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Conservation agriculture meets relay cropping
In 2003, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) designed a set of long-term trials in Kenya to assess sustainability and productivity effects of a set of management practices. These practices included conservation agriculture (CA), a combination of mulching, reduced tillage, and crop rotation, which has since grown to be widely promoted across Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) with good results.
The world needs a global system to detect and halt the spread of emerging crop diseases
In the same manner that nations collaborate to detect and stop human pandemics, a global surveillance system for crop diseases needs to be created to safeguard agricultural trade and food security, argues a team of experts in Science
SERVIR experts on ecosystem management and land-use change attend 2019 GFW Summit
The 2019 Global Forest Watch (GFW) Summit, held in Washington DC this week, opened with a retrospective on how deforestation monitoring systems have matured since their broad development in the early 2010s. Several Latin America countries have their own dedicated system. While many African and Asian countries have not yet created dedicated systems, they have come a long way in deforestation monitoring. Efforts such as Global Forest Watch, CIAT’s Terra-i system, and others are mature, providing near real-time data that can help governments, NGOs, the private sector, and others monitor and track deforestation across the world.
Voices: stories attesting to sustainable production transformation in the Amazon
In its final stage, the Sustainable Amazonian Landscapes project developed a platform called Voices, where farmers and decision-makers talk about their experience with the project.
To save biodiversity and feed the future, first cure “plant blindness”
Vanishing animals command headlines but declining plant diversity also imperils humans. Researchers and educators explain how curing “plant blindness” is essential to saving biodiversity and ourselves. Food plants are a great place to dig in
CIAT, World Bank and partners announce Digital Agriculture Country Profiles initiative
Building on the success of the Climate-Smart Agriculture Country Profiles, CIAT, together with the World Bank and FAO, is leading an initiative to create profiles for digital agriculture, starting with Argentina, Grenada, Kenya, Turkey and Vietnam.
Increasing soil carbon improves food security and income in Western Kenya
In most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, a greater segment of rural communities derive their livelihood from crop and livestock farming. Over the decades, effects of climate change, more so greenhouse gas emissions – specifically CO2 – have had diverse consequences on food production.
Jacobo Arango, Lead Author of the Sixth IPCC Assessment Report
Jacobo Arango, environmental biologist from the Tropical Forages Program at CIAT, is one of the lead authors from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is currently contributing to draft the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), more specifically, on mitigation pathways compatible with long-term goals.
The Germplasm Health Unit at CIAT was Officially Registered
The Germplasm Health Unit (GHU), which is part of the Genetic Resources Program at CIAT, obtained Official Registration as an approved laboratory to conduct phytosanitary diagnoses, through a resolution issued by the Government of Colombia, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR), and the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA).
Low emission livestock – how to quantify gains across Africa?
Livestock, and especially its environmental impacts, have been hotly debated in public, science and policy arenas since more than a decade. The recently published EAT-Lancet report re-fueled the discussion, calling for reduction in consumption of animal source foods for benefits of human health and the environment. However, many voices from across Africa feel that the call for reduction of livestock production and consumption should be much more clearly targeted to industrialized countries, not regions with predominantly smallholder systems and low meat consumption.