The susceptibility of cocoa to harsh climatic conditions is evident in cocoa growing areas in Ghana, and climate distribution models show reduced cocoa suitability to climate change. We assessed how cocoa health and productivity were affected by varying climate conditions for 4 years in 23 cocoa farms along a gradient of low rainfall/high temperature in the north to high rainfall/low temperature in the south of Ghana's cocoa belts. Twenty cocoa trees per farm (in total 460) were observed and scored ...

This article reviews the main recent applications of multi-sensor remote sensing and Artificial Intelligence techniques in multivariate modelling of agricultural drought. The study focused mainly on three fundamental aspects, namely descriptive modelling, predictive modelling, and spatial modelling of expected risks and vulnerability to drought. Thus, out of 417 articles across all studies on drought, 226 articles published from 2010 to 2022 were analyzed to provide a global overview of the current ...

One Health has been defined as an approach to the pursuit of public health and well-being that recognizes the interconnections between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. In this opinion piece, based on a webinar of the same name, we argue that a One Health perspective can help optimize net benefits from plant protection, realizing food security and nutrition gains while minimizing unintentional negative impacts of plant health practices on people, animals and ecosystems. We ...

Reduction of nitrogen (N) input in cropping systems is critical to reduce environmental pollution and achieve sustainable development goals. Multi-location field trials for maize (n = 120) and rice (n = 84) were conducted across nine districts in Nepal during 2018 and 2019 to assess the potential of polymer coated urea (PCU) and urea briquette (UB) to increase agronomic N use efficiency (AEN), crop productivity and farm profits over conventional urea (CU). Nitrogen rates applied in PCU and UB ...

The larvae of the black soldier fly (BSFL, Hermetia illucens) efficiently close resource cycles. Next to the nutrient-rich insect biomass used as animal feed, the residues from the process are promising plant fertilizers. Besides a high nutrient content, the residues contain a diverse microbial community and application to soil can potentially promote soil fertility and agricultural production through the introduction of beneficial microbes. This research assessed the application of the residues ...

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is of great importance to food security, especially in West Africa. However, the loss of soil fertility due to dwindling fallow lands with indigenous nutrient supply poses a challenge for yam cultivation. This study aimed to determine shoot and tuber biomass and nutrient use efficiency of white Guinea yam (Dioscorea rotundata) grown under low- and high-NPK conditions. Six white Guinea yam genotypes were used in field experiments conducted at Ibadan, Nigeria. Experiments were ...

Low-cost but productive crop intensification options are needed to assist smallholder farmers in the tropics to move away from poverty. This study assessed the capacity of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) to perform biological N fixation (BNF) under no-tillage practices, crop residue cover and intercropping with maize (Zea mays L.). The study was performed during the long rains of 2017 at Kiboko experimental station, located in semi-arid eastern Kenya. The research field trials had been running ...

Intensified human activities can augment soil organic carbon (SOC) losses from the world’s croplands, making SOC a highly dynamic parameter both in space and time. Sentinel-2 spectral imagery is well placed to capture the spatiotemporal variability of SOC, but its capability has only been demonstrated for agricultural regions mostly located in Europe. Furthermore, most studies so far only used single-date images that resulted in spatially non-continuous SOC maps, hampering their ability to aid ...

Diversification is a common livelihood strategy for rural households in developing countries, with diversification being either a choice or necessity depending on individual household contexts. Using two waves of data (from 2009 and 2011) for 1773 households from eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, we examined livelihood diversification and its drivers. We examined livelihood diversification by considering household involvement in three livelihood activities: crop, livestock, and non-farm. ...

Client-responsiveness is a foundation for effectiveness of public sector breeding programs in agriculture, aquaculture and livestock. However, there remains a considerable lack of clarity about what this means, specifically in terms of how programs can be gender-responsive. This study contributes to addressing that need. It does so through sharing higher-level insights emerging from the combined experiences of eight gendered trait preference cases from across nine countries in Asia and Africa. The ...