CABI at the AFSF side events
Monday, 1 September
Tuesday, 2 September
Side event: Artificial Intelligence Driven Advisory
18:00 – 19:30
Location: TBC
CABI Speaker: Ameen Jauhar, Data Governance Lead
Wednesday, 3 September
Youth Dome: Youth Innovation Showcase
11:30 – 13:00
Location: TBC
CABI Speaker: Deogratius Magero, Youth Engagement Manager
Youth Dome: Empower Her: Next-gen Women in Agri-food
14:00 – 16:00
Location: TBC
CABI Speaker: Phyllis Ombonyo, Director of Strategy and Engagement
Side event: Wired for Impact: Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) Engine for Agri-Food Systems Transformation
14:00 – 16:00
Location: Press Conference Room
CABI Speaker: TBC
Thematic session: Agri-Tech and Digitalization
16:30 – 18:00
Location: : Hall A – Thematic Hall
CABI Speaker: Henry Mibei, Manager, Digital Development
Thursday, 4 September
Arbre à Palabres Session: Listening session on digital champions engagement in Ghana
10:00 – 10:30
Location: Hall E - Exhibition Hall - Arbre à Palabres & Culinary Village
CABI Speaker: : Walter Hevi, Scientist – Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS)
Plenary: Biodiversity, Climate and Land: Making the Conventions work for Africa
10:30 – 12:00
Location: Auditorium
CABI Speaker: Daniel Elger, Chief Executive Officer
Generation Africa Fellowship Program Graduation
10:30 – 12:30
Location: TBC
CABI Speaker: Deogratius Magero, Youth Engagement Manager
TBC
Regulatory harmonization for pest control products for enhanced agricultural productivity and market access in Africa
Location: TBC
CABI Speaker: : MaryLucy Oronje, Senior Scientist – SPS
All week, 1 – 5 September
CABI's exhibition booth
Open every day during the Africa Food Systems Forum
Location: TBC
Our work
Click below to find out more
Creating opportunities for rural women and youth
Breaking down the barriers to women and young people’s employment in agriculture can benefit agriculture, food security and communities.
We use our understanding of how gender, social relations and underlying power dynamics affect the participation of women, youth and marginalized groups in agriculture. This helps us deliver targeted programming to redress inequalities in wealth and nutrition and create opportunities for women and youth in agricultural value chains.
This includes new income and employment opportunities using innovative business models for youth and women in agriculture to help transform food systems, such as in the production of low-risk bio-based pest control products for local use.
Youth training
For example, in Uganda, PlantwisePlus and its partners have set up an agro-input programme, training over 200 youths in agricultural skills, including safe pesticide handling and use. Covering 10 districts in central and west Uganda, the initiative has taught these young people how to diagnose plant health problems and give recommendations to solve them, with a focus on natural, sustainable pesticide alternatives.
The knowledge has enabled young people to create agro-input businesses and offer complementary services such as advisory services and spray services, benefitting them and their communities.
For more information on CABI's work with young people in Africa, read our report 'Creating Agri-food Work Opportunities for Young People in Africa'.
Promoting sustainable crop health
By sharing science-based knowledge about crop health, CABI helps smallholder farmers to grow more and lose less, increase their incomes and improve their livelihoods
The CABI-led PlantwisePlus programme increases food security and safety, while reducing biodiversity loss through sustainable crop production practices. In 2024, the programme reached over 23 million farmers with knowledge on sustainable farming practices.
PlantwisePlus also supports governments to predict, prevent, and prepare for plant health threats in a changing climate, supporting coordinated systems that enable smallholder farmers to reduce crop losses and produce more and safer food.
We work with donors and partners to deliver projects in Integrated Crop Management (ICM), combining a variety of practices in, for example, pest and soil health management, helping farmers to grow better crops
Soil Information Systems
Access to healthy seeds and soil is essential for smallholder farmers in developing countries. We help make high-quality seeds available and share information about organic fertilizers and good soil health practices or Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM). In the Soil Information Systems (SISs) Review project, we worked with partners to conduct a comprehensive review of several existing SISs. This was followed by an innovative framework for strengthening national SISs.
PlantwisePlus
PlantwisePlus aims to reach 75 million smallholder farmers in low and lower-middle income countries, providing them with access to the knowledge and skills they need to improve their production practices.
This will be achieved by supporting countries to predict, prevent, and prepare for plant health threats in the face of a changing climate. This ensures that smallholder farmers reduce their crop losses and produce more and safer food through sustainable crop production practices.
Delivered through gender-sensitive and climate-resilient approaches, PlantwisePlus is tackling the challenges facing smallholder production through three impact pathways: Pest Preparedness, Pesticide Risk Reduction, and Farmer Advisory.
Sharing innovative digital and data-driven solutions
Through the creation and application of digital technologies, CABI brings science-based agricultural knowledge to millions of smallholder farmers, helping to increase their yields. We help to transform smallholder farmers’ livelihoods by turning data and science-based knowledge into practical information that addresses their real needs.
Our strengths in developing digital advisory tools such as apps, mobile services, web portals and digital learning help stakeholders tackle complex problems by making it easy to understand the science behind challenges and offering best-practice solutions.
Our expertise in data policy and practice help donors address problems related to data management. This includes the launch of the FAIR Process Framework, a set of tools already making an impact with the potential to be transformative in operationalizing FAIR data principles.
Generative Artificial Intelligence
We are also using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technology to support smallholder farmers in India and Kenya and enhance their overall agricultural productivity and sustainability.
Our data-driven development work includes the PRISE pest forecasting system. Our strengths include alerting farmers about impending pest risks, mapping and monitoring the spread of invasive weeds, predicting the potential establishment of insects, and supporting the uptake of biological control.
Generative AI for Agriculture Advisory
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is starting to reshape how advice is accessed, shared and created in the agriculture sector. It can localize digital advisory messages and increase the accessibility of such messages to reduce the digital divide compared to traditional, non-AI communication methods. Using natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) offers new potential to disseminate complex scientific information more widely, in local dialects and through various formats, transforming accessibility.
This Generative AI for Agriculture Advisory project is a multi-partner initiative that will explore how GenAI tools can improve the quality and inclusivity of agricultural advice for smallholder farmers. CABI will lead on the delivery of advisories, data governance and ethical guidance.
Reducing pesticide risks and barriers to trade
With food demand expected to double by 2050, creating sustainable agricultural value chains and breaking down barriers to trade has never been more important. Working with our donors and partners, CABI helps smallholder farmers to produce food safely, sustainably, and work together to improve access to markets and boost their livelihoods.
We successfully increase value chain efficiency and empower agricultural value chain actors to help farmers comply with market requirements. This provides pathways for entry into national, regional and international markets by sharing information, skills and technologies.
We help farmers meet Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) standards so that they can protect their produce from contaminants such as pesticide residues, diseases and pests, and strengthen consumer acceptability.
Reducing pesticide risk
We recognize the urgent need to increase the uptake of lower-risk plant protection products by farmers. There are many ways to reduce pesticide use, including through education and training. Pesticide reduction can also be achieved through the use of biological control and the use of natural biopesticides as well as techniques such as Integrated Crop Management (ICM) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM). These are all areas in which we have expertise.
Our SPS plans
We are always seeking to improve and expand our core SPS offering by continuously developing and improving our SPS plans which include three core areas:
● Increased synergies and collaboration with stakeholders to ensure that we are part of decision-making processes that drive SPS improvements
● Improved internal, regional and national SPS institutional capacity to ensure effective participation, greater access to, and best use of practices and knowledge, helping us to expand our work in new and existing areas
● Strengthened SPS research and tertiary education programme to be the trusted partner of choice, contributing to and seeking to address the diverse and intersecting needs and priorities of all stakeholders within SPS systems.
Our aim is to help harmonize, strengthen capacity and increase market access for developing countries.
Scaling regenerative landscapes and safeguarding biodiversity
Biodiversity loss is proceeding at an unprecedented pace, jeopardizing the stability of natural ecosystems, increasing vulnerability to climate change, limiting options for climate adaptation and threatening food security.
CABI is a world leader in nature-based solutions, including biological control solutions for specific pests, diseases and weeds that minimize environmental harms.
CABI scientists estimated the economic impact of invasive species on Africa’s agricultural sector to be US$65.58bn a year. Our programmes to manage invasive species help preserve and restore biodiversity across the world. Our work seeks to ensure agricultural systems are embedded in climate-resilient and biodiverse landscapes, with clean water and air, healthy soils, and functional ecosystem services.
Integrated Landscape Management
Nature-based solutions like biocontrol and Integrated Pest Management can be important components for an Integrated Landscape Management (ILM) approach which encompasses informed and inclusive planning at a landscape level, integrating ecological, social and economic considerations.
The principle of the ILM approach is the consolidation of the often contrasting and divergent needs and views between economic development, such as food production, and the conservation of biodiversity and nature. Through careful participatory planning and adaptive strategies involving all stakeholders, ILM ensures resilience to environmental challenges while fostering harmonious coexistence between nature and human activities.
Supporting evidence-based solutions
Despite the wealth of data available about agriculture and the environment, major gaps remain. We understand that existing data and evidence need to be curated, synthesized and made more accessible, turning them into useful knowledge for decision-makers who are working to transform food systems.
We continue to create, curate and share high-quality evidence that is relevant to policy and practice, for different stakeholders, from farmers and their advisors to policymakers, researchers, students, industry actors and investors.
Juno/Global Burden of Crop Loss
The CABI-led Global Burden of Crop Loss programme provides an evidence-based picture of the scale, magnitude, and the factors contributing to crop losses. The data will equip decision-makers with the insights they need to take targeted action to prevent crop loss.
The One Health Hub identifies gaps in One Health knowledge, analyses evidence, and facilitates dialogue, helping to shape policies for a more interconnected approach to health across human, animal, plant and ecosystem health.
CABI is working with partners on the Juno Evidence Alliance which is a cutting-edge global platform that empowers evidence-based policy in agriculture, food systems and climate adaptation. By utilizing artificial intelligence and proven research methodologies, Juno aims to streamline the synthesis of diverse data sources, providing timely, relevant, and high-quality conclusions for governments, funders and policymakers.
Global Burden of Crop Loss
Every year, up to 40% of crops are lost before they are even harvested. Crop loss impacts on food security, farmer livelihoods and economic stability. However, the problem is poorly understood, preventing effective action to reduce losses.
The Global Burden of Crop Loss initiative aims to bridge this knowledge gap by providing trusted, actionable estimates of crop losses to inform decisions on improving agricultural output and food security globally.