Oral presentation on Agroforestry Practices for Sustainable Intensification, Food Security, and Climate Adaptation in Dry Areas: Challenges, Applications, and Examples – delivered on August 28th. This communication occurred during the 6th General Assembly of the IOFS in Tunis, Tunisia, as part of the Regional Conference on Resilient Agriculture in IOFS Member States, focusing on Climate Adaptation and Food Security (28 August 2023 / 04-12-13 September 2023).

"Shamba Shape Up" is a popular television show in East Africa that focuses on agricultural education and improvement. The show features a team of experts who visit different farms, providing practical demonstrations and advice to farmers on various aspects of agriculture, such as livestock rearing, crop cultivation, farm management techniques, and sustainable practices. It aims to educate and empower farmers with valuable information and skills to enhance productivity, increase yields, and improve their livelihoods.

Climate change can manifest in various ways, including altered precipitation patterns, increased temperatures, and more frequent extreme weather events. These factors can adversely affect crop yields, jeopardizing food security and the livelihoods of the majority of the population dependent on agriculture. Agriculture in Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) is a major contributor to the national economy and is estimated to contribute about 17% of SADC’s gross domestic product (GDP). Smallholder farmers in Southern Africa contribute up to 90% of food production.

The inventory of CSA approaches, practices, and technologies was compiled as an output of the CSA Writeshop that CCARDESA convened in October 2022 under the auspices of the AICCRA and GCCA+ projects with the primary objective of developing the CSA Handbook as well as a training manual for use in SADC region. The CSA Handbook has provided an elaboration of best-bet CSA options that have been categorized along the three pillars of CSA: increased productivity, adaptation, and mitigation.

The concept of regenerative agriculture has rapidly gained momentum among agri-food companies, governments, NGO’s and farmers. Although there is no widely accepted definition, different interpretations of this concept emphasize the importance of restoring and enhancing soil to generate multiple benefits for society and for farmers. The premise is that regenerative agriculture, by strengthening soil health and associated ecosystem services, helps to make agroecosystems more productive and resilient, while improving farmers’ livelihoods.

This report presents results from a survey conducted to understand the extent to which HEIs in Zambia have integrated CSA-CIS in the curricula and identify the needs & possible approaches for integrating the CSA and CIS in the HEI programmes. Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change.

This policy brief examines the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war on fertilizer and food commodities in Nigeria and the actions policymakers took in the agriculture sector in response to the war. This brief examines data from publicly available sources and policy responses from government documents and online newspapers. The results show that the Russia-Ukraine war has led to shortages in fertilizer availability, leading to high prices of fertilizer. Likewise, prices of major food commodities, such as maize, rice, wheat and cooking oils, have been on the rise.

This Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) handbook has been developed as a resource material for use by CSA practitioners in providing training, policy advocacy, and upscaling CSA technologies and practices for improving sustainable productivity, adapting to the effects of climate change, and mitigating climate change.

The “International Certificate course in Digital Agriculture,” a collaborative capacity sharing initiative by
CGIAR’s International Rice Research Institute, New Delhi, and Sri Sri University, Odisha, under the CGIAR
Digital Innovation Initiative, was organized as an online diploma program aimed at bolstering the
technical capacity of agricultural students and professionals. Spanning seven weeks and 40 hours,
including assignments, this course uniquely catered to the needs of those passionate about digital

This study has empirically examined the macroeconomic impact of climate change in the East African region by focusing on Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. It dealt with this effect comprehensively by focusing on economic growth, agricultural output, exports, and food security (using food supply and inflation). This is done using a suite of theoretical models from macroeconomic and macro-econometric literature. The analysis confirms that the effects of climate change in the region are real and present a macroeconomic danger to the economies of the five countries in the region.

SAARC Agriculture Centre (SAC) and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) organized a four-day training program for SAARC member countries representatives on Climate Smart Agriculture in South Asia: Technologies, Policies, and Digital Innovation. 28 senior government officials and high-ranking country representatives from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka participated in this training program. The details of the participants are presented in Annexure 4.

On July 24, 2023, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute (LARI) under the Ministry of Agriculture organized a Multistakeholder Workshop on “National Alliance of Stakeholders for the Wheat Sector in Lebanon”. The agenda of the workshop is provided in Appendix 1.