Africa

This book provides a detailed explanation on optimizing fertilizer use within an Integrated Soil Fertility Management Framework in 13 African countries. The book shares the findings of the Optimizing Fertilizer Recommendations in Africa (OFRA) project. The last chapter elaborates on enabling fertilizer use optimization, and how to maximize potential profits of fertilizer use while taking the farmer’s context into account and keeping risks low. At the farm level enabling fertilizer use optimization is in early stages for most countries but considerable experience has been gained from Uganda, as well as Kenya and Tanzania. »

This info-note by CGIAR, USAID and FAO presents the results on the decrease in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the Rwanda Dairy Competitiveness Program II (RDCP). It was estimated to have resulted in a strong decrease in the GHG emissions intensity of milk production. The increase in milk output was proportionally much larger than the associated increase in GHG emissions. This increase in the efficiency of dairy production systems was the basis for a transformation to more sustainable production patterns in intensive and extensive dairy systems. »

This article discusses value chain approaches as innovative strategies to enhance the nutritional impact of agriculture. These approaches use supply chains to add value (usually economic) to products as they move from producers to consumers. However, they can also be used to increase access to nutritious foods and improve nutritional status. »

This book on Routledge by Ingrid Oborn, Bernard Vanlauwe, Michael Phillips, Richard Thomas, Willemien Brooijmans and Kwesi Atta-Krah, describes different aspects of systems research in agriculture in its broadest sense, where the focus is moved from farming systems to livelihoods systems and institutional innovation. Much of the work represents outputs of three CGIAR Research Programs on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics, Aquatic Agricultural Systems and Dryland Systems. »

This article, published in the Agriculture and Food Security journal, was synthesized from several scholarly literature and aimed at providing information on climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, policies and institutional mechanisms that each agriculture subsector had put in place in dealing with climate change and its related issues in West Africa. »

Increasingly, value chain approaches are integrated with multi-stakeholder processes to facilitate inclusive innovation and value chain upgrading of smallholders. This pathway to smallholder integration into agri-food markets has received limited analysis. This article in the The European Journal of Development Research analyses this integration through a case study of an ongoing smallholder dairy development programme in Tanzania. »