Agroecosystems and Sustainable Landscapes
Our land is wise: it will treat us the way we treat it
18th WOCAT Networking Meeting ‒ Promoting Sustainable Land Management and Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals Seventy percent of the world's available water resources are being used in agriculture, while 43% of degradation worldwide is caused by overgrazing....
WOCAT – success stories that the world can learn from
Finding sustainable solutions to these kinds of challenges is the focus of World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) – a global network of practitioners, researchers and policymakers dealing with agriculture and natural resources.
Living soils and some surprising results
By Job Kihara, Peter Bolo, Michael Kinyua, John Mukalama, Rolf Sommer, and Andrew Margenot. “Where farmyard manure has been added, there is living soil. But the soil is dead where there is only mineral fertilizer application”. This statement by Erest Omulama, a...
Measuring the impact of sustainable agricultural practices on greenhouse gas emissions in India
Outlines what CIAT is doing with partners, to assess the impact of various soil conservation practices on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural soils in India.
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.
An ecosystems approach to the SDGs in Africa: why we need to listen to farmers
To address all the SDG’s, we’re going to need to think like farmers. That means taking a systems approach that includes all kinds of agro-ecological farm systems. This mantra echoed through all the sessions at the Ecosystem Services Partnership Conference: Ecosystem Services for SDGs in Africa. Goals, 2, 5, 6, and 15 were in the spotlight, and to meet them, we have to think broadly and holistically.
Knowledge and information for development: A new vision for Nicaragua’s smallholder cocoa farms
A new decision-making toolkit is leading smallholder cocoa farmers, technicians and local organizations in Nicaragua through a learning journey on their farms, providing ways to plan interventions and track progress.
Four unexplored big wins in agriculture: tackling climate change through landscape restoration
Four solutions lie in how we farm our food and treat our landscapes: this session aims to throw light on some of the tools that can tackle climate change head-on. During this session, we called on the audience at the Global Landscape Forum, an event at the 22nd...
Fight against Ganoderma root rot disease begins in the acacia seedling
When farmers at Ma village began noticing that their acacia trees developed a rotten core, they found themselves pushed to planting eucalyptus almost exclusively.
Setting the record straight on oil palm and peat in SE Asia
A group of 139 scientists have written a letter in response to what they describe as miselading comments about oil palm production on peatlands
Marcela Quintero
Director, Agroecosystems and Sustainable Landscapes (ASL) Research Area
M.quintero@cgiar.org