Blog

In this post, the Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security (EEFS) project describes how its Water Governance Scorecard can inform policy discussions on water use within the agriculture sector. Water is at the nexus of food security and climate risk management. Smallholder farmers depend on reliable access to water to support production through rainfall and/or irrigation systems. As climate risks mount, variability in water availability and allocation will affect the competitiveness and resilience of the agriculture sector.

• 03/17/2020
• Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security

The transformative process involved in implementing climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices can be well observed in the villages of Los Cerrillos and El Danubio in the Cauca department of Colombia where a Climate-Smart Village (CSV) site is located. CSV is an initiative of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) in conjunction with the Ecohabitats Foundation and these two communities were chosen to be part of the project due to their vulnerability to climate change and high dependence on agricultural activities.

• 03/11/2020
• CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

Southwest Bangladesh is a watery world. Houses perch on steep river banks. Storms pummel fragile coastlines. It’s hard not to see this starkly beautiful place as engaged in a battle between water and land — with the water winning. But the land has a new ally, a living hem of mangrove forests made possible by Winrock International’s Climate Resilient Ecosystems and Livelihoods (CREL) project, funded by USAID.

• 03/05/2020
• Winrock International

More than 80 percent of the world’s coffee is produced by smallholders. Despite their integral role, these farmers face significant challenges that threaten their livelihoods and the long-term viability of the global coffee supply chain. Limited access to financing and training means that farmers are unable to increase their productivity or rebound from fluctuating market prices.

• 03/04/2020
• Agrilinks

At the Climate-Smart Village in Olopa, Guatemala, we witnessed the different stages of implementing climate-smart agriculture practices. The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) developed the Climate-Smart Villages (CSV) approach, which aims to generate evidence on climate-smart agriculture (CSA). In the CSVs, different actors develop, adopt and evaluate CSA options in a participatory manner.

• 03/03/2020
• Agrilinks

Farmers are faced with new challenges in Mozambique, including the cycle of frequent droughts and drenching rains. Through her involvement with the Resilient Agricultural Markets Activity project in the Beira Corridor of Mozambique, this family farmer is learning how to increase productivity, profitability, and resilience of her farm through the adoption of conservation agricultural practices, like low/no tillage, soil coverage, and crop diversification.

• 03/02/2020
• Climatelinks

In Southern Malawi, the United in Building and Advancing Life Expectations (UBALE) project, completed in 2019, helped over 240,000 families in three districts produce more abundant harvests, increase income from agriculture, and learn important skills to help cope with changing climate patterns. The project linked agriculture with nutrition interventions to maximize the impact the program had on family nutrition.

• 03/02/2020
• Dooshima Tsee

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land, changing precipitation patterns, increasing temperatures, and more frequent extreme weather events are already affecting food security. As extreme events occur more regularly, food systems are likely to be disrupted, creating challenges in food access and potentially causing price fluctuations.

• 02/28/2020
• Stephan Hardeman

In Ethiopian cuisine, onion rules. Stews, sauces, and salads all rely on onions as a star ingredient, and market stalls are stacked high with fragrant bulbs. Across the country, onions contribute significantly to food security, adding taste and nutrients to diets otherwise mainly made up of cereals. Despite their popularity, onion crops yield much less in Ethiopia than in other African countries. Farmers here, like elsewhere, use irrigation to cultivate onions. In fact, farmers prefer to irrigate onion more than other crops, thanks to the high demand and high prices for onions. But yields remain low.

• 02/27/2020
• Agrilinks Team

The Rainforest Alliance is implementing the USAID-supported Alliance for Sustainable Landscapes and Markets project in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo, Mexico. This alliance involves groups of producers, nonprofit organizations, public institutions, enterprises, and consumers in taking actions towards a better future where people and nature thrive in harmony.

• 02/26/2020
• Graciela Zavala

The impacts of climate change on crop yields, as projected by a slew of impact assessments carried out since the 1980s, have brought the issue of future food insecurity to the fore. A meta-analysis of ~27,000 data points from studies published over the last four decades reveals that at country level, average impacts of climate change on crop yields up to the 2050s are generally small (but negative) for rice and wheat, and modest for maize, provided farmers adopt practices and technologies such as improved varieties, planting at optimal times, and improved water and fertilizer management.

• 02/26/2020
• Climatelinks

Many of the effects of changing climate patterns on food security are obvious. For example, more frequent and extreme droughts and floods are making farming more challenging, leading to abbreviated growing seasons, lost crops, and depleted family food stores. But climate variability and change are causing many other less obvious effects on food security, many of which are just beginning to be understood.

• 02/25/2020
• Christine Chumbler

The cocoa industry has taken bold steps to preventing deforestation in the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI), a public private collaboration between 33 cocoa and chocolate companies (85% of the industry), the governments of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, and led by the World Cocoa Foundation and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH). This effort is based on the pillars of preventing deforestation, which include protection and renovation of forests, sustainable and climate smart cocoa production and social inclusion and protection.

• 02/18/2020
• Agrilinks

The growing emphasis on sustainability of food systems (rather than of agriculture alone) highlights the importance of considering gender at all stages, from production to consumption, to address development goals of zero hunger, sustainable agriculture, and climate action (as well as gender equality as a goal in itself). IFPRI’s Gender, Climate Change and Nutrition Integration Initiative (GCAN) addresses the interlinkages between gender, climate change, and nutrition for sustainable food systems.

• 02/13/2020
• Elizabeth Bryan

Games provide players a low-risk opportunity to explore future impacts of climate change that can lead to innovative solutions. Simulating climate change and including a complicated set of factors and variables that need to be addressed over time can draw important insights and spur new ways of thinking without spending money.

• 02/12/2020
• Isabela Barriga