The CGIAR Scaling Fund, now in its third year, has chosen eight innovations for grants and scaling support, from the My Farm Trees platform and AKILIMO crop advice to pay-as-you-go solar irrigation and rice parboiling.
CropsThe Global Rice Policy Dialogue in Addis Ababa ended with calls for investment along the whole rice value chain, predictable trade, shared market data and regional rice reserves, as supplies tighten ahead of a strong El Nino.
CropsSpeakers from PAFO, AUDA-NEPAD, FANRPAN and food-heritage groups said climate-resilient indigenous crops such as sorghum could become profitable, nutritious food products if young people take up their value chains.
OpinionIn a SciDev.Net column, Amref Health Africa group CEO Githinji Gitahi argues that commitments made in New York and Berlin must become trusted, reliable health services, and that next year's AHAIC conference in Kigali should end with owners, timelines and money.
EnvironmentA report by the African Tech Futures Lab urges a selective, location-specific approach to carbon dioxide removal in Africa, naming biochar and enhanced rock weathering as low-infrastructure options with possible farm benefits.
CropsWriting before the Global Rice Policy Dialogue in Addis Ababa on 15-16 October, IRRI's Africa director Sofia Tesfazion points to Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya and a new $500 million West Africa Rice Investment Facility.
CropsUnder the MAHARISHI initiative, early- and mid-career researchers will train at ICAR-IIMR in Hyderabad from December in genomics-led breeding, phenotyping, biofortification and the millet value chain.
OpinionFour writers in an AGRA commentary say sub-Saharan Africa loses about 23% of its food between harvest and market, that the 2035 target to halve losses has no baseline, and that storage technology spreads only when markets make it pay.
AgribusinessA Scaling Week session with the World Bank and the African Development Bank set out how CGIAR can package its technologies so governments and lenders build them into big farm and climate programmes.
HealthHousehold air pollution from cooking with wood, charcoal and kerosene causes an estimated 2.5 million premature deaths a year, and the IEA says Africa-wide clean cooking by 2030 needs only about $4 billion of investment annually.
OpinionAGRA communications chief Aggie Konde argues that African institutions should be organised and judged by whether they jointly raise the returns of farming enterprises, not by roads built or budgets spent one by one.
At the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, CGIAR and AGRA speakers argued that Africa's USD 75 billion food import bill and persistent undernourishment call for regional trade and food processing, not blanket self-sufficiency.
OpinionAGRA president Alice Ruhweza and IFPRI director general Johan Swinnen argue that the new Youth in Agrifood Systems Performance Index, which scored 11 pilot countries at just 1.55 out of 5, should guide policy and investment.
