Gender-sensitive rural advisory services in Ghana come under the spotlight in training workshop

Plantwise-gender
CABI, as part of its global PlantwisePlus programme, has held a training workshop in Ghana aimed at building the capacity of the country’s regional agricultural officers to deliver advisory services which are mindful of the sensitivities of gender differences.
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Innovation on the ground can be critical for gender integration

Female farmer walks along dirt track holding vegetable crop, Kenya
Gender-based social norms are major barriers to women accessing agricultural extension advice and adopting new practices.  Although women make up 43% of the global agricultural labour force, just how gender-equitable are extension services like Plantwise?
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Digital advisory tools in the hands of women agricultural service providers

female extension worker
Smallholder farmers across the world need access to advisory services to support them in managing pest and disease issues on their crops. As part of its PlantwisePlus programme, CABI is developing and promoting digital advisory tools to increase access to the information that farmers need to adopt safe and effective agricultural practices. One of the…
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Digital learning courses available for free in Bangladesh

digital learning courses CABI Academy
CABI’s new digital learning platform, the CABI Academy, is now available free for users in Bangladesh. The digital learning courses are designed for agricultural extension and advisory service providers. They provide interactive exercises and resources to help participants grow their knowledge, so they can deliver the best possible advice to farmers.
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Plantwise Burundi: building extension skills and resources

Plant doctor training in Burundi
The role of extension staff in reaching smallholder farmers with relevant agricultural information is key to enabling them to grow more and lose less to crop pests and diseases. The advice given on agricultural practices helps to improve crop quality and yield and to sell agricultural produce for better prices.
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Plantwise Bangladesh: supporting national crop monitoring

Covid-19 hub training Bangladesh
The CGIAR COVID-19 Hub provides a coordinated research response to the global pandemic threatening health systems worldwide, along with posing serious risks to food security and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The Hub focuses on supporting national response and recovery work across CGIAR research themes, harnessing knowledge for emergency response, recovery, and resilience.
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Watch the PlantwisePlus Launch Video

PlantwisePlus launch
This week saw the digital launch of CABI’s new global programme – PlantwisePlus. The online event featured presentations from both CABI representatives as well as partner organisations, including FAO and the governments of Kenya and the Netherlands.
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PlantwisePlus: female farmers and rural extension advisory services

Female farmer at a plant clinic
It’s widely known that female farmers make up a substantial portion of the agricultural labour force (43%) in developing countries. However, productivity gaps between farms managed by men and women farmers exist, because women farmers have less access to various production inputs and labour, compared to male farmers.[1]
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Village-based plant clinics benefit Ethiopian farmers

Ethiopia plant clinic
In Ethiopia, smallholder farmers are the mainstay of the economy, with the country’s large rural communities dependent on small-scale farming for food security and income. However, farmers face several challenges when trying to improve crop yields, in particular plant pests and diseases. It is estimated that Ethiopian farmers lose up to 50% of all crops…
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Inclusive advisory services enable the women of Thirumalairayasamuthiram village in India to better manage their farms

Women play a significant and crucial role in agricultural production. An economic survey carried out it 2017-18, indicates that with growing rural to urban migration by men, there is a ‘feminization’ of the agriculture sector, with an increasing number of women in multiple roles as cultivators, entrepreneurs, and labourers. Globally, there is empirical evidence that women have…
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