Introduction: In rainfed agricultural systems, sustainable and efficient water management practices are key to improved agricultural productivity and natural resource management. The agricultural system in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) relies heavily on the availability of rainfall. With the erratic and unreliable rainfall pattern associated with poor and fragile soils, agricultural productivity has remained very low over the years. Much of the SSA agricultural land has been degraded with low fertility as a result of ongoing cultivation and wind and water erosion.

In Sub-Sahara Africa agriculture is predominantly rainfed and faces several challenges due to unpredictable weather patterns and distribution that is amplified by climate change. The rising temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and increased frequency of extreme events contribute to the vulnerability of farmers as well as leading to crop failure, low yields, land degradation among others. These factors compound the difficulties for smallholder farmers, making it more challenging for them to produce adequate food to meet the demands of a growing population.

This analysis is composed of two parts. The evolving structure of Kenya’s agrifood system (AFS) and its contribution to national development is assessed using a series of Social Accounting Matrixes (SAMs) for Kenya for the period 2009–2019. Economic performance is also assessed at subsector level to better understand the contributions of different agrifood value chains to Kenya’s development and economic transformation in recent years.

Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana var. mangostana) is a popular tropical fruit, yet many aspects of its biology and evolutionary history are little known. Its origin remains contentious, although recent findings suggest G. mangostana L. var. malaccensis (Hook. f.) Nazre (synonym: G. malaccensis Hook. f.) as the sole progenitor. We review hypotheses on the origin of mangosteen and clarify points that have been affected by errors of fact and interpretation. The narrow focus and lack of detail in published results make their interpretation difficult.

Cocoa is an important commodity crop and source of income for millions of small-holder farmers. Nonetheless, questions on cocoa tree functioning, best management practices and climate change responses remain. Modelling is a powerful tool to address these questions, complementing experimental work that is expensive and time consuming due to the long productive cycle of the cocoa system. However, compared to other crops, cocoa modelling has not received as much attention.

Standard tools that can quantitatively track the impacts of higher global demand for animal-sourced food to their local environmental effects in developing countries are largely missing. This paper presents a novel integrated assessment framework that links a model of the global agricultural and food system, a landscape-level environmental impact assessment model, and an ecosystem services simulation model.

This submission is made in accordance with paragraph 18 of decision 3/CP.27 on operationalization of the online portal referred to in paragraph 16 of the above decision for consideration by the Subsidiary Bodies at their fifty-eighth sessions (June 2023).

This series of socio-legal reviews summarizes the legal and policy documents related to women’s land tenure in seven countries: Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, The Gambia, Ethiopia, Niger, Bangladesh, and Colombia. These synthesis documents, part of the IFAD Initiative on Women’s Resource Rights, are designed for researchers and policymakers seeking to improve women’s land and resource rights in these target countries.

The current global road network expansion scenario poses a conflict of interest between Sustainable Development Goals of human well-being and biosphere, which could be mitigated through strengthening of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. Here, we propose the integration in EIAs of a method focusing on landscape-level connectivity for wildlife, based on easily accessible satellite imagery and basic species data that need not be site-specific.

Even an approximate estimate of the amount of investment required globally to reconfigure food systems for resilience and sustainability in the face of climate change could help to catalyse the urgent action that is needed. A report published in 2020 set out eleven actions that were identified as being needed to reconfigure food systems. Here we estimate the annual cost of implementing these eleven actions to be USD 1.3 ± 0.1 trillion.

To leverage agriculture's potential to better benefit both people and nature, policymakers need clear messages about which farming practices positively impact biodiversity and yields, and when trade-offs arise. Existing reviews analyse effects of different agricultural practices on either biodiversity or yield, without considering interactions.