News Overview

BY KEIJIRO OTSUKA AND SHENGGEN FAN While agricultural development has long been linked to increased food production and availability, improved farming productivity, and increased incomes for small farmers, the changing global landscape has resulted in agriculture playing a larger role in many other areas of human well-being, including reducing poverty, providing adequate nutrition, improving environmental sustainability, and promoting equity and

Governments and foundations investing in CGIAR are seeing extraordinary value for money, according to a recent international report. The investment has generated a 10 to 1 return, and breeding science is highlighted as a major contributor. Commissioned by the Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR) Foundation, the report entitled The Payoff to Investing in CGIAR Research calls agricultural research “slow magic.” With returns

by Katrina Kosec, Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, Emily Schmidt, and Jie Song Sticky gender attitudes? Researchers typically think of gender attitudes as challenging to move or shape. How individuals see women and their proper roles in society is viewed as sticky—something that might be changed through intensive programs and policy changes, but otherwise deeply entrenched since childhood. This has been a

CGIAR CONTRIBUTORS Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, CIFOR-ICRAF, FTA, WLE TYPE OF INNOVATION Biophysical science Genetic (varieties and breeds) Production system

The AVISA project has rolled out its seed systems strategy in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda with an aim to increase ESA’s varietal turnover rate and boost adoption of improved varieties. Digital seed roadmaps, increasing private seed sector and community seed producer participation, innovating digital tools and building business cases for the crops are part of the strategy. High quality seed

A long term experiment at ICRISAT’s Sadore research station with Ziziphus mauritania (Pomme du Sahel) trees showed pearl millet yields rising by up to 41% in low input conditions. The observations led researchers to recommend ziziphus trees at 80 plants per hectare and helped show how smallholder farmers in Niger’s drylands can increase productivity and income potential two to threefold

Deforestation in Brazil has been soaring the last few years. And its Amazonian state of Pará has the ignoble rank of number one. According to Brazil’s official deforestation data, Pará lost 7.2 million hectares of forest cover between 2000 and 2019, or about 6 percent of its mature forest. Located in the North, the country’s second biggest state after Amazonas, has a

Scientists conducted a sweeping review of nature’s contributions to humans in order to present a clear breakdown of global trends since 1970. Not surprisingly, the results are grim.