2. Our blog: the inside story
‘Switching’ on to ICT approaches to gender in extension services
Duncan Sones, of the Africa Soil Health Consortium (ASHC) delivery team, looks back on six years of concept and project development that could unlock changes in farmer’s ability to effectively access improved technologies… I don’t know about you but when I hear about something for the first time, I rarely take in all the nuanced […]
Read MoreEarly lessons from GALA on messages and channel selection
Silvia Silvestri reflects on the lessons emerging from the Gender and the Legume Alliance project. The GALA project is designed to support small-scale farming households to improving their capacity to access and use information and knowledge, to achieve sustainable legume intensification. The scale-up work in Ghana and Tanzania will leave a valuable legacy amongst small-scale […]
Read More10 steps to sustainable business models for smallholder farmer market development programs …
By: Edward Baars, Silvia Silvestri and Duncan Sones An honest assessment of the supply chains for improved legume inputs shows that holistic solutions are needed. The move to sustainable business models, however, will mean that many flaws need to be addressed. In some cases, what looks like the solution is just reframing the problem. But […]
Read MoreSmarter fertilizer recommendations
Harrison Rware explores how mobile phones are central to the next chapter of OFRA Between 2013 and 2017 CABI, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and 13 national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) formed a consortium that explored new ways of delivering smart fertilizer recommendations. The project was called Optimising Fertilizer Recommendations in Africa (OFRA). The […]
Read MoreShowcasing smart agriculture in comic exhibition
First published in the CABI blog. Comics have long played a role in entertaining young people, and even adults, going right back to the Golden Age of Comic books in the 1930s. One only has to think of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel and many more. But you would be forgiven for being surprised […]
Read MoreMulti-media campaign helps improve food security in Tanzania
First published in the CABI website. A multi-media campaign has helped CABI and partner agencies in Tanzania improve food security in Tanzania by encouraging thousands of farmers to adopt improved legume technologies including ways to produce healthier and more profitable crops of common bean and soybean. The collaborative project led by FRI, CABI and AFAP, […]
Read MoreThree Lessons from Partnership Campaigns in ASHC
15 December 2017 James Watiti: One way to describe partnerships is to list the different agencies you have interacted with in a campaign. With more than five successful partnership campaigns so far in three countries, this should be an easy story for the ASHC team. However, the real and more intriguing story of partnership actually […]
Read MoreFarmers to embrace use of NoduMax to boost soybean productivity in new campaign in Nigeria
11 October 2017 Christine Alokit: Soybean is one of the cheapest protein sources that is used for various purposes for both human consumption and livestock feed. In human food, the grain can be roasted or fried and eaten as a snack, processed for multiple uses including soy-milk, cooking oil, infant weaning foods, kebabs and potential […]
Read MoreAfrica Soil Health Consortium: The story so far
Dannie Romney, Africa Soil Health Consortium project executive, took an opportunity to review the progress of the Africa Soil Health Consortium (ASHC) as it reaches the half way point in the current Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant programme. She shares the teams views on the achievements, lessons and challenges from the past two years. ASHC is […]
Read MoreASHC putting three more countries on its map
5 August 2017: The ASHC team is looking ahead to the new campaigns to support partner projects in East and West Africa… Soybean, cassava and bananas are all in the mix. Overview The ASHC funding agreement requires that the majority of the work has to be conducted in one or more of five priority countries Ghana and Nigeria […]
Read More