Agrobiodiversity
A plan to strengthen the agricultural sector in Colombia and help the region is underway
Agrosavia and the Bioversity-CIAT Alliance enter into a cooperation agreement. Plantain, banana, cocoa, pastures, restoration, circular farming, and Future Seeds are some of the research projects that will be strengthened in the next five years.
We bid farewell to Alba Lucía Chaves
This text is about a great scientist retiring from CIAT after working as a chemist at the Agrobiodiversity Area for 28 years. Here is the part of her life story spent in this beautiful campus.
The Ministry of Agriculture of Japan Grants Award to CIAT Scientist
A Colombian researcher is to be awarded with the Young Scientist recognition of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF) and the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS).
Grass cushions farmer’s retirement
Bernard Gitobu spent most of his life working in bank, but deep down his heart, he knew he would retire into farming. After all, his parents were farmers.
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 new economic models that promote biodiversity while using its core expertise to evaluate, understand, and share the learning that this model generates, globally. It is novel in many respects.
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.
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 Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and IFAD, was to learn and exchange on challenges and best practices to promote transformation approaches on mainstreaming climate change, gender, youth and nutrition into programming, as well as witness examples of rural transformation in Ethiopia.
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
About agrobiodiversity research at CIAT
CIAT develops more resilient and productive varieties of cassava and common bean, together with tropical forages for livestock. We also help improve rice production in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The superior crop varieties that result from our collaborative work offer many valuable traits, such as high yield and stress tolerance, which are vital for guaranteeing global food supplies in the face of rapidly rising demand, shifting disease and insect pressures, rampant environmental degradation, and the looming threat of climate change.
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This CIAT Blog was launched in January 2016. For articles related to agrobiodiversity prior to this date, visit our former blog. Please note the old AgBio blog is no longer updated.