Humidtropics, a CGIAR Research Program led by IITA

Integrated Systems Research is Changing Lives and Landscapes in Ethiopia

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For many years, Teklu Erkossa, a Humidtropics Researcher from IWMI, has been doing research on land and water resources in Ethiopia, a country where agricultural productivity is suffering from water scarcity and land degradation. "In addition, the soils often have quite particular water-related characteristics that are unsuitable for many traditional crops. As a result, we have been exploring alternative cropping options to restore and preserve highly degraded areas in the country. Our platform-driven research project has demonstrated that using Innovation Platform approaches is an … [Read more...]

Opportunities and Challenges for Multi-Stakeholder Platforms in Agricultural Research for Development

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Why multi-stakeholder platforms? Within Humidtropics, multi-stakeholder approaches play an important role towards achieving research for development outcomes. Multi-stakeholder platforms aim to foster technological and institutional innovation by facilitating continuous interaction and collaboration in networks of farmers, extension officers, policymakers, researchers and other relevant stakeholders in the agricultural system. In doing so, they are seen as a promising vehicle to stimulate collective action to address soil fertility, climate change, nutrition and other agricultural … [Read more...]

Nutrition in Kenya: Putting Nutritious Diversity Back on the Plate

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This is Part 1 of three special reports from Vihiga County, Kenya, where a Humidtropics research project is empowering the community to better use available agricultural biodiversity to improve nutrition all the year round. What is the research initiative? In August 2014, Humidtropics researchers from Bioversity International launched a research project entitled A Participatory approach to improve dietary diversity in Vihiga County. The project supports communities to develop, implement and monitor their own action plans for sustainable production of nutritious foods to improve dietary … [Read more...]