News Overview

For the primary beneficiaries of HarvestPlus—smallholder farming families and low-resource consumers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—the rapid expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic caused immediate health threats and increased economic, food, and nutrition insecurity.  To address these challenges, HarvestPlus and its partners pivoted to crisis-response mode. Our 2020 Annual Report, “Responding to Crisis, Building Resilience,” describes steps we and our many

Chickpea farmers have adopted new varieties to achieve commercialisation, say scientists The use of improved crop varieties has created a credible pathway to commercialization for subsistence farmers in Ethiopia. Researchers from World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the Institute for Food and Resource Economics at the University of Bonn, Germany, who studied chickpea ( Cicer arietinum) farmers, contend that this transition can be replicated in

To support dryland farmers’ livelihoods, income, and nutritional security as well as biological diversity and environmental sustainability, ICARDA, alongside its national and international partners and donors, promotes Diversified Cropping Systems (DCS) across Africa, Asia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The challenges faced by small-scale family farmers operating in the world’s drylands to produce nutritious and marketable

The CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals, ‘CRP-GLDC’ is a complex undertaking. Scientists in seven CGIAR centers (ICRISAT, IITA, ICARDA, ICRAF, ILRI and the Alliance of Bioversity International and the CIAT) and three non-CGIAR centers (CIRAD, IRD and CSIRO) along with the private sector, civil society and National Research Institutes strive to improve the production, productivity and

BY GIRMA KASSIE AND SIMLA TOKGOZ In developing countries where agriculture comprises a significant part of the GDP, such as Nigeria and Ethiopia, agrifood value chains are very important, and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers depend on their development and performance. Agricultural and trade policies have implications well beyond the farm, including for consumers, producers, traders, and processors. In this

A large delegation from IITA joined other cassava stakeholders in the official launch of the National Cassava Development Strategy by Tanzania’s Minister of Agriculture on 7 May in the country’s capital, Dodoma. IITA was also among the main sponsors and played a key role in the event’s organization, which provided a forum for all stakeholders to discuss how to operationalize the strategy to commercialize

BY EUGENIO DÍAZ-BONILLA Food systems must function well in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The operation of food systems affects incomes and employment; poverty and food security; diets, health, and nutrition; energy sources and uses; climate change, environmental sustainability, biodiversity, and ecosystems; and even aspects of peace and governance. Yet progress toward SDG2 and its key component,

This spring, Dr. Devra Jarvis retired as a Principal Scientist and Team Leader for Agrobiodiversity in Production Systems at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT. In this blog, she reflects on her quarter-century of research on crop genetic diversity and in situ conservation, sharing her thoughts on progress so far, highlights of her career and the work we still need