Latin America and the Caribbean
What role can cacao for peace play in Colombia?
Purdue University and CIAT developed, over the course of a year or so, an analysis of the cacao production chain in Colombia, commissioned by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in the context of the Cacao for Peace, financed by USAID.
How diverse is the global diet?
When we published about the increasing homogeneity in global food supplies, we hadn’t yet found a good way to make the underlying national level data readily visible to interested readers. This is why the publication of our new Changing Global Diet website is exciting. It provides interactive visuals for 152 countries over the past 50 years. We that hope you enjoy your investigations through time. Perhaps you can tell us where you think the changing global diet is headed.
Student perspectives from the field: Talking about the weather in Chiapas, Mexico
I met Lucy through Mari, an organizer of Mujeres y Maíz Criollo. Lucy lives in Amatenango, a community of Tseltal farmers outside of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
What we don’t know about John Miles
This article is about John Miles, a brilliant scientist, who is retiring from CIAT after working as a plant breeder in the tropical forages program for 37 years.
Five surprising ways people’s diets have changed over the past 50 years
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 that Cameroonians officially consume the greatest variety of food crops, or that the global average diet looks a lot like what Cape Verdeans eat every day? These are just some of the nuggets you can explore in a new interactive website on the status and trends of the global diet.
The Quesungual Agroforestry System Takes Root in Nicaragua
Farmers in the Dry Corridor of Central America are using the Quesungual agroforestry system to maintain or increase their maize and bean yields, while improving ecosystem services and resilience.
Sustainable Amazonian Landscapes – A project that advances leaving a sustainable footprint
The Sustainable Amazonian Landscapes Project (SAL), from the Decision and Policy Analysis (DAPA) Research Area (DAPA) at CIAT, which brings together scientists from other research areas such as Soil Health and the Forages research team, started the new year with its third annual meeting to follow up on activities carried out in 2016 and prepare work plans for 2017.
The new Bristol for farmers
“A true picture of customs, when a shout breaks the dialogue of the lady… ‘the Calendar’, take the 2009 Bristol Calendar, only 3 dollars!’ offers the edition of the Picturesque Bristol Almanac, otherwise known as the Moon Almanac –an orange booklet only 30 page long in which forecasts, lunar changes, the zodiacal signs, jokes, famous phrases, among other curiosities are provided” Germán Arciniegas.
Fair Trade Coffee’s Aftertaste
The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) conducted the research project “Measuring and assessing impacts of Fair Trade for All on farmers, farmworkers, and the overall Fair Trade market system.” After the third year of the project, we analyzed the data collected to assess the impact of certification on farmworkers’ welfare and empowerment in Brazil and Nicaragua. We created two multi-dimensional indexes in order to evaluate the influence that certification has on several aspects of workers’ life.
Tropical grasses: feed and plumber
The pastures that cattle graze also act as their “toilets”. This is because, as cattle eat grass, they periodically urinate and, therefore, randomly deposit urine on the soil surface. Once in the soil, the deposited urine results in the creation of patches that are generally characterized by high concentrations of nitrogen.
CIAT in Latin America
Through our work in one of the most ecologically and agriculturally diverse regions on the planet, we aim to ensure that the whole world benefits from agricultural innovations developed in Latin America and the Caribbean.
With its wealth of natural resources, wide pool of human talent, and strong record of technological innovation, the region has great potential for restoring degraded lands, achieving sustainable agricultural development, and strengthening global food security.