Agriculture

The ability of development interventions to catalyse and support innovation for—and by— women and men is undermined by lack of specific understanding about how gender norms interact with gender relations and what this means for innovation. This is also the case for Bangladesh despite substantive research and development investments in the past decade that have placed emphasis on gender norms, particularly those inhibiting women and girl’s education, women and girl’s health, and women’s economic empowerment.

Reorienting food systems towards improving nutrition outcomes is vital if the global goal of ending all forms of malnutrition is to be achieved. Crucial to transitioning to nutrition-sensitive agriculture is valuing and measuring nutritional quality of the outputs of agricultural production. We review existing indicators which capture an element of nutritional quality applicable to different stages of the food and nutrition system. Applying relevant indicators from the agricultural production stage to selected aquaculture systems, we compare and contrast their strengths and limitations.

This manual was written as part of the Integrated Research in Development for Improved Livelihoods Programme in Northern Province, Zambia (IRDLP) and is primarily intended for extension agents to use with smallholder farmers engaged in semi-intensive fish farming in Northern Zambia. The IRDLP is an Irish Aid-funded project implemented by WorldFish, Harvest Plus and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Innovation platforms are fast becoming part of the mantra of agricultural research for development projects and programmes. Their basic tenet is that stakeholders depend on one another to achieve agricultural development outcomes, and hence need a space where they can learn, negotiate and coordinate to overcome challenges and capture opportunities through a facilitated innovation process.

This paper summarizes the major findings in modelling and analysing agroecosystems using ECOPATH.

This paper aims to devise a farmer participatory method that not only improves farmer management of natural resources, but also monitors the impact of improvements. This assessment is made in terms of: economic efficiency, biological material recycling, species biodiversity and material input-output balance. Results suggest that high performance in all indicators can occur simultaneously and that economic loss from crop failure does not jeopardise performance in biodiversity and recycling.

Field consultations on the role of wild resources in people’s livelihoods were conducted in the Ayeyarwady Basin from the delta in the south to Putao in the north of Myanmar. Interviews and group discussions with local people, key government, and non-government stakeholders in 14 districts provided insights into the status and trends of wild resources and their management. This report is part of the The Ayeyarwady State of the Basin Assessment (SOBA) project.