Forest Tenure

Climate change has intensified food security challenges, especially in Africa, where a significant portion of produce is reliant on smallholder farmers in rainfed conditions. Prolonged flooding and droughts, driven by erratic weather patterns, have significantly elevated the risk of food scarcity.

Silvopastoral systems, integrating trees, shrubs, and livestock, offer an innovative approach to sustainable land use. Key to success is the strategic selection of forage crops, tailored to climatic and soil conditions, promoting system resilience and productivity.

Diseases have been threatening banana plantations across the world including Burundi; causing the lack of clean planting material. Stakeholders of banana sector have been producing plantlets from vitroculture or macropropagation and acclimating them in community nurseries before distribution.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), one of the research centers within the global Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has a long history of gender research relevant to its mission of reducing poverty and ending hunger and malnutrition.

As part of the Livestock and Climate initiative, we have been working together with MediaE to improve the advisories related to climate and financial aspects of agriculture. For instance, we have been developing content on Shamba Shape-Up (SSU) television episodes which is one of the products of MediaE.

Accurate crop yield prediction is crucial for optimizing agricultural practices and ensuring food security. The NextGen advisory is a fertilizer recommendation system that can be customized for different farming systems, crop types, and locations.

Over the last decades, the government of Ethiopia has taken several measures to achieve food security for its population. However, crop production is still below the optimal possible. Studies show that wheat, maize, and sorghum yields in Ethiopia are about 26.8, 19.7, and 29.3 % of their water-limited yield potentials. Some legumes such as common bean even experience higher yield gap of 35.5%.

As part of the AICCRA, the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) are tasked to develop curricula and training materials to accelerate the mainstreaming of Climate Information Services (CIS) and Climate- Smart Agriculture (CSA) into University’s curricula in Africa.