News Overview

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

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI), under the CGIAR Scaling for Impact (S4I) Program, hosted a hybrid capacity-building day to strengthen the team’s understanding of scaling science and practices. With colleagues joining both in person and online, the event created an inclusive space for learning, reflection, and collaboration across regions. At its heart, the day echoed S4I’s learning ambition: to

by Zakaria Hasan, CIMMYT  Born in the remote village of Hatash Haripur in Kushtia, Bangladesh, Md. Al-Helal’s early life was defined by hardship. His father, a daily laborer, and his mother, a homemaker, struggled to make ends meet. Forced to leave school at 13, Al-Helal began working at a small engineering workshop for less than 50 cents a week. What

The Scaling Week in Latin America and the Caribbean strengthened a shared vision: scaling with responsibility and inclusion is the path to building more resilient, equitable, and sustainable agri-food systems.   By Daniela Arce Gómez, Communications Coordinator, Climate Action Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, and regional communications focal point for the CGIAR Scaling for Impact program in

By Kaniz Tamanna, Zakaria Hasan and Bharathi Parupalli, CIMMYT Shorifa Khatun (38) has overcome societal constraints to become a flourishing seedling entrepreneur in Shailkupa Upazila, Jhenaidah District, Bangladesh. Her entrepreneurial success story was enabled by the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia-Mechanization Extension Activity (CSISA-MEA), an initiative working on the empowerment of women in the nation’s agricultural landscape. In 2021, Shorifa

By Kafil Uddin, CIMMYT and Zakaria Hasan, CIMMYT In Chakaria, a coastal upazila in Cox’s Bazar, farming has long been labor-intensive, costly, and vulnerable to natural calamities. Far from the country’s light engineering hubs, local farmers often struggled to access agricultural machinery and spare parts. Yet, from these challenges emerged the inspiring journey of Md. Abdul Matlab (42), a farmer-turned-entrepreneur who

An innovative early warning system powered by artificial intelligence is poised to transform how Africa confronts a silent but deadly threat to its food supply: aflatoxin contamination in maize. The Aflatoxin risk Early Warning System (A-EWS) uses machine learning and satellite data to predict and map contamination hotspots, offering a powerful new weapon in the fight for food safety. The tool was

By Patti Petesch, Eleanor Fisher, Jon Hellin and Chona Echavez  Our social world appears to spin in ways that reinforce social inequities and environmental degradation. These dispiriting forces are the case in so many of the world’s smallholder communities, discouraging countless local women’s and men’s initiatives to reduce the vulnerability of their agricultural livelihoods and exposure to severe heatwaves, droughts,