Forest Tenure

In developing countries, agricultural cooperatives are increasingly being used to promote improved agricultural technologies and alleviate food insecurity and poverty. However, little is known about the role of agricultural cooperatives in accelerating the adoption of improved agricultural technologies.

Van Yen District in Yen Bai Province represents the general terrain conditions and farming systems of the northern mountainous region of Vietnam. It has suffered land degradation due to soil erosion and nutrient depletion, which in turn led to declined crop yield, and food insecurity. The district experienced these impacts due to unsustainable upland agricultural practices.

Smallholder farmers grow a major share of the food consumed around
the world and preserve rich, biodiverse landscapes.1
But despite their
fundamental importance, many small farmers lead lives of deepening
vulnerability – caught between subsistence strategies threatened by
ecological degradation and commercial food systems that devalue them

Yam (Dioscorea sp.) is an understudied tuber crop despite its importance for food security, income generation, culture, and health in West Africa. Traditional yam cropping practices in West Africa deliver low yields and lead to environmental degradation.

SPIA has developed a comprehensive, country-level approach to documenting the adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations linked to CGIAR research. The first focal country for this approach is Ethiopia, where SPIA has been working since 2015.
The approach involves three stages:

The Cotonou Partnership Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the Organisation of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) countries, the legal and financial framework that supported the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), was due to end on 28 February 2020. As a consequence, CTA was also set to close.

This study assessed the impact of engagements by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) at policy and household levels in Kenya. Specifically, the study assessed the extent to which CCAFS engagement contributed to the observed changes in terms of shaping policy and climate-smart agriculture (CSA) coordination among others.

An innovative water-measurement and accounting tool developed and tested by WLE/IWMI and partners, "smart sticks", have proven successful in improving water accounting in Uzbekistan irrigation associations. They enable associations to automatically record how much water has been delivered to which farmers.

The report "Towards a cocoa and chocolate chain free of deforestation and low in greenhouse gas emissions: Current status, opportunities with a value chain approach and plan of action" presents an input for the development of a cocoa chain free of deforestation and low in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the Ucayali region.

This study examines women's bundles of rights to exploit the pods of a valuable food-tree species in Burkina Faso, Parkia biglobosa, locally known as néré. In West Africa, néré pods have traditionally been collected and processed by women and sold as soumbala, a highly-valued condiment.