News Overview

As experts meet online for the Future Directions of Subseasonal to Seasonal Predication over South Asia, researchers from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the International Water Management Institute discuss the potential of subseasonal weather forecasting – and the important role it can play to optimize agricultural production and help reduce farmer vulnerability to climate-related disasters. Economic losses from weather-related shocks have doubled in India over

Breeders, economists, gender specialists, and food technologists gathered to advance new approaches to breeding crop varieties that people will want. A two-day online “hackathon” jointly organized by the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) and the Excellence in Breeding Platform focused on key improvements to the impact of breeding programs. As these clonally-propagated crops are a foundation

Dr Anxious Masuka, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement, during a recent visit to the ICRISAT Matopos Research Center, called for continued close collaboration between the Government of Zimbabwe and ICRISAT to ensure the benefits of research quickly reach poorly-resourced communal farmers and help Zimbabwe achieve a middle income economy by 2030. Dr Masuka informed that

A team of researchers has zeroed in on little millet germplasm with high nutrients, high yield and biomass potential following analysis of the crop’s 200 landraces conserved at ICRISAT’s Genebank in India. These landraces hold the key to developing nutritious and high-yielding varieties of the crop, which can prove significant for food systems in drylands facing changing climate, the scientists

Two improved groundnut varieties have helped a group of farmers in Ghana increase their yields five-fold, breaking a three-decade stranglehold on the crop’s productivity. The improved varieties, SARINUT 1 and SARINUT 2, are also combating devastating afflictions of groundnut production like leaf spot disease in the country’s Savanna Region. The farmers’ group, Soglokonbo Groundnut Farmers Association in the region’s East

Two improved groundnut varieties have helped a group of farmers in Ghana increase their yields five-fold, breaking a three-decade stranglehold on the crop’s productivity. The improved varieties, SARINUT 1 and SARINUT 2, are also combating devastating afflictions of groundnut production like leaf spot disease in the country’s Savanna Region. The farmers’ group, Soglokonbo Groundnut Farmers Association in the region’s East

The value added of new cowpea variety The IT89KD-288 dual-purpose cowpea variety, producing grain and fodder for animal and human consumption is increasingly considered attractive, thanks to increased income per household improving livelihoods. Since the development in 1990s, as a key driver to agricultural income growth, the cowpea varieties have made impact on the poorest people in Nigeria. The standalone innovation (variety)

With Africa’s population predicted to double by 2050, creating challenges such as high unemployment rates, low income, food insecurity, and persistent poverty, there needs to be a systemic change targeting the continent’s youth, who will make up about 60% of the overall population. IITA Director General Nteranya Sanginga highlighted some of the required systemic changes in a joint IPS News Agency op-ed with Young Africa Works