The guidance note unpacks the key impact of land degradation across Africa's cultivated land and impacts on food production and unpacks linkages and the impact climate change is having on increasing across Africa's agricultural landscapes. Consequently improving soil health is critical and has both adaptation and mitigation co-benefits. The guidance note summarises key practices and approaches like climate-smart agriculture for scaling up health soil practices. It also concludes with key recommendations for scaling up action on soil health across the continent.

There is an urgent need to rethink our global food systems. The world is facing a nutrition crisis, and the way we produce and consume food is altering the equilibrium of our planet, causing environmental damage and biodiversity loss, and climate change which further compromises food security. Children are disproportionately affected, and school meals are being increasingly recognized as a key investment for governments to tackle these challenges. Through national school meals programs, around 418 million children currently receive a meal at school every day.

Soil health is the inherent ability of soil to function for agroecosystems productivity and environmental sustainability. With the limitations of nutrients, degradation, water conservation, extreme conditions due to climate change and mounting pressure to produce food, soil health is critical for human existence and thus gaining global debates. Developing and implementing the strategies and action plans to ensure soil health and fertility is also the strategic priority by framework for action biodiversity for food and agriculture.

The food systems are not only central to our daily lives but also act as a major driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; it generates more than a third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. As the world aims to achieve the goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, there is a need to identify, prioritize and scale innovations that can contribute to food systems transformation and generate SDG co-benefits.

This research note explains the results of social experiment designed with three primary objectives. These include (1) to mitigate the digital divide concerning the accessibility of forecasted weather information and crop advisories for women farmers in Bangladesh and (2) to assess the potential impact of a digital climate advisory tool on the agricultural practices of women farmers.

Nature positive agriculture initiative offers sustainable food production system that meet the demands of growing population as well as facilitating the necessity of environmental restoration, biodiversity conservation thereby improving soil, land and water by scientifically supported solutions. Nature positive implement and equitably support food and livelihoods on the ground through a transformative change, initiating at farm and community-level, mainstreaming the research pathways and solutions in the smallholder agricultural systems.

South Asia’s rice-wheat system is a regionally unique and crucially important cropping system contributing to staple food production. Over a 16-year period, a comprehensive experimental study on the rice-wheat cropping system indicated that, while wheat yields demonstrated a gradual increase over time, rice yields largely reached a stable level across various management approaches.

The Ghana Cluster of the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project, led by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and its partners are working on an Early Warning and Rapid Response System for Pests and Diseases (EWRRS-PD) to enhance communication, data sharing, and preparedness against new risks. Following several preparatory meetings, a workshop was held to validate a partnership agreement between eleven public and private sector institutions whose core mandate relates to the subject.

Growing attention to food environment policies has been observed to address the multiple aspects of malnutrition (Kumar et al. 2023). In India, interventions promoting sustainable agriculture, small-scale farming, and equitable access to markets have been initiated to address the food and nutrition security of economically vulnerable groups. However, transformative interventions require deeper understanding specific contexts and a deep knowledge of the food environment.

This report present progress and achievement of the seed multiplication activities under the Ukama Ustawi (UU) regional initiative in Malawi. International potato Center and its key research partner, Department of Agriculture and Research services (DARS) has been carrying out sweetpotato early generation seed (EGS) multiplication at Bvumbwe research stations.