Sustainable intensification aims to increase production and improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Many farmers, however, are caught in a vicious cycle of low productivity and lack of incentives to invest in agricultural inputs. Moving towards sustainable intensification therefore requires support such as input subsidies and learning about new options through, for instance, co-learning approaches. Yet such support is not straightforward as agricultural developments often ...

Declining land productivity is a major problem constraining banana (Musa spp.) production in Tanzania. Banana fruit yield consequently reaches only 15% of the potential, primarily due to inadequate soil nutrient replenishment. Improving farmers’ soil nutrient replenishment strategy in banana home gardens, which relies on applications of cattle manure only, by mixing with inorganic fertilizer resources can increase land productivity and can improve the overall profitability of banana production in ...

This study investigated the trait preferences for cassava in the context of climate change and conflict stressors among value-chain actors in Nigeria to strengthen social inclusion and the community-resilience outcomes from breeding programs. Multi-stage sampling procedures were used to select and interview male and female value-chain participants in the Osun, Benue and Abia States. The results indicated that farmers preferred cassava traits such as drought tolerance, early bulking, multiple-product ...

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a predominant food security crop in several developing countries. Its storage roots, rich in carbohydrate, are deficient in essential micronutrients, including provitamin A carotenoids. Increasing carotenoid content in cassava storage roots is important to reduce the incidence of vitamin A deficiency, a public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. However, cassava improvement advances slowly, mainly due to limited information on the molecular factors influencing ...

Poor soil fertility and climate variability are major constraints to maize production in the Nigeria savannas. The application of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) as adaptation strategy may enhance maize yield under climate change. In this study, the already calibrated and validated CERES-maize model in DSSAT was used to simulate the response of maize varieties to N and P in three agroecological zones. Similarly, the model, coupled with data for representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and ...

Introduction: Agroforestry plays a vital role in maintaining and developing the resilience and productivity of farms and landscapes. Scientific evidence from the Sahel region suggests that integration of trees and shrubs has the potential to improve temperature and moisture levels whilst providing bio-based fertilizer that contributes to increased yields of annual crops. However, little is known about the factors that influence the di􀀀usion of agroforestry. This study examines joint decisions on ...

The COVID-19 pandemic, surprised many through its impact on the food systems, resulting in collapses in the food production value chains and in the integrated pest disease management sector with fatal outcomes in many places. However, the impact of COVID-19 and the digital experience perspective on Integrating Pest Management (IPM) is still yet to be understood. In Africa, the impact was devastating, mostly for the vulnerable smallholder farm households, who were rendered unable to access markets ...

An ecosystem is inhabited by organisms that rely on it for their livelihoods. For an ecosystem to sustain life, its life-supporting components must be alive to be able to preserve both the ecosystem’s life-supporting components like soil, vegetation, water, etc., and the living organisms inhabiting the ecosystem like humans, birds, domestic, and wild animals, termed as the One-Health concept. This is indispensable for the sustainability of life. Several factors determine the ability of the ecosystem ...

This study reconnoitered the effects of preservative treatments (0.3% Sodium Metabisulphite solution (SMS); and 0.3% Citric Acid solution (CAS)) and drying methods (flash- and cabinet-drying) on the rheological profile, amylose and functional properties of flour from yellow-fleshed cassava varieties. Four preservative-treated flour samples (Sodium Metabisulphite cabinet-dried (SMC); Sodium Metabisulphite flash-dried (SMF); Citric Acid cabinet-dried (CAC); and Citric Acid flash-dried (CAF) were ...

In southern Africa, conservation agriculture (CA) has been promoted to address low agricultural productivity, food insecurity, and land degradation. However, despite significant experimental evidence on the agronomic and economic benefits of CA and large scale investments by the donor community and national governments, adoption rates among smallholders remain below expectation. The main objective of this research project was thus to investigate why previous efforts and investments to scale CA ...