Photo credit: Balcony Garden Web

Vegetables that are productive, for example, beans, tomatoes, peppers, etc. are the most suitable for urban gardeners. Other vegetables like spinach, lettuce, carrots take less space and productive too, this way you can grow more plants and have abundant harvest. To help you, we already published a list of the most productive container vegetables, must take a look!

How To Start A Unique Urban Garden To Grow Lots Of Plants In So Less Space

To start an urban garden, you need the right tools, ideas, and some inspiration. This post is all about that!

Do you want to start a small urban garden? Do you have enough space for planting? What if the landlord doesn’t want to have a garden in the compound? Some things like space and time should not stop you from starting a garden.

Read the full article: Balcony Garden Web

Photo credit: ICRISAT

Women at the groundnut processing center. Photo: WOFAN

GROUNDNUT VARIETIES WITH HIGHER OIL CONTENT EMPOWERING WOMEN IN NIGERIA

Using improved varieties of groundnut for processing that offer at least twice the potential quantities of oil for extraction in comparison to local varieties is helping to economically empower women in Nigeria. Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) and ICRISAT are working to promote improved groundnut production technologies for the Yadakwari community in Garun Mallam Local Government Area (LGA) of Nigeria.

The Yadakwari Women’s Community Service Centre is now using these improved varieties to produce more groundnut oil (up to 350 liters per week) in addition to kuli-kuli (a popular local groundnut-based snack; see box). The demand for locally pressed groundnut oil and kuli-kuli is so high that they are being immediately sold in the local markets.

“Improved varieties of groundnut from ICRISAT have brought happiness to many farm-families in…

Role of MAA classifications in regional production. (a) Percentage of food calories produced in each of three regions originating in units classified by MAA. Includes calories delivered from 41 major crops into the food system, as per Cassidy et al. (b) Mean cattle density by unit farm size classification in each of three regions, drawn from Robinson et al. Error bars represent standard error of the mean. (Map by the study’s co-authors.)

‘Researchers at the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment (IonE), United States, have used household census data to map smallholder farms in developing countries.

‘Despite the fact that smallholder and family farms are crucial to feeding the planet, little is known regarding the location and size of smallholder farms. This study attempts to fill this knowledge gap.

‘The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Read the whole article at the University of Minnesota…

I remember one time I was asked to walk 10 kilometers away from home to find a local buyer to sell our marakuja and papaya fruit so that my parents could pay my school fees. This buyer in turn walked 10 kilometers to sell the fruit in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. There were no mobile phones to call each other; there was no other option but to walk these distances. In our village if anyone needed to use pesticide in their coffee plantation, they had to go house-by-house to find a pumping machine. As you can imagine, it would take a long time to ask the whole village.

Nowadays, I feel blessed that I can automatically open my smartphone to check new messages and chat with a group of young farmers on WhatsApp. Actually, these farmers are what I call “the hope for tomorrow.” When I access the WhatsApp group, I can…

Photo credit: FAO

A farming family in Kyrgyzstan takes a break from the day’s work to share a meal.

Malnutrition in the crosshairs

One in three people suffers some form of malnutrition – Enormous economic burden – International meeting searches for ways to improve diets and food systems

Responding to the mounting impacts of malnutrition on public health and economic development — estimated to cost $3.5 trillion per year — via a shift to healthier diets and food systems will be the subject of a high-level symposium kicking off here today.

The International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition (1-2 December) will look at country-level challenges and successes to shed light on effective approaches to reshaping food production, processing, marketing and retail systems to better tackle the problem of malnutrition, which blights the lives of billions of individuals and can trap generations in a vicious cycle…

Photo credit: CIMMYT

A new stress-tolerant maize variety compared in Zimbabwe. CIMMYT/Johnson Siamachira

Focus group led by COSA research partners in October 2015 with members of one of the producer organizations involved in the Kenya impact evaluation

Over the years, the Committee on Sustainable Assessment (COSA) has conducted dozens of experimental and quasi-experiment impact assessments in countries around the world.  COSA employs the most rigorous methodologies available to better understand the social, economic and environmental impacts of agriculture in the belief that credible evidence of what works and what does not will lead to more sustainable practices.  One of the ways that COSA pursues its goals is by conducting statistically significant surveys informed by detailed qualitative research that starts with development of a theory of change and is validated through wide-ranging stakeholder interviews.

We aimed to find out if Producer Organization (PO) management truly affects farmer performance in the way that typical theories of change hypothesize.¹ Producer organizations, according to the FAO…

Photo credit: SciDevNet

Copyright: Flickr/IITA

Could systems research transform Africa’s agriculture?

by Alex ABUTU

I know across Africa, presidents are repositioning their policies to reflect agriculture as the new engine for growth, and are also changing strategies that considered agriculture as a social obligation to a business enterprise.

In Nigeria, for instance, the president launched the green alternative with an agricultural transformation agenda to show how important the administration prioritises agriculture.

But scientists and researchers at a three-day workshop at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Nigeria this week (15-17 November) are discussing the role of systems research in the continent’s quest for food self-sufficiency and security.

Systems research could transform the continent’s agriculture because it creates the necessary platform for scientists and researchers to think and work with policymakers and farmers.

Alex Abutu

Nteranya Sanginga, director-general of IITA, told the audience at the meeting that the…

Anil Regmi was one of the six finalists of GFAR and YPARD’s Youth Argripreneur Project. As one of the YAPpers, he received an intensive training helping her strengthen the business plan proposal presented with measurable milestones. Anil was also able to better engage in social media campaigning activities to ensure his project gained support. In addition, he has now has a mentor to help guide him during this upcoming period and make sure his project does succeed.  

And now, it is 5 months later and he continues to relate his experience thus far…

The purpose of my YAP project was to develop a system to make easier access to agro information easier. There are thousands of products and hundreds of brands on the market, but the average farmer has to buy the one which is available in their local stores. For example, there are 10-12 mini tiller brands available here in Nepal from low…

The International Livestock Research Institute, and other partners in the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics (Humidtropics) have released eight briefs to help CGIAR Research Programs integrate key ‘capacity development in systems’ concepts into their work.

The briefs cover capacity development across individual, community, organizational and system levels. They are intended to help research and development organizations identify entry points for investment in capacity development. The aim is to highlight tools, products or approaches that can support agricultural research
and/or development projects and programs.

The briefs in the series are:

1. Capacity Development in Agri-Food Systems
2. Can Our Research Benefit From ‘Tech, Fun and Games’?: Leveraging Alternative Learning Approaches and Technologies to Enhance R4D Outcomes
3. Coaching: Guided Action Learning on Agricultural Innovation Systems, Integrating Gender and Youth and Nutrition in AR4D
4. Integrated Analysis of Complex Agricultural Problems and Identification of Entry Points for Innovation in…

Photo credit: ScoDevNet

Copyright: Abbie Trayler-Smith/Panos

Women, tech key to curbing food insecurity in Africa

by Pauline Okoth

Every time I hear about hunger and malnutrition, my thoughts drift to the millions of African women who toil on farms, but see their children remain hungry.

At such moments of reflection, I often wonder how vulnerable African women and children can be rescued from this vicious cycle of food insecurity and malnutrition.

When I attended the 6th Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security in Uganda last week (28-30 October), the discussions around the theme “empowering our women, securing our food, improving our nutrition” gave me some insight into what needs to be done to address this issue.

I realised that while the solution to the perennial food security and nutrition…

Photo credit: SciDevNet

Copyright: Flickr/IITA

A step towards better nutrition for African children

by Alex Abutu

• A cassava staple is consumed by more than 130 million people in Nigeria
• Fortifying it with soy could help address protein deficiencies
• An expert urges Africa to embrace the move to address malnutrition in children

Fortification of foodstuffs could be one of the most cost-effective health interventions for addressing micronutrient malnutrition, especially among children in low-resource settings, experts says.

At a workshop hosted by the Nigeria-headquartered International Institute for Tropical Agriculture last month (4-6 October) in Nigeria, experts added that fortified gari — a creamy white or yellow flour with a slightly fermented flavour and a slightly sour taste made from fermented, gelatinised fresh cassava tubers — could ensure the success of the school feeding programme in the country.

“Fortifying it will increase the number of children who survive to five years of…

A farmer leads his sheep and goats to market in Menz, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet).

The contribution of animal-source foods
to global warming cannot be ignored.

But encouraging everyone
to become vegetarian or even vegan
isn’t the silver bullet solution envisioned by some.

Written by Polly Ericksen, program leader at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). This opinion piece was first published on EurActiv.com on 4 Nov 2016.

If we want to fight climate change and contribute to global development, is the solution really as simple as becoming vegetarian or even vegan as is sometimes suggested?

The answer depends greatly on where we live, and the truth is that the global consumption of meat, milk and eggs is much more complex than it may first appear.

For those of us in the developed world the actions we take may need to be quite different from those in the developing world…

A camel train in the Methera region of Oromia, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu).

We can shrink the carbon footprint of livestock,
but we need to properly measure their emissions first.

Written by Polly Ericksen, program leader at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

‘The good news is that the Paris Agreement to tackle global warming has come into force today ahead of the COP22 climate summit in Morocco, marking an unprecedented milestone in international cooperation to protect the planet.

‘The bad news is that the current pledges countries have made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as they stand, are insufficient to meet the goal of preventing global temperatures from increasing by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. It’s like the world has signed up to the gym, but hasn’t made it there to exercise yet. . . .

One thing is certain:

If we are to have any chance of success,

The Policy Round Table of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), meeting in Rome on 17 Oct 2016, discussed the report on Sustainable Agricultural Development for Food Security and Nutrition: What Roles for Livestock? The report had been launched on 1 July in Rome and is now available in all of the UN languages.

Delia Grace, a scientist and program leader at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), served as a member of the High-Level Panel of Experts that produced the livestock report that was finalized this week at the Rome CFS meeting; other ILRI researchers made other substantive contributions.

The Plenary Session of the Committee endorsed a set of recommendations, drafted during preliminary negotiations led by Ambassador Yaya Olaniran (Nigeria).

Proposed draft recommendations
on sustainable agricultural development
for food security and nutrition,
including the role of livestock

1. The following recommendations have been elaborated building…

BETTER SCIENCE, BETTER LIVES
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI),
headquartered in Africa and working in poor countries
worldwide to provide better lives through livestock,
held its Institute Planning Meeting from 4 to 7 Oct 2016.
This is the sixth of a series of blog articles reporting on
plans for ILRI research programs, including ILRI’s
work in west and southern Africa and south, east and southeast Asia.

A central question for ILRI’s Sustainable Livestock Systems program is:
‘What does “sustainable intensification” mean in different contexts?’
—ILRI’s Ben Hack reporting on #ipm2016

ILRI Sustainable
Livestock Systems Program

Polly Ericksen introduced the Sustainable Livestock Systems program by saying that the group of 28 ILRI scientists and some 40 research and other support staff provide data on the environmental footprint of livestock production (e.g. African greenhouse gas emissions data), help partners to design incentives to take up strategies for better environmental management of livestock…

Photo credit: Pixabay

Farmers of the Benna tribe in Ethiopia

CCAFS, CTA Demonstrate Value of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Africa

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) released a book highlighting climate-smart agricultural practices across Africa, based on eight case studies. The book intends to increase awareness of, and support for, agricultural approaches that improve livelihoods and enhance food security while contributing to climate change mitigation.

The case studies cover:

• farmer-managed natural tree regeneration;
• improved market access for dairy products;
• a transboundary tree restoration initiative;
• tree use for drought resistance;
• a regional project for the promotion of fruit trees;
• and tree planting and agricultural extension programmes to enhance agroforestry.

Read more: land-l.iisd

Photo credit: CCAFS – CGIAR

Exchange meeting with farmers on farmer-managed natural regeneration in Niger. Photo: P. Savadogo
(view original)

A real opportunity to scale up Climate-Smart Villages in Niger

In Niger, the World Bank is financing a project inspired by the Climate-Smart Village model of Kampa Zarma.

by Mathieu Ouédraogo (CCAFS West Africa)

In August, the 3N (Nigeriens Nourish Nigeriens) facilitated a formulation workshop of a climate-smart agriculture project in Niger. The CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) West Africa programme was among the attendees of the workshop, which was led by the 3N High Commission in partnership with the World Bank.

About the World Bank-funded CSA project in Niger

Led by the 3N High Commission of Niger, it is a seven year-long project (from 2016 to 2023) with a total budget of USD 111 million. The objective is to…

Local hen and her chick in a village of Mozambique, where production costs for farmers are 30% higher than the cost of importing chicken (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

With a growing appetite for chicken in Africa, BBC Africa’s Kim Chakanetsa investigates why the continent does not produce enough birds to feed itself.

‘If you have eaten a handful of spicy chicken wings in Angola recently or perhaps polished off a lemony “yassa poulet” in Senegal, there is a good chance your chicken travelled some distance before finding its way on to your plate.

‘It depends where you live in Africa, but chickens are increasingly migrating—in freezers—from Brazil, Germany or other European Union countries to the continent.

Imports of chicken to sub-Saharan Africa tripled between 2004 and 2014,
according to figures from the US Department of Agriculture.

‘Here’s a look at reasons behind the huge increase and what can be done…

Cattle being watered at the Ghibe River in southwestern Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

Is it OK to keep eating meat? Or even milk, cheese and eggs?

‘It’s almost guaranteed that this topic will come up whenever dinner table conversation turns to sustainability. Livestock production has been implicated in many of our biggest environmental challenges, from climate change to deforestation to the critical state of many coastal ecosystems.

‘At the same time, animal-sourced foods are excellent sources of protein and other nutrients essential for mental and physical development, especially in young children; not to mention being in high demand among the burgeoning middle classes of emerging economies.

‘So, how do we reconcile our nutritional needs and our taste for animal-based foods with environmental sustainability?

This year’s report by the UN High-level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), which will be discussed during the 43rd session of…

We hadn’t left the Milan Congress 2015 when the YPARD’s Mediterranean team – a group of 25 agriculturists from the South and the North Mediterranean- got together and said: “This was a very rich experience of South-North Mediterranean dialogues for rural development upon which we can reflect, and the discussions and outcomes really highlighted the key role of young people as agents of change in the region. But we can also see limitations in the way we discussed during the congress. So, we would like to propose a new model for the 2018 Congress to boost dynamic interactions among partners.’’

Since then, the YPARD Mediterranean chapter has been taking part in further discussions with current and emerging partners and initiatives leaders towards a series of 2016-2018 Dialogues and a set of actions for better livelihoods in the region.

The team’s objective is to make sure that youth are partof the…

Jean Dubuffet, Vache aux deux arbres (Cow with two trees), 1943, Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art.

This week, Shirley Tarawali, assistant director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), will participate in a panel discussion and launch organized by the Livestock Global Alliance, of which ILRI is one of five members. The other four members are other public institutions with a focus on livestock: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Bank.

The Livestock Global Alliance event will take place on Thu, 26 May 2016, during the 84th General Session of the World Assembly of OIE Delegates, being held this week (22–27 May 2016) in Paris.

What will be raised at the Livestock Global Alliance event? Well, some good (if counterintuitive)…

Boran cattle in Yabello, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/ Camille Hanotte).

By Thumbi Mwangi, Washington State University

A majority of rural households in Africa keep different livestock species. But only a small proportion can afford to keep good quality livestock. This is mainly due to a combination of low government funding and the poor policies of external funders.

Those that do have livestock are faced with the challenges of infectious disease and ill-conceived breeding programmes. This means that they rarely achieve optimum production to meet their household’s economic and nutritional needs.

Households that keep livestock earn higher incomes, accumulate more wealth and consume more animal-sourced foods. They are also more able to pay for healthcare than households without animals.

I grew up on a small farm in rural Kenya. Although my parents earned government salaries working as civil servants, my education was largely paid for by my father’s livestock herd.

Photo credit: FAO

A worker adjusts a plough attachment in Djibo, Burkina Faso. Spare parts must be available for tractors to be useful.

Sustainable mechanization has much to offer in sub-Saharan Africa

Feeding the burgeoning world population will require significant improvements in agricultural productivity, above all in Africa, and mechanization and appropriate mechanization strategies have a large role to play, according to a new report from FAO.

The opportunity must be guided in a way that meets smallholder farmers’ needs and that does not require a Green-Revolution type of approach with high levels of agrochemical inputs and destructive ploughing operations that threaten soil health and fertility, according to FAO’s new report.

(see also: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i6167e.pdf)

Agricultural mechanization: A key input for sub-Saharan African smallholders underlines that agricultural mechanization in the twenty-first century should be environmentally compatible, economically viable, affordable, adapted to local conditions and, in view of current developments in…

Photo credit: CIMMYT

I recently participated in the GODAN Summit. What really struck me was that every speaker at the summit, especially those who spoke at the plenaries, recognised that “Open Data” is much more than opening access to data. They all stressed that it is about managing data from generation to effective use, about equity in its ownership, use and benefits from data use and about economic and social responsibility as generators, managers, custodians and users of data.

The three GODAN papers[i] released at the Summit significantly enlarged the dialogue on open data. There was the key recognition that in an agriculture that is increasingly become knowledge intensive and where decisions need to be made on accurate, reliable information, data is an invaluable resource. Within this recognition was also the fact that there exists severe resource inequality and that resource poor smallholder farmers are also the ones who have poor…

Taking a value chain approach is essential to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, according to scientists working at International Livestock Research Institute project (ILRI). Making smallholder producers more aware of market opportunities will help them make reasonable returns on their investments. Key to this process is the role of market-oriented extension services, facilitating marketing services to smallholder farmers and their enterprises to help improve their incomes.

Download the poster: Legesse, D. 2016. Facilitating market linkages—LIVES project approaches and lessons learned. Poster. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: ILRI.

Capacity development plays a critical enabling role in facilitating the adoption and scaling out of value chain development interventions and approaches by addressing attitudinal, knowledge and skills gaps in value chain actors, service providers and value chain supporters.

A recent poster by scientists at International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) highlights capacity development approaches to market-oriented expansion taken in the Livestock and Irrigation Value chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project. Increasing the skills and knowledge and increasing the sharing of this knowledge will help farmers to receive a greater income. Offering farmers, a pathway to prosperity.

Download the poster: Lemma, M., Hoekstra, D., Gebremedhin, B. and Tegegne, A. 2016. Capacity development for market-oriented agricultural development: Approaches, experiences and lessons learned. Poster. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: ILRI.

By Marco Marzano de Marinis, Secretary General, World Farmers’ Organisation

Antimicrobial resistance, often referred to as AMR, is an increasingly serious threat to global public health.

As the international community is now on the way to implement the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda, there is still an urgent need to increase attention and policy coherence at the international, regional and national levels. Implementation of Goal 3, however, demands a change in mindset from addressing singular issues to taking a more systematic, multi-stakeholders’ approach. Addressing the global nature of many health issues will also be critical to our success. Getting many actors and sectors to coordinate their work with others to achieve a common goal is difficult.

World leaders gathered at the UN headquarters on Wednesday for a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance to explore the growing threat of infections that no longer respond to the drugs used to treat…

Food and nutrition security key to Africa’s development

by Gilbert Nakweya 

Fostering food and nutrition security is key to sustainable development. But access to high quality seeds from research and development by smallholder farmers is still a major challenge to agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In fact, the second goal in the UN’s Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development Goal is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

But how much is Africa investing to improve food security? Is Africa committed to taking leadership in building resilient seed sector for improved food security? Th

Africa requires a continental effort in development of sustainable seed sector through leadership.

Gilbert Nakweya

ese were some of the issues I pondered over during the Integrated Seed Sector Development (ISSD) Africa Synthesis Conference in Kenya this week (19-20 September). The conference drew agricultural experts from all over the world to…