News Overview

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

Their 50-year modelling unveils a mixed picture: yes, land can regain fertility and resilience if we feed soils more; but under warming and increasingly erratic rains, these benefits weaken and vary greatly across territories. A lesson in science and field realities, published on October 1, 2025, and authored by Wuletawu Abera, Amsalu Tilaye, Degefie Tibebe and Assefa Abegaz. View original article

BRAINS enters its second year, uniting 15 African countries to boost climate resilience through beans, beneficial insects, and fruit trees—scaling innovations, empowering farmers, and transforming agriculture into a digital, inclusive movement. What began as an unlikely combination of beans, beneficial insects and fruit trees is now blossoming into one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most innovative agricultural transformations – a powerful

Climate change makes life incredibly difficult for smallholder farmers, but the programs meant to help them adapt, known as Locally Led Adaptation (LLA), often face a major hurdle: fairness. Too often, project benefits are ‘captured’ by powerful local figures or community elites, leaving the most vulnerable groups—like women, young men, and the poorest families—behind. This makes existing inequalities worse and

by Afreen Khan1, Mamatha Goundla2, Ranjitha Puskur1 1 International Rice Research Institute 2Centre for Sustainable Agriculture Introduction Seeds are vital to agriculture, affecting productivity, climate resilience, nutritional outcomes, and biodiversity (Kramer and Galiè, 2020). The choice of seed is not just about yield or technical performance. It is a negotiation between tradition and innovation, between household food needs, market incentives

Stakeholders visit the River Level Station on the Lower Sabie River, Kruger National Park, South Africa. Photo: Ryan Nehring/IFPRI By Ryan Nehring, Buyani Fakudze, Jonathan Lautze The new IncoMaputo multi-stakeholder platform ensures that farmers, civil society and businesses from Eswatini, Mozambique and South Africa are directly involved in the management of their shared rivers. In a milestone for transboundary water governance, the Incomati