Silvopastoral systems, integrating trees, shrubs, and livestock, offer an innovative approach to sustainable land use. Key to success is the strategic selection of forage crops, tailored to climatic and soil conditions, promoting system resilience and productivity. The field day showcased sustainable restoration practices, with farmers receiving Sulla seeds, marking a transformative step toward sustainable agriculture and improved economic well-being.

Diseases have been threatening banana plantations across the world including Burundi; causing the lack of clean planting material. Stakeholders of banana sector have been producing plantlets from vitroculture or macropropagation and acclimating them in community nurseries before distribution. Where it is possible, communities’ members were trained on how to establish and manage macropropation units and nurseries.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), one of the research centers within the global Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has a long history of gender research relevant to its mission of reducing poverty and ending hunger and malnutrition. One of the concerns with women’s empowerment beyond the household – in public spaces, including community decision-making processes – is that women lack key pieces of information necessary to facilitate their full and effective participation.

As part of the Livestock and Climate initiative, we have been working together with MediaE to improve the advisories related to climate and financial aspects of agriculture. For instance, we have been developing content on Shamba Shape-Up (SSU) television episodes which is one of the products of MediaE. However, one of the key learnings from developing content is whether the episodes are actionable or not.

Accurate crop yield prediction is crucial for optimizing agricultural practices and ensuring food security. The NextGen advisory is a fertilizer recommendation system that can be customized for different farming systems, crop types, and locations. The system uses machine learning models to predict site-specific fertilizer rates using filed trial and covariates (soil, topography, and climate) data.

Over the last decades, the government of Ethiopia has taken several measures to achieve food security for its population. However, crop production is still below the optimal possible. Studies show that wheat, maize, and sorghum yields in Ethiopia are about 26.8, 19.7, and 29.3 % of their water-limited yield potentials. Some legumes such as common bean even experience higher yield gap of 35.5%. These indicate the potential for increasing productivity of crops in the country through addressing the key bottlenecks. Several factors play important role in determining crop yields in the country.

As part of the AICCRA, the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) are tasked to develop curricula and training materials to accelerate the mainstreaming of Climate Information Services (CIS) and Climate- Smart Agriculture (CSA) into University’s curricula in Africa. This report describes the activities of a training of trainers’ (ToT) workshop on Climate Smart Nutrient and Water Management in Crop Production course module .

Wheat is a global staple crop, which contributes 20% of the total dietary proteins and calories. Despite its importance, wheat production and productivity are affected by various biotic and abiotic stresses. Septoria leaf blotch is one of the biotic stresses that decreases production and grain quality. A field survey was conducted in twenty-four districts of Northwestern Ethiopia to figure out its distribution, incidence, severity, and association with agronomic practices and agroecological factors.

This presentation will present the importance of plant pests and diseases and their impact on food security, with examples of exotic invasive plant pests and diseases that cross borders, as well as the strategic role of international Gene Banks in plant genetic resources exchange. The presentation will also emphasize how the international germplasm health units function, what they are, and the measures and procedures followed to achieve safe movement of genetic resources.

Climate change is one of the major concerns mankind will have to deal with for a long period of time. Judicious use of adaptation and mitigation measures are the only avenues for addressing climate change and associated impacts. Building climate science literacy is vital for citizens to understand the impacts of climate change and develop solutions to mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects. AICCRA-RUFORUM partnership aimed at developing continental-wide top-priority course modules in order to build capacity at different levels on the continent.