The livestock sector in Ethiopia is characterized by low productivity due to inadequate supply of affordable high-quality animal feed year-round, with more acute gaps in the drought-prone regions of the country. This paper presents the economic benefits and insights into the role of cultivated forages, such as densification into pellets, in bridging gaps in feed supply. Nutrient requirement calculations for feedlot and dairy animals and meeting those requirements using cultivated forage-based diets are presented.

Youth transitions to adulthood are becoming more complex around the world. The relative importance of key milestones that are used to describe the transition from youth to adulthood are culturally embedded and change across generations. Such life course events may include completing education, moving from school to the labour force, leaving home, marriage, and parenthood. In sub–Saharan Africa, agricultural and livestock assets are also culturally relevant and often critical to supporting major achievements in transitions.

Crop fungal diseases constitute a major cause of yield loss. The development of crop disease monitoring and forecasting tools is an important effort to aid farmers in adapting to climate variability and change. Recognizing weather as a main driver of fungal disease outbreaks, this work assesses the climate suitability for wheat blast (Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum, MoT) development in Asian wheat-producing countries.

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is of great importance to food security, especially in West Africa. However, the loss of soil fertility due to dwindling fallow lands with indigenous nutrient supply poses a challenge for yam cultivation. This study aimed to determine shoot and tuber biomass and nutrient use efficiency of white Guinea yam (Dioscorea rotundata) grown under low- and high-NPK conditions. Six white Guinea yam genotypes were used in field experiments conducted at Ibadan, Nigeria.

The Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) has released more than 100 inbred rice varieties. Still, an old mega variety BRRI dhan28 dominates the farmers’ fields during the dry winter (Boro season: November–June) season. This variety is very susceptible to different diseases and insects, causing lower yield performance than its potential. To replace this variety, current on-farm research was planned to evaluate the newly developed four superior rice varieties: BRRI dhan58, BRRI dhan63, BRRI dhan67, and BRRI dhan74 during Boro season in 2017 and 2018.

Most studies of agricultural transformation document the impact of agricultural income growth on macroeconomic indicators of development. Much less is known about the micro-scale changes within the farming sector that signal a transformation precipitated by agricultural income growth. This study provides a comparative analysis of the patterns of micro-level changes that occur among small-holder farmers in Uganda and Malawi in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia (SEA).

From March 21-25, 2022, the World Bank and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture
(CIAT) jointly undertook an Implementation Support Mission (ISM) for the Accelerating Impacts of
CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) (P173398) in Accra, Ghana. The mission coincided
with cluster and management meetings of the AICCRA project involving multiple partners from the
AICCRA network (participant list included in Annex 1).

Poverty persists in many developing countries, including Nigeria, owing to inadequate infrastructure, unemployment, or poor working conditions, among other factors. Youth poverty and vulnerability to poverty have been identified to prevalent among the young population. Using an endogenous switching probit regression approach, in this study, we evaluated the impacts of youth participation in agribusiness programs (YIAPs) on poverty and vulnerability to poverty in Nigeria.

Increasing global food insecurity amidst a growing population and diminishing production resources renders the currently dominant linear production model insufficient to combat such challenges. Hence, a circular bioeconomy (CBE) model that ensures more conservative use of resources has become essential. Specifically, a CBE model that focuses on recycling and reusing organic waste is essential to close nutrient loops and establish more resilient rural-urban nexus food systems. However, the CBE status quo in many African food systems is not established.

Methane is a potent but short-lived greenhouse gas targeted for short-term amelioration of climate change, with enteric methane emitted by ruminants being the most important anthropogenic source of methane. Ruminant production also releases nitrogen to the environment, resulting in groundwater pollution and emissions of greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. We hypothesized that inhibiting rumen methanogenesis in dairy cows with chemical inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP) would redirect metabolic hydrogen towards synthesis of microbial amino acids.

Soil acidity with associated low nutrient availability is one of the major constraints to soybean production in southwestern Ethiopia. Integrated use of lime and acid-tolerant crops is believed to reduce soil acidity and improve crop production. The experiment was conducted in the field condition of Mettu, southwestern Ethiopia during the 2017/18 main cropping season. The experiment comprised fifteen soybean genotypes and two soil amendment (lime and unlimed) treatments arranged in a split-plot design with three replications.

Though enormous strides have been achieved in recent decades towards reducing food insecurity in the Global South, continued efforts are imperative in light of rapidly expanding populations and threats posed by climate change. A relatively unexplored area in this arena is the nexus between cultural heritage and food security. Cultural heritage embodies indigenous culture, values, and traditions inherited from previous generations. We focus on rice and identify five pathways through which cultural heritage affects food security.