East Africa

Innovation platforms (IPs) form a popular vehicle in agricultural research for development (AR4D) to facilitate stakeholder interaction, agenda setting, and collective action toward sustainable agricultural development. This article in the Science and Public Policy Journal, aims to systematically research the dynamics of stakeholder composition throughout IPs and tries to analyze how seven ‘key functions’ of the innovation process are fulfilled. »

This report presents results of field testing a new and affordable food grade plastic container (the “Mazzican“) to assess acceptability and validate its efficacy to improve the bacteriological quality of milk when it is used for handling and transportation of raw milk by agro-pastoralists and smallholder farmers. »

This series of Technical Guidance Documents by FAO and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) addresses the need for mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services into agriculture, at the national level. More specifically, it is aimed to assist countries in developing and implementing their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSA Ps), to consider ecosystem services – and opportunities for their management – in agricultural production systems. »

This article discusses the gender dimensions of moving towards a more balanced use of nitrogen fertilizer. For agriculture to play a role in climate change mitigation strategies to reduce emissions from inorganic nitrogen fertilizer through a more balanced and efficient use are necessary. Such strategies should align with the overarching principle of sustainable intensification. »

This special of Agricultural Systems focuses on prioritising climate-smart agricultural (CSA) interventions at different scales. Currently, there are few tools that can comprehensively evaluate the range of potential technologies and practices and their possible impacts on food production, environmental sustainability, and mitigation in any context. Therefore, what remains is the prioritization of interventions for investment and broad dissemination. This special issue brings together nine papers describing a wide range of approaches and tools. »

This working paper by CGIAR contains a systematic review of 175 peer-reviewed and grey literature studies, to gauge the impact of over seventy potential climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices on CSA outcomes in Tanzania and Uganda. Climate-smart agriculture is being widely promoted as a solution for food insecurity and climate change adaptation in food systems of sub-Saharan Africa, while simultaneously reducing the rate of greenhouse gas emissions. »