News Overview

The past decade has seen a renewed and more comprehensive interest in gender equality and women’s empowerment in agricultural development. This drive has created a unique opportunity to advance gender equality and institutionalize gender research within agricultural research for development (AR4D) organizations. A new book, “Advancing Gender Equality through Agricultural and Environmental Research: Past, Present, and Future,” has been released

To ensure food security and improve the nutrition of Africans, the Genetic Resource Center (GRC) organized a workshop on “Participatory variety selection of African Yam Bean (AYB)” on 20–21 December. The workshop aimed to provide enough seeds of AYB to farmers for increased income and food security. However, this has been hitherto impossible because there are no registered or officially

The IITA Gender Science Network (GSN) held its last quarterly meeting for the year on 8 December. The Network, which comprises social and biophysical scientists, communications staff, and project managers, meets quarterly to monitor its activities, measure progress, identify challenges, and discuss the way forward. The meeting featured highlights of the gender research activities that the Network members did in the third

The IITA Tree Heritage Park (THP), located within the IITA campus in Ibadan and managed by the Forest Center, has been awarded a Level II Accreditation by The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum. The award recognizes THP for meeting identified standards of professional practices deemed essential for arboreta and botanic gardens. The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program is the only global

A factsheet detailing ICARDA’s success at relay-cropping lentil and quinoa crops in Morocco has been added to the World Overview of Conservation Approach and Technologies (WOCAT), which database compiles over 1500 sustainable land management practices. For this experiment, conducted at ICARDA’s Marchouch research station near Rabat, leading agronomist and Conservation Agriculture expert Dr. Mina Devkota intercropped quinoa with lentils in relay.

Olatunde Olufunmike Kechicha is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Imoran Farms Nigeria Limited, which produces juvenile catfish fingerlings to distribute to fish farmers throughout Nigeria. The 28-year-old entrepreneur has received nominations for a multitude of national and international awards for her agricultural work in the country. Most recently, she was awarded the 2020 Aquaculture Awards in the Rising

Umer Yusuf is an energetic farmer living in Bishan Babilie in Ethiopia. Like many farmers in his area, Yusuf is challenged to produce enough healthy food on his farm to keep his wife and nine children food secure and properly nourished. In the field, pests, weeds (e.g., striga) and drought present formidable obstacles. But help for Yusuf and others arrived

The authors map national food system transformations in a recently developed typology, using economic, social, dietary and environmental outcomes to examine whether there are linear patterns as countries move from one categorization to another.