Inside Africa’s Big Bet on Youth to Feed the Continent and Who’s Actually Getting Funded

Winnie Wambui leans forward on the panel stage, microphone in hand, scanning the room until she spots a raised hand.

Seeding Strength: Farmer Cooperatives and the Future of Food Systems

“The future of agriculture lies not in the hands of a few giants, but in the joint hands of many.” This quote captures the spirit of farmer cooperatives—values-driven, collectively run enterprises rooted in solidarity and self-help. As global food systems grow more fragile and inequitable, cooperatives offer a compelling model: putting people before profits, and communities before corporations, while advancing social equity, economic empowerment, and environmental sustainability.

Africa’s Moment: From Addis to the World, Food Systems Must Change Now

The global food system is under pressure from every direction – climate, conflict, inequality, and economic instability. But in Addis Ababa this July, something shifted. At the UN Food Systems Summit +4 Stocktake (UNFSS+4), over 3,500 people from 150 countries came together to confront the lack of progress and push forward solutions that can no longer wait.

Bending the Curve: Overhaul Global Food Systems to Avert Worsening Land Crisis

Current rates of land degradation pose a major environmental and socioeconomic threat, driving climate change, biodiversity loss, and social crises. Food production to feed more than 8 billion people is the dominant land use on Earth. Yet, this industrial-scale enterprise comes with a heavy environmental toll.

Kenyan Biochar Project Becomes First in Africa Validated Under European Carbon Standard

In June 2025, Kenyan climate-tech firm Tera became the first African project developer to have its carbon removal initiative independently validated and registered under Riverse, a European standard for engineered climate solutions.

From Drylands to Dignity: How Solar Energy and Climate-Smart Farming Are Empowering Communities in Burkina Faso

In the heart of Burkina Faso’s drylands, in the village of Zoungou, a quiet transformation is underway. Alhaji Birba Issa, a smallholder onion farmer, bends over neat rows of lush green crops, the hum of solar-powered pumps audible in the background.

Preventing Pandemics Needs Every Tool in the Toolbox – Including Animal Vaccines

Just five years on from the Covid-19 pandemic, another animal-borne disease is mutating and spreading across borders and species. Avian influenza has already resulted in the loss of more than 630 million birds in the last 20 years. And new figures from the inaugural State of the World’s Animal Health report find that the number of reported outbreaks in mammals, including cattle, sheep and cats, doubled last year compared to 2023.

African Fish Workers Excluded From International Trade Deals: Report

A new report has raised concerns about the exclusion of African fish workers from trade protocols between their governments and developed countries, resulting in impoverished communities relying on fishing.

Science Is Useless if No One Understands It

Despite delivering life-saving medicines, more nutritious crops, and transformative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), science remains widely misunderstood, polarizing, and underappreciated. Much of this, experts say, comes down to one persistent issue: poor communication.

Afghanistan’s Children in Dire Need of an ‘Acceleration in Nutrition Action’

Afghanistan is burdened with one of the highest rates of child wasting globally, with 3.5 million children under five years suffering from a severe form of malnutrition, leaving them dangerously underweight and unable to grow or thrive.

Weaponizing Food Worsens Starvation

Wars, economic shocks, planetary heating and aid cuts have worsened food crises in recent years, with almost 300 million people now threatened by starvation.

UNOC3: A Cry for Global Action to Save Small-Scale Fisheries

Just before dawn, the worn wooden dhows begin gliding toward the shore at Magogoni fish market in Tanzania’s port city of Dar es Salaam. Their tattered sails flutter against the orange sky. Exhausted fishers step out onto the muddy sand, hauling frayed nets and plastic crates, their sun-creased faces tight with fatigue.

How Computational Biology Is Zoning in on the Future of Agriculture

When pioneering agronomist and father of the “Green Revolution” Norman Borlaug set out to breed a disease-resistant, high-yielding variety of wheat, he spent years laboriously planting and pollinating different specimens by hand. He manually catalogued every outcome until he landed on the variety that would transform farming and avert famine. The result was even greater than expected: it is estimated that he saved more than a billion people worldwide from starvation.

Mask Off – Recapping the 2025 World Bank Land Conference

Last week, at its annual Land Conference in Washington D.C., (May 5-8), the World Bank showed allegiance to the new US administration by dropping the pretense of promoting land reform for climate action and confirming that its land agenda is about boosting corporate profits.

In Zimbabwe, Farmers Are Leading Scientific Research on Conservation Agriculture

Migren Matanga grew up shying away from small and traditional grains in Rushinga, in northern Zimbabwe. The 58-year-old mother of four from Toruzumba village relied on maize and cotton, one of the major cash crops in the area at the time.

Mexico Bans GM Corn Cultivation in Constitutional Reform: Action Follows Trade Ruling That Ignored Evidence of Genetic Contamination

On March 17, Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum signed into law a constitutional reform banning the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) corn. The action followed a December ruling by a trade tribunal, under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, in favor of a U.S. complaint that Mexico's 2023 presidential decree, with broader restrictions on the consumption of GM corn, constituted an unfair trade practice by prohibiting the use of GM corn in tortillas.

How Science Solutions Are Saving Africa’s Livestock and Livelihoods

Livestock are a lifeline for millions of farmers in Africa as a source of food and wealth. But devastating diseases are threatening the health and productivity of their animals. Now scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) have unleashed a toolbox of science solutions by outsmarting the parasites and pathogens that cost millions of dollars in livestock losses across Africa. The toolbox includes everything from vaccines that protect livestock from ‘cattle malaria’ to genetics to breed animals tolerant to East Coast fever.

Smallholder Farmers Are Not ‘Beneficiaries’, but the ‘Co-Creators of Change’

Eliud Rugut comes from generations of farmers, yet his family expected him to move out of their home and pursue another career.

Food Insecurity an Unprecedented Crisis Worldwide

Last year, 343 million people were experiencing acute food insecurity, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). That’s 10 percent higher than in 2023.

CGIAR Gender Accelerator: A Tool to Advance Gender Equality Research in Agri-Food Systems

To advance the participation of women, the youth, and minority communities in the agricultural sector, measures must be taken to recognize and break down the barriers that hold them back. Experts in the agricultural sector agree that even as they constitute a significant percentage of the agricultural workforce, women face persistent challenges. The picture that emerges is a lack of due recognition of their presence and their challenges, such as limited access to resources and knowledge.

Want To Fix the World, Ubuntu (Humanity to Others) Can Help

The world needs an urgent fix and humanity could just be it.