The main goal of the study is to quantify the effects of a) change in nitrogen fertilization rate, b) adjustment of sowing date, c) implementation of new cultivars, and d) supplementary irrigation on maize cropping systems across six African countries including Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso. For this purpose, 30 years (1980-2010) of climate data are used as well as soil and management information obtained from global datasets at 0.5° x 0.5° spatial resolution.
The study analyzes the current state of Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education and Training (ATVET) in Africa and presents its challenges and opportunities. A review of the ATVET in selected Sub-Saharan Africa countries shows that there are far too few training opportunities for young people and that often, the training offered does not match the needs of the private sector and of local administrations. ATVET trainings focus primarily on production skills and on producers themselves with
The markets and value chains approach has recently become fashionable in agricultural development interventions. So too have innovation platforms. This brief shows how innovation platforms can be a useful vehicle to promote market development. It is available in Chinese, English, Hindi, Thai and Vietnamese.
The objective of this paper is to show how Value Chain Analysis for Development (VCA4D) applied sustainable development concept for value chain analysis to establish a manageable set of criteria allowing to provide quantitative information, which is desperately lacking in many situations in developing economies, usable by decision makers and in line with policymakers concerns and strategies (the “international development agenda”).
The 2021 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2021) highlights the remarkably high severity and numbers of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent in 55 countries/territories, driven by persistent conflict, pre-existing and COVID-19-related economic shocks, and weather extremes. The number identified in the 2021 edition is the highest in the report’s five-year existence. The report is produced by the Global Network against Food Crises (which includes WFP), an international alliance working to address the root causes of extreme hunger.
The paper describes the existing mechanisms of innovation diffusion particularly focusing on the initial phase to introduce the results of innovative projects into the government system of Uzbekistan. The paper aims to analyze the existing bureaucratic, legal and political matrix for the introduction of ZEF project innovations into practice. The innovations developed by the staff of the ZEF/UNESCO project in Uzbekistan range from their content and purpose of use from technological to institutional ones. The innovations considered in this paper are mainly technological ones.
Technological innovations have driven economic development and improvement in living conditions throughout history. However, the majority of smallholder farmers in sub‐Saharan Africa have seldom adopted or used science‐based technological innovations. Consequently, several scholars have been persistently questioning the effectiveness of intervention models in smallholder agriculture.
This working paper provides the following text as a abstract:
This paper presents a case study of the Honey Bee Network’s decentralized model for collecting, verifying and disseminating grassroots innovations and provides a roadmap for its replication in Africa. The Honey Bee Network brings together governmental and non‐governmental institutions, members of academia, scholars and a large number of volunteers.
This report is a summary of the several activities pursued within the Program of Accompanying Research for Agricultural Innovation (PARI) to contribute to sustainable agricultural growth, food and nutrition security in Africa and India. The Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Tropics and Subtropics worked in the identification of technological innovations and further intervention in the dairy value chain, offering a potential solution for cooling milk from the earliest stage of milk production and