Women are less represented in agricultural research and development sector representing only 25% of agricultural scientists in Africa in the last decade, and a much lower proportion of decision makers on agriculture and climate change at institutional, national, and global levels. Research activities on climate change and outputs must be inclusive, gender-oriented and promote gender equity to enable women scientists to make a greater contribution and be represented at all levels.

The world is facing a number of challenges such as climate change, diminishing soil quality and stagnant crop yields, which call for scalable solutions to ensure food security for a growing population. In this paper, we explore the role of data science in modern agriculture, highlighting the importance of big data analytics, geospatial technology, and machine learning.

Accelerating the scaling of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) requires institutional innovations and interactions among stakeholders operating across scales. The West Africa CSA Alliance (WACSA) and the Central Africa CSA Alliance (CACSA) are two CSA institutional innovations operating at regional scale and aimed at facilitating dialogue and discussions among stakeholders, as well as fostering collective actions to transform and reorient agricultural systems in face of climate change.

It is widely acknowledged that climate smart agricultural (CSA) practices prioritization is influenced by subjectivity and relies heavily on the expertise and exposure of the experts. The objective of this paper is to enhance the precision and objectivity of prioritizing CSA practices by leveraging a combination of research findings and expert knowledge. This is the first attempt to integrate experts’ knowledge and meta-analysis in the prioritization of CSA practices. Before integrating the two ranks, separate approaches were used to prioritize and rank CSA practices.

Covering 41% of Earth's land, drylands are home to nearly 2 billion people relying on forests, rangelands, and agrosilvopastoral systems for survival. These areas provide crucial environmental services, supporting biodiversity, preventing erosion, averting land degradation, enhancing water infiltration, and boosting soil fertility. Amid global change, they serve as resilient landscapes and communities.

This report aims to explore the intersection of gender and social inclusion, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities faced by women and youth in the agribusiness sector. It examines the ways in which gender norms and stereotypes shape social inclusion, and how exclusionary practices can perpetuate gender-based inequalities. The report draws on the gender analysis studies, baseline surveys and positive case study examples from diverse settings to highlight the key issues and strategies for promoting Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) in the agribusiness sector.

This chapter advances the state-of-the-art understanding of tipping cascades across scales and systems between Earth system and social tipping points. We consider a tipping cascade to occur when extremes or passing of a tipping point in one system triggers or increases the likelihood of reaching a tipping point in another. Here, this means that crossing an Earth system tipping point or experiencing an extreme volatility in the natural system can lead to cascading impacts that trigger social tipping points, and vice versa.

Voluntary Sustainability Systems (VSS) are varied in their commitments, actions and performances on gender equality. But as more VSS seek to address gender inequalities in agri-food value chains, the timing is ripe to reflect on existing evidence to inform future strategies. A recent evidence review sought to understand if and how VSS can support women’s full and effective participation and leadership in decision-making in agri-food value chains.

The SIMFS initiative in Ethiopia is implemented under the scheme of sustainable intensification of crop-livestock mixed farming systems. Its purposes are to encourage the adoption and innovation of sustainable intensification technologies that improve crop, livestock, and water productivity, and conserve natural resources for smallholder farmers in Ethiopia.

The limited number of agricultural extension agents (EAs) in sub-Saharan Africa limits farmers’ access to extension services. Artificial intelligence (AI) assistants could potentially aid in providing answers to farmers’ questions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of an AI chatbot assistant (ChatGPT) to provide quality responses to farmers’ questions. We compiled a list of 32 questions related to irrigated rice cultivation from farmers in Kano State, Nigeria. Six EAs from the state were randomly selected to answer these questions.

Livestock production is at the center of adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. It also impacts the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A transition is thus needed for livestock systems to become more sustainable and climate resilient, with clear impacts on the SDGs. This presentation provides an overview of investment priorities for climate resilient and low emissions livestock systems. It also dives deep into trees and agroforestry (silvopasture) as one solution that can help address climate change across the world.