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At this year’s AIRCA Steering Committee Meeting, hosted by CABI at their UK office, Directors of six AIRCA members met to discuss our achievements in the last year, as well as challenges and opportunities. One of the outcomes of the meeting was a new vision and mission statement: |
| Vision: Diverse climate-resilient food systems that support livelihoods, health and the environment Mission: Strengthening innovation capacities and the evidence base for diverse, nutritious and climate-resilient food systems.
The Directors have also appointed ICIMOD’s Director General Dr. David Molden as the new AIRCA Chairman, and WorldVeg’s Director General Dr Marco Wopereis as AIRCA Deputy Chair for the coming two years. The new AIRCA brochure can be downloaded from here This newsletter has “scaling” as the focus theme. The various stories illustrate some of the various approaches that AIRCA members use to maximize the impact of our innovations. |
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CABI: New CASA programme to benefit 565,000 smallholders in Uganda, Malawi and Nepal A new five-year £30 million UK DFID funded programme is aiming to improve the livelihoods of 565,000 smallholder farmers and their families in Uganda, Malawi and Nepal by stimulating investment in emerging agri-markets. Read More |
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CABI: Continuing the biological fight against a hardy foe – the maize-devastating western corn rootworm. CABI is continuing the fight against the maize-devastating western corn rootworm by collecting more than 22,000 live specimens of this chrysomelid beetle for further research into its biological control. Read More |
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CFFRC: 2018 Research Highlights Bambara groundnut has been the main focus of CFFRC’s research to date, and in this report we draw particular attention to the many projects that are underway to improve the crop, determine where it can be grown and deliver palatable and nutritious foods that people want to eat. Read More |
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ICBA: Scaling up small-scale irrigation technologies for improving food in -Sub-Saharan Africa. The agriculture sector is the backbone of most of the African economies, providing about 60% of all employment. However, during the last decade, agricultural production has not kept pace with population growth. Consequently,... CropBASE integrates qualitative and quantitative knowledge into decision support systems and user applications. At its core are 9 million data points on over 2,700 plant species and their potential uses for any location around the world. This allows farmers, researchers and the industry to obtain deep understanding of diversification opportunities and make informed decisions about the cultivation and potential uses of underutilised crops at the click of a button. Read More |
| ICIMOD: Scaling Up and Out ICIMOD recognizes the multi-dimensional aspects of scaling up (vertical expansion) and scaling out (horizontal expansion) of innovations, programme ideas and solutions. Read More |
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| icipe: Jona Mutasa, self motivated Push-Pull farmer and trainer A key goal of icipe is to ensure that the Centre’s technologies are transferred to as many end users as possible. To achieve this vision, icipe uses a range of strategies, including the media, to create awareness.The Regional Database System (RDS) of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has made available a new tranche of datasets for free download. All 16 data layers/tables listed below can be downloaded free from ICIMOD's RDS portal. Read More |  |
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IFDC-FrieslandCampina WAMCO partner to transform local milk production in Nigeria IFDC, representing the 2SCALE program, has signed a partnership agreement with FrieslandCampina Wamco (FCW) with the aim to sustainably transform and lead the local dairy sector in Nigeria. Iowa State University (ISU), through the USAID Ghana Feed the Future Agriculture Technology Transfer (ATT) project, is using drones to evaluate rice production and crop health at the Tono irrigation scheme in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Implemented by IFDC, ATT has worked with smallholder rice producers at Tono since 2014. Read More |
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IFDC: Paving the way to financial inclusion Agri-Wallet is an innovative mobile application that assists farmers to save money. One major difference with similar financial services providers is that it has been tailored specifically for the agricultural sector. Read More |
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WorldVeg: Germinating Ideas. Amazing things happen when private seed companies interact with public sector scientists to expand research horizons and explore joint opportunities for growth. The Asia & Pacific Seed Association (APSA)-World Vegetable Center Vegetable Breeding Consortium. The World Vegetable Center and local collaborators partnered with Akvo to use Akvo Flow, a mobile-phone survey tool, to monitor the training, technical assistance and uptake of technologies of agriculture and nutrition concepts by household garden project clients. Read More |
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