Humidtropics, a CGIAR Research Program led by IITA

Defining Ongoing R4D Priorities in Nicaragua

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Humidtropics has been working closely with national partners from the Research for Development (R4D) Platform of the Program's Nicanorte Action Site in Central America and the Caribbean. As the Territorial Learning Alliances continue strengthening their collective learning and innovation spaces while expanding the reach of R4D projects in the region, local partners met with the Humidtropics team to discuss completed and ongoing research activities, as well as further defining the national R4D Platform's role in the territories to achieve Humidtropics' R4D goals in Nicaragua. Taking … [Read more...]

Nutrition-Sensitive Landscapes: Farm and Landscape Modelling to Improve Nutrition in Kenya

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Mary Adoyo* is a Kenyan smallholder farmer in Masana sub-location, Vihiga county in Western Kenya. For much of the year, she manages the family farm alone while her husband works in Nairobi to support his family with monthly remittances. She produces enough maize on their one acre plot to supply her family with maize meals for only six months of the year. Their farm also produces beans, bananas, sweet potatoes, avocados, mangoes, papayas, lettuce, kales and traditional Kenyan vegetables such as mitoo (Crotalaria spp.). Many of these products are sold locally to generate money to purchase food … [Read more...]

An Environmentally-Friendly Innovation Turns Maize Residue into Fertilizer in Thailand

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Humidtropics researchers and partners from Chiang Mai University (CMU) and Chulalongkorn University (CU) in Northern Thailand are testing a more environmentally-friendly method to process maize residue. Driven by the Humidtropics Research for Development (R4D) Platform in Nan, Thailand, this initiative is part of a project aiming to improve natural resource management. Towards the end of the dry season, Northern Thailand was covered with thick smoke originating from fires all over the area and the neighbouring countries. The smoke is partially from forest fires, but also originates from … [Read more...]

Humidtropics R4D Platform WeRATE Wins Two Awards in Kenya

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The Agriculture Society of Kenya (ASK) Kakamega Show, running from June 17 to 20, 2015, provided an excellent platform to inform farmers about the latest agricultural technologies developed and tested by the Western Region Agriculture Technology Evaluation (WeRATE) R4D Platform in the Humidtropics West Kenya Action Site, shared with the N2Africa and IFAD Cassava Projects. Working closely with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), WeRATE organized a very successful exhibit during the show, advancing its theme Enhancing Technology in Agriculture and Industry for Food … [Read more...]

Road to Self-Reliance: the Story of an Innovation Platform in Uganda

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Innovation platforms are structures that bring together different stakeholders from the same area to identify solutions to common problems. They exist as long as necessary to handle existing challenges and new ones that might emerge during the process, and they take advantage of opportunities that help them create solutions to existing problems. Past experience has shown that when platforms are driven by specific projects, there is often a risk that they will cease functioning if funding no longer becomes available. For platform members, stakeholders, and the communities who benefit from the … [Read more...]