This presentation summarizes the Disruptive Seeds approach to transformative change and briefly explains how it is applied in the context of ClimBeR’s Policy Pathways research (Work Package 3) in Guatemala. It also describes the progress of the project thus far, the planning for 2023, and highlights a few promising seed initiatives (i.e., sustainable, bottom-up initiatives that can contribute to transformative change).

Establishing protected areas creates an opportunity to reduce deforestation. This study aims to inform the Congolese government’s efforts to promote forest and biodiversity conservation by assessing the effectiveness of the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve (YBR) in reducing deforestation. Group and individual interviews designed to understand the causes of pressure on forest cover in the Yangambi landscape complemented satellite imagery analyses. The results indicate that deforestation inside the YBR is not significantly different from outside the YBR.

The Thar Desert, Sindh, Pakistan is characterized by low productivity. Besides, economy is based on agriculture, livestock and mining, nevertheless, livestock graze freely on public and private land. The aim of this research was to determine biomass production and to evaluate the effects of continuous and seasonal grazing on protected and unprotected plots. A 45 ha protected rangeland area of Hurrabad in the Umerkot Thar desert was selected and divided into three blocks of 15 ha each. Blocks of the same size were also established in unprotected area.

This workshop provided a platform for indigenous peoples’ representatives to outline their priority needs to input into Third National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP, 2023-27) that is led by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry through the Climate Change Directorate. An accelerated programme of the finalisation has targeted the government launch of the NCCAP 2023-2027 at the Africa Climate Summit, in Kenya, in September 2023.

Scientific evidence is crucial for the transition towards sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. However, sustainability transitions research has been so far north-biased and overlooked the Global South. This paper analyses the scholarly literature on sustainability transitions in West African agriculture and food systems. In particular, it investigates the bibliometrics and geographical coverage of the research field and explores whether and how it addresses topics such as transition frameworks, niches, food security and sustainability.

CONTEXT
Cereal-legume intercropping, a common practice among farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), is important for crop diversification, soil fertility improvement, household nutrition and climate adaptation. However, cereals often outcompete the intercropped legumes for growth resources resulting in low legume yields.
OBJECTIVE

Context
Crop productivity in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be substantially improved without simultaneously addressing short-term crop nutrient demand and long-term soil fertility. Integrated soil fertility management tackles both by the combined application of mineral fertilizers and organic resource inputs but few studies examined its‘ long-term effectiveness.
Objective

Farmers commonly split large, undulating crop fields, even those at similar elevation range or contour, into a patchwork of small sub-plots in plane areas of Nepal. Specifically, to ensure irrigation or rainwater throughout their cultivated rice or wheat growing areas, structures like bunds, dikes, and ditches are commonly built. These structures not only require significant labor hours to build but also incur loss of some portion of productive crop areas.

There is ample data and literature that shows how women’s experiences in low-paid, short-term migration vary from those of men, and that experiences are linked to women’s empowerment – captured by the interrelated dimensions of resources, agency, and achievements. While considerable attention is paid to understanding the generalized notion of women’s empowerment, it is also key to distinguish empowerment in specific realms, including economic empowerment, agriculture, health and nutrition, and migration.