Knowledge Portal

The Practice Briefs by The Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA) intend to provide practical operational information on climate-smart agricultural practices. This practice brief (PDF) focuses on Coffee-Banana Intercropping (CBI) to address all 3 pillars of CSA in a multifaceted way. »

In this article on the CGIAR website, Michael Halewood of Bioversity International reports on the workshop ‘Mutual Implementation of the Plant Treaty and the Nagoya Protocol in the context of wider policy goals’, held Nov. 16-20 in Addis Ababa. The meeting focused on how countries can identify and access diversity they need and share associated benefits. »

This paper by Nassul Kabunga, Shibani Ghosh and Jeffrey K. Griffiths, aims to empirically infer potential causal linkages between fruit and vegetable (F&V) production, individual F&V intake, household food security, and anemia levels for individual women caregivers of childbearing age. Using a unique and rich dataset collected from rural smallholder Ugandan households, the authors show that the use of a qualitative tool to measure household food insecurity is robust and applicable in other contexts. »

In this interview the former president of Nigeria discusses the critical factors responsible for food insecurity and youth unemployment in sub-Saharan Africa. He argues that there are numerous actions that governments could take to address obstacles for youth to get involved in agriculture. He believes that removing these obstacles can prevent both massive youth unemployment and food insecurity in Africa. »

This report (PDF) by Farm Africa, highlights how support to small and medium agriculture businesses is key to driving rural economic development in East Africa. These ‘first mile’ businesses play a vital role in connecting small-scale farming to wider markets by buying their produce or supplying goods to them. This report maps the various financial instruments that should be provided for agricultural SMEs’ needs, enabling them to grow. »

This paper in Oxford Review of Economic Policy, describes the ways in which changing consumption patterns and production technologies have altered the boundaries between agriculture and food. The authors argue that regulatory systems and policies still tend to equate food with farming, reflecting the realities of the last century more than the policy challenges of today. »