The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO) will collaborate to finalize the development of Aflasafe—a safe and effective natural product for the integrated management of aflatoxin in the maize, sorghum, and groundnut value chains in Uganda. This is through a four-year project, funded by aBi Development Ltd. (aBi),  launched on 12 August 2020. It seeks to reduce aflatoxin contamination in staple crops in Uganda to ensure the country has safe and nutritious food that also meet standards for export markets.

Urgent and sustained action is needed to address worsening food and nutrition insecurity in Burkina Faso, say the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), citing alarming new data. Some 3.3 million people are estimated to be facing acute food insecurity during the current lean season, that period which precedes the harvest in September.

High-yielding chickpea and finger millet varieties with yield potential of up to 3 tons per hectare had their first-ever official release in Malawi. The release aligns well with the government’s crop diversification agenda for food and income security and the funding agency Irish Aid’s goal of increasing the resilience of poor households to economic, social and environmental shocks.

The theme for International Youth Day 2020, Youth Engagement for Global Action, highlights the various ways in which the engagement of young people at local, national and global levels enriches national and multilateral institutions and processes. Up to 60% of Africa’s youth face challenges such as limited employment opportunities, financial constraints to access land and adequate technical equipment. However, agriculture is increasingly providing options. Through it, young people are participating and leveraging on new technologies that can optimize farming systems and create employment.

Climate simulation-based scenarios are routinely used to characterize a range of plausible climate futures. Despite some recent progress on bending the emissions curve, RCP8.5, the most aggressive scenario in assumed fossil fuel use for global climate models, will continue to serve as a useful tool for quantifying physical climate risk, especially over near- to midterm policy-relevant time horizons. Not only are the emissions consistent with RCP8.5 in close agreement with historical total cumulative CO₂ emissions (within 1%), but RCP8.5 is also the best match out to midcentury under current and stated policies with still highly plausible levels of CO₂ emissions in 2100.

World Agroforestry (ICRAF) has been leading advances in soil spectroscopy springing from the conversion of its standard wet chemistry soil laboratory into a Soil–Plant Spectral Diagnostics Laboratory in 2000. This laboratory uses only light to measure the properties of soil rather than expensive and time-consuming chemical processes. Thanks to the rapidity of estimation provided by spectroscopy in the infrared part of the spectrum, the lab produces large volumes of spectral data daily.

Rice plays a strategic role in food security in West Africa, but the region increasingly relies on imports, and local value chains face constraints in terms of technology, finance and coordination. In an article published in Global Food Security, scientists from CIRAD, AfricaRice, and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) propose different policy options to reduce the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rice value chains in West Africa.

The alarm went off a few minutes ago, before the morning call to prayer. It is now a quarter past five and still pitch-black outside. Miles Woodgate is eating breakfast and getting ready for the long day ahead fighting Desert Locusts. This Englishman is one of the pilots conducting aerial spraying in the easternmost country of the Horn of Africa -- the first time in 30 years that the security situation has allowed for this to happen in Somalia.

The University of Saskatchewan announced that its team was able to decode the black mustard seed genome using a new technology called Nanopore, which they say can also work for any crop. Nanopore is a new genome sequencing technology that results in very long reads of DNA and RNA sequences. The technology provides a clearer, higher resolution view of the plant's genes and enables a more defined identification of which genes are responsible for specific traits.

The North America genome editing market is expected to reach US$ 4,148.1 Mn in 2025 from US$ 1,234.5 Mn in 2017. The market is estimated to grow with a CAGR of 17.2% from 2018-2025. This is according to the genome editing market report released by Cue Report. According to the report, the growth of the genome editing market is influenced by the continuous increase in the adoption of genetically modified crops,