Treatments Rehabilitate Saline/Sodic Soils to Produce High Rice Yields

Michelle DeFreese wrote this blog post for the FAO’s International Year of Soils series to highlight iAGRI-funded research showing some promising interventions for reducing soil salinity due to irrigation in northeastern Tanzania. http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/blog/treatmentsrehabilitatesalinesodicsoilstoproducehighriceyields/en/

Challenges of M&E for Capacity Building Projects

8th class Leland Fellow, Michelle DeFreese wrote this blog post profile of Dr. Flavianus Magayane’s role in evaluating iAGRI’s impact on its student participants and his thoughts on the challenges of capturing the impact of investments in human capacity. iAGRI … Read more

Blog: Linking food security research to policymaking

Research is leading the effort toward more successful agriculture development through project evaluation and cross-country comparisons aimed at showing policymakers the effectiveness of certain interventions… However, research can only do so much, and political will is “an essential ingredient for elevating food and nutrition security into policy agendas.”…Moving forward, we hope researchers will continue to engage and communicate with policymakers during the design and implementation of policies and programs, focusing on those interventions that offer the greatest potential for improving food security for the world’s poor.

The Case for Strengthening Developing Nation Universities

Samantha Alvis developed The Case for Strengthening Developing Nation Universities. This piece was designed to support advocacy efforts on the Hill for increasing investments in higher education development, in particular those that involve partnerships between US universities and those in … Read more

Blog series: Mercy Erhiawarien

Mercy authored several blogs in support of ONE’s advocacy for smallholder farmers, better nutrition and women’s empowerment in Africa. http://www.one.org/us/author/mercy-erhiawarien/

The Gender and Cocoa Livelihood Toolbox

This gender assessment tool was developed as part of the World Cocoa Foundation’s Cocoa Livelihoods Program (CLP). Within CLP, twelve cocoa companies have committed to improving outreach to gender. The tool recognizes the importance of mainstreaming gender at the organizational … Read more

The Business Case for Women’s Participation in Agricultural Cooperatives

To address the misconceptions that contribute to low levels of female participation, this paper has two objectives. The first is to use evidence from the Manduvira cooperative to demonstrate to cooperative members and leaders in Paraguay and other countries that women can and do succeed in positions that have historically been seen as more appropriate for men. The second is to show that women’s participation and leadership in agricultural cooperatives can have advantages to their overall business performance.

Roadmap to End Hunger Policy Brief

THE ROADMAP APPROACH
The Roadmap to End Global Hunger’s
four pillars capture the whole of what it
takes for households and communities to
achieve sustainable food security.
EMERGENCIES: A
devastating hurricane,
drought, health epidemic
or political crisis can throw
thousands of previously
food secure families into chaos and hunger.
Emergency programs get food assistance
where it’s needed quickly to prevent
widespread hunger and malnutrition.
SAFETY NETS: Every
household faces the risk
of an interruption in its
ability to afford sufficient,
nutritious food caused by
a sudden shock—for example, a lost job,
poor harvest, or illness. Safety nets help
families protect productive assets in the
face of temporary hardship.
NUTRITION: To grow and
remain healthy, people need
not just enough calories, but
the right nutrients. This is
especially true in the 1,000
Days between a woman’s pregnancy and
the child’s second birthday.
AGRICULTURE: Most
hungry people rely on
small-scale agriculture
to make a living and feed
their families. Research
has consistently shown that investing in
agriculture is more effective in reducing
poverty among the poorest people than
investments in other sectors