The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project is administered by the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). AICCRA is a project that helps deliver a climate-smart African future driven by science and innovation in agriculture. AICCRA builds on 50 years of CGIAR innovation, AICCRA works to
scale climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information services (CIS) that reach millions of smallholder farmers in Africa.

After five years of its first report on the African continent, Fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) is considered a major threat to maize, sorghum, and millet production in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the rigorous work already conducted to reduce FAW prevalence, the dynamics and invasion mechanisms of FAW in Africa are still poorly understood. This study applied interdisciplinary tools, analytics, and algorithms on a FAW dataset with a spatial lens to provide insights and project the intensity of FAW infestation across Africa.

Wheat is the most widely grown food crop, with 761 Mt produced globally in 2020. To meet the expected grain demand by mid-century, wheat breeding strategies must continue to improve upon yield-advancing physiological traits, regardless of climate change impacts. Here, the best performing doubled haploid (DH) crosses with an increased canopy photosynthesis from wheat field experiments in the literature were extrapolated to the global scale with a multi-model ensemble of process-based wheat crop models to estimate global wheat production.

Earthworms (EWs) could be a viable indicator of soil biology and agri-food system management. The influence of climate-smart agriculture (CSA)-based sustainable intensification practices (zero tillage, crop rotations, crop residue retention, and precision water and nutrients application) on earthworms’ (EWs) populations and soil physico-biochemical properties of rice-wheat cropping system in the Indo-Gangetic plains of South Asia was investigated.

Cassava is an important crop in sub-Saharan Africa for food security, income generation, and industrial development. Business-oriented production systems require reliable supplies of high-quality seed. Major initiatives in Nigeria and Tanzania have sought to establish sustainable cassava seed systems.

This study tested the efficacy of a pond polyculture intervention with farming households in northern Zambia. Longitudinal data on fish consumption and the associated nutrient intake of households (N = 57) were collected over a six-month period (September 2019–March 2020). One group of people tested the intervention while another group that practiced monoculture tilapia farming, and a third group that did not practice aquaculture, acted as control groups.

WP3 intends to address the question: How can cross-food value chain and market services function better to increase employment and boost income of smallholders and SMEs? The WP focuses on two types of cross-value chain services, logistics and financial services. (1) logistics services – supply chain management, transportation, traceability, digital platforms for e-com merce, and (cold) storage. (2) value-chain financial services – mainly focusing on digital financial services (DFS) that facilitate trans actions, savings, access to and use of credit, and insurance.

The impact of COVID-19 on agricultural markets, especially the beef market, represents one of the greatest food security challenges the world is facing in the post-pandemic era and, for this reason, has been widely documented. This study contributes to the literature through a comprehensive impact analysis of the effects of COVID-19 on both the demand and supply of beef in Latin America and thus provides valuable information for two of the most important links of the beef value chain. Robust econometric methods and a graphic analysis were used that give solidity to the investigation.

Children heading households (CHH) in urban informal settlements face specific vulnerabilities shaped by limitations on their opportunities and capabilities within the context of urban inequities, which affect their wellbeing. We implemented photovoice research with CHHs to explore the intersections between their vulnerabilities and the social and environmental context of Nairobi’s informal settlements.

Genome–environment Associations (GEA) or Environmental Genome-Wide Association scans (EnvGWAS) have been poorly applied for studying the genomics of adaptive traits in bread wheat landraces (Triticum aestivum L.). We analyzed 990 landraces and seven climatic variables (mean temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation, precipitation seasonality, heat index of mean temperature, heat index of maximum temperature, and drought index) in GEA using the FarmCPU approach with GAPIT. Historical temperature and precipitation values were obtained as monthly averages from 1970 to 2000.

In this research, we explored rainfall variability in the Sogamoso River Basin (SRB), its relationship with multiple scales of variability associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the implications for rainfall prolongation during multiyear La Niña events. First, we examined time-frequency rainfall variations in the SRB based on the standardized precipitation index (SPI) from 1982 to 2019, using wavelet transform and principal component analysis (PCA).