Young African scientists have been challenged to invest in honing skills that enable them to effectively communicate to non-technical audiences. This would help policy and decision makers appreciate and prioritize research as a sustainable tool in the fight against food insecurity and malnutrition in the continent. This emerged during a science communication workshop for bioscience research fellows and interns held on July 10, 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Family farmers in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina and Egypt have increased their incomes, production and skills by taking part in a project funded by an IFAD grant and implemented by Oxfam Italia. In the central European country, the project focused on enabling small farmers and processors to upgrade traditional local products so they could be sold for a better price, appeal to visiting tourists and be exported to markets in Europe.

Just about six percent of rural households in Kenya, aspire for their children to become farmers. This is highlighted through a recent study that interviewed 624 rural households from Embu and Kitui in eastern Kenya. The study found however, that 65% households hoped to increase their farm incomes. Closely linked to a recently published theoretical paper on the importance of aspirations, this publication focuses on household aspirations to understand its link to the potential for technology adoption.

In Colombia, cassava is a staple crop planted to more than 200,000 hectares. The Caribbean region of Colombia has the highest area of cultivation in the country (100,000 hectares) but accounts for only 37.8% of the total national production (According to National Administrative Department of Statistics). Production levels there have remained stagnant while other areas of Colombia have improved.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) officially renewed this week their scientific cooperation in agriculture and rural development, in a signing ceremony held at the Ministry’s national headquarters in Hanoi.

IRRI, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is equipping the next generation of African agricultural technicians and extension agents with technical strategies and techniques in developing sustainable rice value food chains. A two-week training workshop gathered 27 participants from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’ Ivoire, Guinea Conakry,  Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda.

One of the major technological developments that makes rice straw disposal more efficient is the rice straw baler. This machine can pick up and collect loose straw in the field, and reduce it into compact bales that can be easily handled and transported to areas where it can be used further. Using this machine reduces labor requirement by 90% compared with manually collecting the rice straw spread out in the field. 
 

John Innes Centre (JIC) researchers discovered how rice plants have evolved custom-built defense solutions against different variants of the rice blast pathogen. The results of the study are published in Nature Plants.

An international team of experts from Denmark, Italy, France, and Japan identified a new receptor involved in symbiosis between legumes and nitrogen-fixing rhizobia. The results are published in eLife journal. To start symbiosis, the legumes use certain receptor proteins that can recognize the Nod factor proteins produced by bacteria which are crucial in establishing the host-nonhost link between legumes and rhizobia.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has announced that the Philippine Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Plant Industry (DA-BPI) has given the approval for the conduct of public consultations on the proposed field trials for GR2E Golden Rice. The public consultation process is a key component of biosafety regulatory approval under the Joint Department Circular No. 1 series of 2016.