Climate change makes life incredibly difficult for smallholder farmers, but the programs meant to help them adapt, known as Locally Led Adaptation (LLA), often face a major hurdle: fairness. Too often, project benefits are ‘captured’ by powerful local figures or community elites, leaving the most vulnerable groups—like women, young men, and the poorest families—behind. This makes existing inequalities worse and
by Afreen Khan1, Mamatha Goundla2, Ranjitha Puskur1 1 International Rice Research Institute 2Centre for Sustainable Agriculture Introduction Seeds are vital to agriculture, affecting productivity, climate resilience, nutritional outcomes, and biodiversity (Kramer and Galiè, 2020). The choice of seed is not just about yield or technical performance. It is a negotiation between tradition and innovation, between household food needs, market incentives
Stakeholders visit the River Level Station on the Lower Sabie River, Kruger National Park, South Africa. Photo: Ryan Nehring/IFPRI By Ryan Nehring, Buyani Fakudze, Jonathan Lautze The new IncoMaputo multi-stakeholder platform ensures that farmers, civil society and businesses from Eswatini, Mozambique and South Africa are directly involved in the management of their shared rivers. In a milestone for transboundary water governance, the Incomati
Every harvest season in Africa, food is lost or wasted at staggering levels. Nigeria loses 45% of its 3.9 million tons of tomato harvest each year to postharvest losses and supply chain inefficiencies. Kenya loses up to 40% of the food it produces–around 9 million tons worth KES 72 billion (approximately US$578 million)–even as one in four citizens struggles daily to find enough to
In the Cumbal Indigenous Reserve, located in the Nariño department in southern Colombia, there is an impressive diversity of cultivated and wild trees and plants, including many neglected and underutilized species. However, this diversity is fragile. In one or more of the villages, certain species and varieties have already disappeared. The Alliance and its partners are developing several strategies
Premalata Behera, a 40-year-old member of Maa Women Self Help Group and resident of the Dalimbapur fishing village, comes from a long line of coastal fishers in Odisha, India. For generations, her community has relied on the dried fish trade as a vital source of income. However, Premalata and her group members faced persistent challenges running their dried fish business.
On October 3, the EAT–Lancet Commission released its latest report on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems in Stockholm, Sweden. Building on the landmark 2019 report, this new assessment expands its scope beyond diets to consider the entire food system, placing justice and equity at the center, while also strengthening the evidence base through advanced modelling of dietary scenarios and
By Dr. T. S. Amjath Babu, Senior Agricultural Economist, CIMMYT; Md. Masud Rana, Project Portfolio Coordinator, CIMMYT; and Dipok K. Choudhury, Research Associate, CIMMYT Dhaka, Bangladesh – The Mitigation Marketplace and Workshop, held on September 30, 2025, at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, marked a pivotal step in Bangladesh’s journey toward climate-smart agriculture. Jointly organized by the World Bank and