The United Nations predicts that we need to increase food production globally by 70 percent to feed 9.6 billion people by 2050. But at the same time, given the climate crisis, we need to significantly reduce the use of energy, water, and land needed to produce food and lower its carbon footprint. In other words, we must figure out how to produce and distribute more food using fewer resources and emissions. We must learn to do farming better with less.
Colombia produces more sugar per month on one hectare of land than any other country. This privilege is due to the productivity of sugar cane grown in the Cauca River valley, where 14 processing plants operate nearly year-round to produce sugar, honey, bioethanol, and electrical energy. The cane is supplied by 2750 growers, owners of 75 percent of the 240 000 hecatres planted, and by the sugar mills themselves (25 percent of the area). The sugar cane chain provides more than 286 000 direct and indirect jobs.
Food and Nutritional Security (FNS), understood as the availability and access to quality food, is fundamental for human development. The sustainability and progress of the agricultural sector are essential to maintain a food supply in quantity and quality. In the department of Córdoba, multidimensional poverty is twice as high for rural areas (51.9 percent) as compared to urban areas (23.3 percent). Thus, rural producers' role in boosting the local economy, contributing to generating jobs and FNS is essential.
Local stakeholders and agricultural producers in Latin America have limited access to agroclimatic information and, when they do gain access to it, they have difficulty translating it into understandable and actionable knowledge. While climate services are recognized as contributing to bridging the gap between the generation of climate information and its use by stakeholders, their provision and use in Latin America still represents critical challenge.
Insufficient availability and access to affordable and nutritious animal feeds constitute the most severe problem in pig and poultry value chains in Rwanda.
In recent years, much has been accomplished to develop the small livestock subsector in Rwanda. The Livestock Master Plan (LMP) 2017–2022 and the Fourth Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation (PSTA 4) 2018–2024 have proposed and attracted investments that have improved productivity of small livestock value chains including better piggery and poultry genetics, feeds and health services. However, this subsector still faces many problems related to policy and the enabling environment.
An assessment of the Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) of Rwanda’s small livestock sub-sector was conducted in 2021. This report describes the AIS of the small livestock sub-sector in terms of key functions, the underlying causes of their performance, and opportunities for improvement. It presents priorities and entry points for strengthening the AIS of the small livestock sub-sector in Rwanda, with focus on key organisations and the policy level.
This collection of posters from the TAP-AIS project illustrates key achievements of the project towards strengthening national agricultural innovation systems (AIS) in Africa (Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal), Latin America (Colombia), Asia and the Pacific (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Pakistan). For each of these nine countries, and for their respective regions, the posters provide: i) thematic focus and context; ii) constraints in the AIS; iii) capacity development interventions; iv) outcomes; v) the way forward.
Droughts are causing severe damages to tropical countries worldwide. Although water abundant, their resilience to water shortages during dry periods is often low. As there is little knowledge about tropical drought characteristics, reliable methodologies to evaluate drought risk in data scarce tropical regions are needed.
The government of Rwanda is promoting agricultural intensification focused on the production of a small number of targeted commodities as a central strategy to pursue the joint policy goals of economic growth, food security and livelihood development. The dominant approach to increase the productive capacity of the land, crops and animal resources has been through large-scale land consolidation, soil fertility management, and the intensive use of biotechnology and external inputs.