From observation to action: How Terra-i’s near-real time monitoring of forest cover loss will support conservation efforts in Southeast Asia

by Madelline Romero | Feb 22, 2018

Image from Google To observe forest cover changes, Cambodia’s Forestry Administration has used satellite images at a scale of 1:250,000 (1 cm on the map equals 2.5 kms on the ground), and updating of data on forest cover resources has been done every four years. But...

Brazilian rice needs to toughen up for a dry future

by Ángela María Morales | Feb 21, 2018

Climate change has the potential to flip our world upside down. There’s a rising concern about how future climate change will affect crops and the livelihoods of millions of people. Confronting those future changes means assessing the problem before it happens and...

Producers from Caquetá in Colombia commit to conserving and restoring their natural landscapes and to improving the sustainability of their livestock raising systems

by Miguel Antonio Romero | Feb 20, 2018

The Sustainable Amazonian Landscapes (SAL) project closed the year with a voluntary agreement with the producers who stand to benefit from the project for the conservation, protection, and restoration of forests and sources of water on their farms. This “pact,” which...

Opinion: How to make climate negotiations equitable, efficient and evidence-based | Medium

by Augusto Castro | Feb 14, 2018

A scene from the 2017 Bonn climate summit. Photo by: UNFCCC This op-ed was originally published on Medium. The start of 2018 marked the beginning of a process called the Talanoa Dialogue, which aims to check how countries are faring in meeting their Paris Agreement...

Opinion: Yes, we can still have chocolate in 2050 | Medium

by Christian Bunn | Feb 13, 2018

Cocoa beans. Photo by: Neil Palmer / CIAT Andy Jarvis, Peter Laderach and Mark Lundy were co-authors of this op-ed, which was originally posted on Medium. A Valentine’s Day without chocolate? To many people, this is unthinkable. So, it’s understandable if some might...

At the vanguard of Big Data to defeat hunger in the world

by Sylvia Pineda | Feb 12, 2018

By: Sylvia Pineda / Edition: José Antonio Arana. The digital transformation of economies and societies in recent years has opened new, important possibilities for agriculture. In this context, we see the emergence of CGIAR’s Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, which...

Let’s not blame it on the cow!

by José Luis Urrea | Feb 6, 2018

An opportunity to reduce emissions by improving livestock feeding is investigated in Nicaragua Livestock is frequently associated with negative environmental impacts such as deforestation for cattle grazing, soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, and greenhouse gas...

Cupping Fair Trade Coffee Impact

by Natalia Gutiérrez | Feb 5, 2018

by Natalia Gutiérrez & Martha Del Río| Feb 5, 2018   After 3 years of the impact evaluation project “Measuring and assessing impacts of Fair Trade for All on farmers, farmworkers, and the overall Fair Trade market system” supported by the Ford Foundation and...

In Bellagio, experts devise a global system to stop crop diseases in their tracks

by Maria Eliza Villarino | Feb 5, 2018

Checking cassava plantations for signs of pests and diseases, near Khorat, eastern Thailand. Photo by: Neil Palmer / CIAT Crop diseases can be devastating not only to farmers but also to the society as a whole. Back in the mid-19th century, for instance, a massive...

CIAT and CATIE join forces to strengthen agricultural development in Central America

by Sylvia Pineda | Feb 5, 2018

Seven different themes were identified by CIAT and CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) as possible areas of joint work in the Central American region, among which the following stand out: germplasm, cacao, coffee, sustainable livestock...