Plantwise wins the 2017 Bond Development Award for Innovation
Bond, a UK association promoting, supporting and representing the work of international development organisations, announced the CABI-led Plantwise programme as the joint winner of its 2017 Innovation Award. The award showcases organisations, coalitions or initiatives that are taking inventive approaches as they chart a course through a complex and changing external environment in international development.
Taking concrete steps to improve Myanmar's Plant Health System
In developing regions where pest and disease outbreaks and the impact of climate change is most devastating, early warning systems are required to build resilience into agricultural production. These early warning systems cannot operate in a void, but proves effective when incorporated within a national policy framework that can support a holistic plant health system…
Smallholder farmers in Malawi are growing fertilizer trees on their farms to improve food production
The adoption of fertilizer trees on farms is a simple and effective way to improve soil fertility, food productivity and therefore contribute to food security. Yet, there is still little empirical research that documents the impact of fertilizer trees on food security among smallholder farmer households. Researchers from the World Agroforestry Centre carried out a…
CABI organizes five-day Integrated Pest Management course in Beijing
CABI organized a five-day course on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) in Beijing on 13 to 17 February 2017. The course was delivered by CABI IPM expert Stefan Toepfer, a visiting professor at the Institute of Plant Protection in CAAS, where the joint Chinese…
A WhatsApp-like app for the tech-savvy farmer
By Nilesh Christopher. Reblogged from The Economic Times of India. Before the start of the next crop planting season, third generation farmer Krishna Balegayi – who has been farming for 25 years – is sure to take the help of an Android app to better his yield. Bangalore-based startup Nubesol technologies has created a WhatsApp-like…
Scientists discover new crop-destroying Armyworm is now “spreading rapidly” in Africa
New research announced today by scientists at CABI confirms that a recently introduced crop-destroying armyworm caterpillar is now spreading rapidly across Mainland Africa and could spread to tropical Asia and the Mediterranean in the next few years, becoming a major threat to agricultural trade worldwide.
Bringing financial services to smallholder farmers
Financial inclusion has made considerable progress in recent years. There are now a wide range of financial products which can help small farmers: debt financing, short term working capital to finance purchasing of inputs, long term working capital to finance machinery, equity and factoring. Whereas banks used not to want to go the ‘last mile’,…
Good growth relies on good seeds
Seeds are the unsung heroes of agriculture, and modern varieties provide beneficial traits such as drought tolerance and cooking quality. Some varieties are even designed to provide a platform with which to provide other products, such as seed treatments conferring additional insect and disease protection. The lack of modern varieties, particularly in developing countries, is…
Game changers: digital agriculture and new technologies
ICTs play a pivotal role in facilitating solutions for smallholder farmers and the markets they are trying to access. For GLOBALG.A.P., the world’s leading farm assurance program, the only way to make the auditing of the 160,000 farms it covers economically viable is through technological solutions. CABI’s Plantwise programme also relies on ICTs for collecting…