News Overview

BY SHYAMAL CHOWDHURY, NAHIAN BIN KHALED, KALYANI RAGHUNATHAN, SHAHIDUR RASHID AND HONOR DEARLOVE Bangladesh’s March-May 2020 COVID-19 lockdown has had severe consequences for the incomes and food security of poor households. Public food transfer programs have traditionally been the most common social protection programs in Bangladesh. The largest, the Food Friendly Program (FFP), was favorably evaluated in 2018, but during

On April 22-23, President Biden hosted a virtual Leaders Summit on Climate to catalyze global ambition to address the climate crisis. The Summit convened world leaders to galvanize efforts to keep the vital goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach. As part of this effort, USAID will launch new initiatives that help address the climate crisis, including:

Dignitaries, researchers, and private sector representatives gathered this week in southwestern Georgia to celebrate the opening of potato seed model farm that will provide ideas, training and high-quality seed to potato farmers throughout the country. The seed model farm is one part of the USAID Potato Program in Georgia, a multi-faceted intervention to improve potato seed systems in the country.

The double burden of malnutrition—the coexistence of underweight and micronutrient deficiencies with overweight and obesity—has become a major global public health concern. It is particularly acute in rapidly expanding urban areas, where the ready availability of cheap, processed foods and sugary drinks along with increasingly sedentary lifestyles have contributed to overnutrition, particularly among poorer populations. At the same time, socioeconomic

Ask any child who is well versed in Aesop’s fables and you will learn that golden eggs can be a source of continual or guaranteed success or wealth. And in that vein, successful agricultural research and development innovations that sustainably contribute to food and nutrition security and better livelihoods for all can be like golden eggs. The CGIAR Research Program

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) announced a new three-year public–private partnership with the German development agency GIZ and the beverage company Grupo Modelo (AB InBev) to recharge aquifers and encourage water-conserving farming practices in key Mexican states. The partnership, launched today, aims to contribute to a more sustainable use of water in agriculture. The project will promote

A team of researchers in India has bettered an immensely popular pearl millet hybrid, HHB 67 Improved, endowing it with 58% higher resistance to downy mildew (DM) disease. The latest improvement has also increased the hybrid’s blast resistance by 12%, grain yield by 15% and dry fodder yield by 21% while retaining its hallmark early-maturity trait. Researchers at ICRISAT partnered

Historically, most of Malawi’s food has been produced by small-scale farmers operating on less than one acre. With poorly developed supply chains, persistent droughts and suboptimal crop yields, food production is largely characterized by subsistence farming. These challenges to subsistence farming are further exacerbated by increasingly common climate extremes, inadequate crop diversification, overdependence on rainfed… The post Biofortified sweetpotato improving