In an act of solidarity, seeds awarded as an incentive to smallholders are shared with other women farmers unable to purchase seed during the pandemic.

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health Research Program (A4NH) researchers from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT have been part of the Technical Working Group on Nutrition led by UNICEF and the National Institute of Nutrition in Vietnam since 2017.

Global heat stress is a growing problem that stands to impact health, livelihoods and the very food we eat. While high temperatures and heat waves can occur under normal weather conditions, with climate change they are becoming more severe, last longer and happen more frequently. In 2019, we saw wildfires blaze across different parts of the world, culminating in the devastating bushfires in Australia that raged for nearly two and half months, fueled by record-breaking temperatures and prolonged drought.

Making sure that the collections of beans, cassava, bananas, and forages remain alive, even during the quarantine, is an essential job of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT in order to preserve the world’s biodiversity and food safety. From its work sites in laboratories, greenhouses, and experimental fields in Palmira, Colombia, and at the University of Louvain, in Belgium, Mónica, Melissa, Madelyn, Ramiro, Javier, Jair, Wilmer, Vincent, and Bart tell us about their experience in which they take on with equal responsibility the preventive measures established by the health authorities of their countries and those of our own organization. Their mission during the confinement is to safeguard the patrimony of more than 150 nations of the world that have entrusted the Alliance with one of their most precious treasures, their seeds.

On a day like today, on April 9, 1920, Dr. Armando Samper Gnecco was born in Bogotá, Colombia. Years later, he would be renowned for dedicating his life to the development of agriculture in Latin America.

The Alliance of Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has been supporting Heifer International in their drive to adopt the Market System Development (MSD) approach as an intervention model within the organization, so far conducting four introductory training sessions.

Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, around 290 quilombolas (Afro-Brazilian communities) and small groups of people living along the river side (hereafter riverine communities) in the Oriximiná municipality, located in the state of Pará, joined a series of meetings with the purpose of validating the results of the previously applied "Social Progress Index" (SPI).

We live in an ever increasingly faster changing world. Technology, services, products, enterprises, economy, markets, social habits, competition… everything changes. That is why organizations are faced with the challenge to change in an effort to adapt to new times in order to improve their competitiveness, productivity and efficiency.

New study: Making adaptation effort actionable at scale towards a climate smart cocoa sector.Public, private and non-governmental actors can use our recommendation domains to roll-out climate adaptation interventions at scale.

Water hyacinth is an invasive weed posing a grave threat to Lake Tana. A growing problem since 2011, the dangerous aquatic weed currently covers over 197 km in seven districts of the Amhara region and continues to expand rapidly.

In April 2018, heavy rains pounded the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda with torrents of water washing down to Burera Village causing flooding and destroying property as they went along.

Farmer input is essential to tackling global challenges of climate change, rural poverty and nutrition. A new data collection tool aims to build the biggest open-access dataset of its kind for development and research

With climate change, the issues of land are becoming more important. Land conditions are vulnerable to ongoing climate change, including increased rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, dry spells, wind and sea-level rise. The 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land notes that sustainable land management can contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. There is rising appreciation of context-specific options, which include local and indigenous knowledge of communities on sustainable land management. As such, land users’ priorities, perceptions, experiences and knowledge in sustainable land management need more attention. Further, economic, political and social factors can create opportunities or constrain land use and management, and its contribution to climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC) is the main producer of fine flavor cacao in the world. The contribution of LAC to the worldwide production of cacao, currently 17%, has nearly doubled in the last decade, taking advantage of the growth of global and regional demand for cacao by consumers. Cacao buyers obtain part of their supply from LAC to diversify and ensure their supply, forecasting the growing demand for fine flavor cacao in the world market and anticipating the negative impacts of climate change, among other factors, in West Africa, where most of the conventional cacao is currently produced.

Mushimiyimana and her family are one of the more than 420,000 farming households in Rwanda who cultivate iron-biofortified bean that were developed by HarvestPlus, the Rwanda Agriculture Board, and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and first released in the country in 2012. In just a few years since then, iron bean cultivation has expanded rapidly and currently accounts for 20 percent of all beans grown in Rwanda; more than 1.8 million Rwandans, or about 15 percent of the total population, were estimated to be eating these nutritious beans—and the market continues to grow.

When Simon and Sylvia Kiruja started their farm three years ago, they never imagined it would get so big they would need a bigger plot. Their three cows used to bring them 7 litres of milk a day. Today, their 45 cows deliver more than 250 litres daily, contributing around US$1,700 monthly depending on the season, to the Kiruja’s income.

As Ethiopia approaches 105 million people, the growing demand for food is expanding agriculture into marginal, forest, and natural conservation areas. Human-induced activities include population pressure, agricultural expansion, logging, and development, which have been challenging development and conservation efforts. As cultivation and grazing expand into peripheral and conservation areas, land degradation in the form of deforestation, soil erosion, and nutrient mining as well as conflict between land uses and users accelerate the vulnerability of local farmers to climate change. Despite the environmental, social, and economic benefits of biodiversity and natural ecosystem conservation, the reality is that views that strictly exclude the human element are no longer an option.

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The wild relatives of chile peppers, pumpkins, carrots, and lettuce join a growing list of poorly conserved plant species. These ancient plants have genes that may help our food withstand the harsh climate of our future. If they don’t go extinct first Growing up in the wild makes plants tough. Wild plants evolve to survive the whims of nature and thrive in difficult conditions, including extreme climate conditions, poor soils, and pests and diseases. Their better-known descendants – the domesticated plants that are critical to a healthy diet – are often not nearly as hardy. The genes that make crop wild relatives robust have the potential to make their cultivated cousins - our food plants - better prepared for a harsh climate future. But a series of new research papers show these critical plants are imperiled.

The climate change point-of-no-return may still be 1 degree C away. But that is of little solace to the people whose lives have already been upended by a warmer climate. They include growers and consumers of one of the most important protein sources in low-income countries: the common bean, a staple in diets from the highlands of Central America to the vast expanses of sub-Saharan Africa.

Scientists tossed aside the shovel and studied cassava roots as they grew in real time, suspended in the air. The innovative use of aeroponics may usher in a new era of science for cassava genetic improvement and sustainable intensification.

The prize intends to award 10 participants from around the globe who have compelling visions of what regenerative and nourishing food environments will look like in 2050. Individuals, organizations, institutions, companies, and other entities across the globe are encouraged to participate.

Throughout his university studies at Africa Nazarene University, where he studied computer science (B.S. degree), Leroy Mwanzia focused on only one thing: software development. So great was his passion that, after graduating, he turned down a computer networking opportunity at East Africa Breweries Limited and instead opted to become a lecturer at an affiliate training center of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), a job that paid much less. Two years later, he went to a different college to teach the UK-based BTEC Higher National Diploma in Computing.

In one day, a cow can eat between 25,000 and 30,000 morsels of grass. What do the differences in these amounts depend on? They will depend on how accessible the grass is to them, and the height of the grass could make a difference.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is the proposed approach in the face of climate variability. The government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Agriculture, is playing an active role in advocating for the uptake of CSA both nationally and subnationally.