News Overview

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center is working with its partners to support farmers in Zimbabwe embrace conservation agriculture and improved seed varieties to achieve more successful harvests in areas affected by climate change. The R4 Rural Resilience and ZAMBUKO initiatives aim to help farmers through a number of activities. These include demonstrations of seed and conservation agriculture, field

The origins of the CGIAR, the world’s largest publicly funded agricultural research consortium for the poor, are closely related to the Green Revolution; a revolution mostly told as the work of one Western hero with a superior technology that saved the world from starvation. Only recently has the notion that the introduction of that superior technology was one of many

For the first time in Zambia, a special Ministry of Agriculture committee has endorsed innovative sustainable intensification practices to diversify maize-based farming systems and boost the food and nutritional security of millions of small farm households, while enriching depleted soils. Zambia’s recently formed “National Advisory Committee for the Approval/Validation of Candidate Technologies or Agronomic Practices” approved in September the release

The intersection between agriculture and peace has been brought to the forefront of the news agenda this year due to the Ukraine crisis, which has caused widespread disruption to wheat supply chains – disruptions that are contributing to food insecurity for millions of people worldwide. Agriculture was therefore a compulsory topic for the International Week of Science and Peace, and

With rising demand for food, it is more critical than ever to address the challenge of crop losses due to pests and diseases. Current limited understanding of the extent of the problem prevents the advancement and implementation of plant health solutions. Global scientific collaboration is integral to ensure policy recommendations are well-informed by robust evidence and therefore more likely to

When the Norwegian Red Cross hired Kristian Wengen and his consulting firm Tinkr to launch a “Scaling for Success” initiative, he found himself at a crossroads. From international aid projects aiming to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to private companies seeking to expand their market, everyone was talking about the challenges of scaling up – expanding and sustaining

The two-wheel tractor has been a life changer for Ranganai Muzorori. At a recent seed and mechanization fair in Zimbabwe, the maize farmer, who purchased the tractor on a lease-to-own basis, said he now enjoys bigger earnings. Not only has he realized a significant change in his income due to the tractor, he no longer has to struggle to shell

The paired challenges of population growth and climate change have put smallholder farmers in Zambia in a squeeze. In the Southern Province, the center of agricultural production for the nation, smallholder dairy farmers struggle to increase their production of fodder to commercially viable levels in the face of a long dry season that climate change is intensifying. Smallholder farmers looking