Introduction: Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are increasingly producing soybean for food, feed, cash, and soil fertility improvement. Yet, the difference between the smallholder farmers’ yield and either the attainable in research fields or the potential from crop models is wide. Reasons for the yield gap include low to nonapplication of appropriate fertilizers and inoculants, late planting, low plant populations, recycling seeds, etc.

Commitments to Forest and Landscape Restoration are rapidly growing and being implemented globally to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. Restoration initiatives largely based on tree planting necessitate an increased supply of high-quality and suitably adapted tree planting material. We evaluated the native tree seed supply systems in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, and Kenya, four countries with large commitments to increase tree cover. We applied an established indicator framework to assess the adequacy of any current tree seed system to meet national needs.

This report underscores the escalating threat of climate disasters to global populations, emphasizing the heightened vulnerability of Sri Lanka, an island nation susceptible to diverse climate-related hazards. With floods, landslides, droughts, cyclones, and other extreme events on the rise due to climate change, the inevitability of future disasters looms large. Urgent proactive measures are imperative to address this pressing issue, as the population is ill-prepared to handle severe consequences without comprehensive and anticipatory strategies.

Local agrobiodiversity in remote areas such as the Moroccan High Atlas is poorly studied, despite being of great importance for the sustainability and resilience of mountainous populations. This includes important species such as wheat (Triticum spp.), barley (Hordeum vulgare), fava beans (Vicia faba), peas (Pisum sativum), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). This study aimed to better understand varietal naming by farmers and the traits they use for assessing the current diversity of the five species, in 22 locations, distributed across three hubs of the High Atlas.

Societal Impact Statement: Increasing crop productivity is often proposed as a key goal for meeting the food security demands of a growing global population. However, achieving high crop yields alone without meeting end-use quality requirements is counter to this objective and can lead to negative environmental and sustainability issues. High yielding feed wheat crops in the United Kingdom are a typical example of this. The historical context of UK agricultural industrialisation, developments in plant breeding and wheat end-use processing are examined.

The IGAD region is currently facing enormous adaptation challenges and stands to bear the brunt of the most severe near-term climate change impacts. In response to these challenges, the IGAD Climate Adaptation Strategy (2023-2030) was developed to provide a framework for coordinated action to address climate risks and enhance the resilience and adaptive capacities of IGAD Member States.

All stakeholders, especially households that depend on agriculture, must come up with every avenue available to improve farm productivity in order to raise yields due to the constraints posed by climate change on food production systems. Sufficient increments in yields will address the challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition among vulnerable households, especially smallholder ones. Yield increases can be achieved sustainably through the deployment of various Climate Smart Integrated Pest Management (CS-IPM) practices, including good agronomic practices.

Climate resilient crops will become increasingly important, especially in regions where smallholder farmers are vulnerable to climate extremes. Enset, a multipurpose perennial staple crop consumed by over 20 million people in Ethiopia, purportedly provides food security during periods of drought. Here, we find evidence that fre-quent severe drought events led to an increase in enset production area.

Abiotic stresses (drought, heat) are one of the major impediments to enhancing the maize productivity of marginal farmers in the facet of climate change. The present study attempts to investigate the impact of heat-tolerant maize hybrid on yield and income in the Terai region of Nepal. This study uses cross-sectional farm household-level data collected in August 2021 from a randomly selected sample of 404 rural households. We used a doubly robust inverse probability weighted regression adjustment method to obtain reliable impact estimates.

Given the challenges brought about by the increasing frequency of climatic stressors (droughts) and other biotic challenges (pests and diseases), breeding for tolerance to these traits is now seen as an indispensable adjunct to the enhancement of yield potential. Drought tolerant (DT) maize varieties that do well under moderate drought and outperform (or do not underperform) commercial checks under normal rainfall are becoming available. This study examines the role of these maize varieties in mitigating the effects of drought on maize yields in drought-prone areas of eastern Uganda.

Bioversity International’s financial mandate includes maintaining accountability and transparency in its finances, and to evaluate and communicate direct impact from our work to our donors, partners and the wider research and development community.

Climate change is not projected to materially alter Malawi’s climate profile. Instead, it is likely to exacerbate existing climate vulnerabilities by increasing the frequency and intensity of cyclones, floods, and droughts. This is largely due to increased uncertainty around future precipitation levels. These adverse effects have already started to materialize and are expected to increase substantially over the next decades, particularly if efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by high emitting countries are insufficient.