necessary to facilitate their full and effective participation.

As part of the Livestock and Climate initiative, we have been working together with MediaE to improve the advisories related to climate and financial aspects of agriculture. For instance, we have been developing content on Shamba Shape-Up (SSU) television episodes which is one of the products of MediaE. However, one of the key learnings from developing content is whether the episodes are actionable or not.

Accurate crop yield prediction is crucial for optimizing agricultural practices and ensuring food security. The NextGen advisory is a fertilizer recommendation system that can be customized for different farming systems, crop types, and locations. The system uses machine learning models to predict site-specific fertilizer rates using filed trial and covariates (soil, topography, and climate) data.

Over the last decades, the government of Ethiopia has taken several measures to achieve food security for its population. However, crop production is still below the optimal possible. Studies show that wheat, maize, and sorghum yields in Ethiopia are about 26.8, 19.7, and 29.3 % of their water-limited yield potentials. Some legumes such as common bean even experience higher yield gap of 35.5%. These indicate the potential for increasing productivity of crops in the country through addressing the key bottlenecks. Several factors play important role in determining crop yields in the country.

As part of the AICCRA, the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) are tasked to develop curricula and training materials to accelerate the mainstreaming of Climate Information Services (CIS) and Climate- Smart Agriculture (CSA) into University’s curricula in Africa. This report describes the activities of a training of trainers’ (ToT) workshop on Climate Smart Nutrient and Water Management in Crop Production course module .