THE GFAR BLOG

Beans are great. They are nutritious, they are cheap and they boost the incomes of smallholder farmers. But, for the vast majority of the estimated 200 million Africans that eat them, I doubt that convenient is a word they would associate with this protein staple. Dried grains, the most available and affordable bean product, take … More Nutritious, cheap and… convenient? Capitalising on untapped bean markets

People in industrialized regions like the United States of America or Europe are generally urged to eat less meat and animal-source foods as part of a healthier and lower-emissions diet. But such recommendations are not universal solutions in low- or middle-income countries, where livestock are critical to incomes and diets, argue scientists in recently published … More ILRI: A no-meat diet everywhere will not solve the climate crisis

How can scientists move us beyond the calamities of 2020? The current moment for our species feels a lot like fiction. Not without cause, fiction writers have made the most out of imagining near-future worlds that seem unthinkable or unbearable. However, the real world of 2020 is both less unthinkable and more unbearable than fiction: … More 2020 feels like dark fiction. Here’s how science can inspire a better future

The threat of the pandemic actually helped push through the European Green Deal. As March brought death and chaos to Europe, officials in the Cabinet of European Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans developed a pattern of working: crisis in the morning, recovery in the afternoon. The Green Deal — the political project to make the EU climate … More How the EU’s Green Deal survived the coronavirus pandemic

The world urgently needs both climate solutions and gender equality. Neither can exist without the other. Climate change and gender inequality are two of the most significant and long-standing global challenges that we face today. And experts and policymakers in each area recognize that these issues are inextricably linked with one another.  It follows that … More Investing in Women could change the climate change game

Since the adoption of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, global momentum to tackle the climate crisis has been building. Progress has been made on almost every front, from bold corporate emissions-reduction targets and investors shifting away from coal to a surge of support for net-zero targets and a rising movement of … More 6 Signs of Progress Since the Adoption of the Paris Agreement

The CGIAR 2030 Strategy is based on the premise that the organisation can deliver more relevantly, consistently and efficiently when brought together under fewer institutional boundaries, supported by clearer, unified, and empowered management and governance. As stated in the CGIAR documentation “One CGIAR … provides the opportunity for a fresh ten-year strategy that can shape … More Reflecting on #OneCGIAR: Feedback from the GFAR Constituencies on the survey conducted for upcoming CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy

The world is dangerously off track in its efforts to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, with food systems underpinning all 17 of those targets. … More Farmers Will (Again) Feed the World

by Rina Chandran Source : Thomson Reuters Foundation News Land inequality is growing worldwide, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion people who directly rely on farming and widening disparities in gender, health and climate-change impacts, researchers warned on Tuesday. The widening gap in ownership and access to land especially hurts small and marginal farmers, women, and … More Worsening land inequality widens gender, climate change gaps

President elect Joe Biden. Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post … More Biodiversity expected to see biggest gain in generation on Biden’s election to U.S.

Policymakers urgently need ideas on ways to end hunger. But a global review of the literature finds that most researchers have had the wrong priorities. How can research help to end hunger? One way to answer this question is to assess published research on hunger, and determine which interventions can make a difference to the … More Ending hunger: science must stop neglecting smallholder farmers

“If you have any idea about farming then you probably know that crops need to be planted at a certain time of the year. But this March, Zimbabwe went into a national lockdown, and the window for seeding wheat had passed,” says Ruramiso Mashumba, a farmer and CEO of Mnandi Africa, an organization that helps rural … More Farmers are true COVID-19 heroes and we must support the people who produce our food