Africa is short of food, due particularly to increasing population and under-investment in agriculture and agricultural research. For several reasons farm yields are about one-quarter of the global average. New broad cooperative approaches to the problem have had very encouraging results; Malawi...

The world’s population is estimated to peak at around nine billion in 2050, with almost half of the increase from 2009 (three billion) occurring in Asia. This will require a doubling of food production on a declining land area and natural resource base and in the context of increasing climate...

This talk reflects on the proceedings of the Crawford conference and provides a way forward in policy thinking. Effective food and agriculture policy decision-making requires clearer differentiation of countries by their stage of development. Operationally, it implies different approaches at the...

Doubling food production by 2050 under conditions of climate change and depleted natural resources requires increased investment and creative approaches. The Water-Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project, a five-year public–private partnership begun in 2008 and led by the African...

Mechanisation of agriculture is fundamental to reducing poverty and improving lifestyle and food security in the developing world. Large populations are escaping subsistence agriculture, and there is a broad consensus that conservation agriculture (CA) is the only sustainable approach to...

It is easy to assume that the public sector dominates assistance to smallholders in the developing world, including in the provision of research and development. These proceedings have illustrated that this is not always the case and that the private sector can and needs to be engaged, even in...

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has a mandate to improve the livelihoods of the poor in the semiarid tropical (SAT) regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, which is home to 550 million poor people. Sorghum, pearl millet, chickpea, pigeonpea and...