News Overview

CGIAR INITIATIVES Sustainable Healthy Diets Primary Impact Area Nutrition, health & food security Related Impact Areas

Sustainability is also about ensuring that peoples and communities have their needs met and improve their quality of life. For impact investment projects, this is one of the goals, coupled with environmental goals. Having monitoring and evaluation tools that take into account socio environmental characteristics is essential to ensure that sustainable projects also measure their human impact properly. In 2023,

By Waseem Hussain, Mahender Anumalla, Margaret Catolos,  Joie Ramos, Ma Teresa Sta. Cruz, and Myrtel Valenzuela In a landmark study published in The Plant Genome, IRRI scientists unveiled a next-generation flood-tolerant rice germplasm that outperforms current SUB1A varieties by 40–50% in submergence tolerance. This germplasm also exhibits high stagnant flooding tolerance, a trait lacking in SUB1A varieties. Floods Threaten Asia’s Rice Bowl—And SUB1A Alone Isn’t Enough

by Waseem Hussain, Mahender Anumalla, Margaret Catolos, Joie Ramos, Ma. Teresa Sta. Cruz, and Myrtel Valenzuela IRRI scientists are changing how rice is bred for stress-prone areas by shifting the focus from traits to environments. Their new approach, TTE, offers a faster, more reliable path to develop climate-resilient varieties. Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) are shifting the way rice is bred for

The Amazon Biodiversity Fund invested in Cacau Amazonia and created an innovative index to measure social-economic status of rural producers in Rondônia, Brazil. Cacau Amazônia + (CA+) aims to promote sustainable cacao cultivation by supplying high quality seedlings, technical support, infrastructure and training, while also facilitating carbon-credit sales and Payment for Environmental Services (PES). The project is implemented with the

By Rowena Castillo, Benedict Jardinero and Kazuki SaitoInternational Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Indonesian farmer looking at the recommendation provided by Layanan Konsultasi Padi (Rice Crop Manager for Indonesia) through her mobile phone. (Photographed by Jo Anne Holly Torres-Ilagan) When smallholder rice farmers open a text message on their mobile phone and see a tailored fertilizer and crop management recommendation just

Behavioral science experts are exploring how farmers’ decisions globally impact sustainable farming, revealing that understanding human behavior – not just technology – is crucial to driving lasting change in agriculture. Behavioral science is the systematic study of human actions and decision-making processes. In agriculture, it seeks to understand how farmers’ decisions are influenced by a range of internal and

In a push to promote sustainable agriculture and combat groundwater depletion in Bangladesh’s drought-prone Barind region, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has launched a pilot project to encourage the adoption of Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) irrigation practices among local farmers. The Barind area, located in the country’s northwestern region, faces chronic water scarcity due to low rainfall and