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.
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 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.
Wars, economic shocks, planetary heating and aid cuts have worsened food crises in recent years, with almost 300 million people now threatened by starvation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Eliud Rugut comes from generations of farmers, yet his family expected him to move out of their home and pursue another career.
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.
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.
The world needs an urgent fix and humanity could just be it.
More than 13,600 participants from around the world registered for the inaugural CGIAR Science Week at the UN Complex, Nairobi, April 7-12, 2025. Dr. Ismahane Elouafi, the organization’s Executive Managing Director, said, “This is a testament that people are thirsty for science and for good news.”
This week presented a beacon of hope for young people so that the “girl from the South and the boy, of course” could stay in the developing world, Dr Ismahane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director of CGIAR, said during a press conference on the final day of the CGIAR Science Week.
"To have impact, it was crucial to understand what impact was wanted," CGIAR's Executive Managing Director Dr. Ismahane Elouafi said at the launch of the organization's flagship report,
Insight to Impact: A decision-maker’s guide to navigating food system science.
Increasingly, experts in the global health and agricultural sectors are finding the One Health approach effective for identifying and addressing health concerns that can influence facets of health. Implementing this approach worldwide will require partnerships across different sectors.
As agrifood systems in the Global South buckle under the weight of climate change, biodiversity, and even pollution, experts such as Dr. Himanshu Pathak call for urgent innovative solutions, as, at the current pace, the problems of the Global South are going to intensify with escalating climate change.
Animal scientist Lindiwe Majele Sibanda became what her grandmother earnestly prayed for when she was growing up on a farm in southern Zimbabwe.
Women farmers face structural issues that prevent them from realizing their full potential, from societal perceptions that dictate their limitations to poor land.
However, CGIAR's Gender Impact Platform Director, Nicoline de Haan, argues that leaning into a "victim" narrative does not serve them, especially when women are demonstrably more involved in agriculture.