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Coffee value chain, meet the blockchain:...
Everyone in the coffee industry craves information, perhaps even more than a morning jolt of caffeine. Across Uganda – one of the world’s top ten coffee producers – scientists, producers, industry, and the government collect data on coffee production. They ...
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Coffee value chain, meet the blockchain: cryptocurrency technology shows promise for the world’s favorite commodity
Everyone in the coffee industry craves information, perhaps even more than a morning jolt of caffeine. Across Uganda – one of the world’s top ten coffee producers – scientists, producers, industry, and the government collect data on coffee production. They do this to obtain valuable information, ranging from yield and ... ➤
Simplyfying soil data management in sub-Saharan Africa
The idea of visualizing soil data at a glance electronically is exciting to many actors in agriculture and land-use planning. Previously, soil characterization required traveling to the field to collect soil samples and sending them to the lab for analysis. Digital maps, however, save the time (travel, carry soils samples ... ➤
Grass transforms farmers’ fortune
This was Rachel Kinyua’s experience before she met the team from the Piloting of Improved Brachiaria and Panicum Forages for Increased Livestock Production – a joint project between CIAT and the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) in Kenya ... ➤
New development partnership brings much-needed investment for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in the Amazon
A new, first of its kind impact investment was launched 7 November to bring much-needed financial support for sustainable development in the Brazilian Amazon. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), as a cornerstone investor in the Althelia Biodiversity Fund Brazil (ABF), sees this as a unique opportunity to support ... ➤
Agriculture AI Brain
The Inter-American Development Bank, through its innovation lab – IDB Lab, approved US$2 million funding for a project that will improve the productivity and sustainability of rice farming in Colombia ... ➤
The Champion who created an App to identify banana diseases
Michael Selvaraj is the leader of the Phenomics Platform team from the Agrobiodiversity Area at CIAT. He is a Champion, because he developed the smartphone App Tumaini, which makes it possible to identify five diseases and one pest affecting banana plants ... ➤
Ugandans and Kenyans in cities happy to pay for food that is more nutritious
Malnutrition remains a serious problem for many people in East Africa. Poor consumers are willing to pay a premium for healthier foods, pointing to a new strategy for improving nutrition at a large scale ... ➤
Fighting hunger through the mapping of key food systems indicators in the 1000 poorest communes of Vietnam
The EATS and CIAT have started to gather, synthesize and make accessible existing food system data on the poorest communes to the Zero Hunger agency. The final result from the synthesis is a website where users can see maps of key food systems indicators in the provinces of the poorest ... ➤
Sharing new approaches to bring together gender, youth, nutrition and climate
Representatives from farmer’s organisations from southern African countries, from the Government of Mali and Ethiopia, IFAD project staff and donors recently participated in a one-week learning journey in Ethiopia, focused on transformative approaches to mainstream climate, gender, nutrition and youth. The purpose of the journey, organised by the CGIAR Research ... ➤
Artificial intelligence and farmer knowledge boost smallholder maize yields
Data-driven agriculture can boost smallholder production threatened by weather and climate change, but data scientists need to work with farmers and governments. Four years of collaboration in Colombian maize fields shows what success looks like ... ➤
Sara Rankin, the researcher from Cali who promotes urban agriculture as more than just producing food
Sara Rankin was born in Cali and she is a researcher from the Sustainable Food Systems team at CIAT. This Champion has worked towards understanding the food system in Cali to develop a municipal public policy on food safety and sovereignty that meets the specific needs of this territory, among ... ➤
To improve nutrition for the poorest consumers, try a market-based approach
Uganda’s newest health food craze began in the slums of Kampala. It started when a handful of women tried an unusual porridge, which is made from five grains grown in nearby hillsides, instead of their normal porridge, which is typically made from a single main ingredient like maize. Soon they ... ➤
Interactive Stories
Newly released interactive infographics show how the so-called “globalized diet” has emerged. They unearth a number of surprises about the foods we eat across the world. Who’d have thought ...
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Five surprising ways people’s diets have changed over the past 50 years
What he’s looking for is something more ancient than the Incas, and potentially more valuable than all their silver and gold ...
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On the trail of ancient treasure in Peru
When many people hear the word cassava, they immediately think of a subsistence crop. Is this really the case? It depends on who you ask ...
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Cassava: Subsistence Crop or Trendy Commodity?
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The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) develops technologies, methods, and knowledge that better enable farmers, mainly smallholders, to enhance eco-efficiency in agriculture. This means we make production more competitive and profitable as well as sustainable and resilient through economically and ecologically sound use of natural resources and purchased inputs.
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