CABI at the AFSF side events
Monday, 2 September
Wednesday, 4 September
Closing the Conservation Loop: Accelerating Agrifood Systems Transition through Innovative Business and Landscape-Scale Approaches
18:00 – 20:45
Location: Lemigo Hotel, Kigali
CABI Speaker: Phyllis Engefu Ombonyo
All week, 2 – 6 September
CABI's exhibition booth
Open every day during the Africa Food Systems Forum
Location: Stand DE4, Kigali Convention Centre
Click below to find out more
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
For example, the CABI-led PlantwisePlus programme increases food security and improves rural livelihoods by reducing crop losses. In 2023, 13.6 million farmers were reached through PlantwisePlus programme-supported activities. By leveraging digital decision support tools and online learning products, PlantwisePlus can provide a wider audience of agricultural service providers and farmers with the necessary information to make better crop management decisions.
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 upcoming launch of the FAIR Process Framework, a set of tools that has the potential to be transformative in operationalizing FAIR data principles. Find out more in the FAIR Journal.
PRISE
Our data-driven development work includes the PRISE pest forecasting system, and the creation of tools such as digital data collection to support project work.
We develop research-led solutions to support sustainable development and the strengthening of food systems. 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.
PRISE
PRISE is an early-warning information system that provides farmers with alerts on the best time to intervene in a crop for pest management. PRISE increases productivity and builds resilience to climate shocks through supporting preventative action.
PRISE collects data on pest presence through a crowd-sourced feedback loop, and combines it with Earth Observation (EO) technology, data, and pest modeling to assess risk and generate alerts.
PRISE generates alerts on the optimum ‘time to action window’, allowing farmers and other agricultural stakeholders to prepare in advance, thereby increasing the efficiency and efficacy of intervention. PRISE does not define which interventions should be made, but the system could be expanded to incorporate CABI’s world-class pest management advice. The alerts can be integrated into existing advisory services, complementing the advice already serviced to farmers.
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 development work, and the value they derive from such work. This helps us to design and deliver targeted programming to redress inequalities in wealth and nutrition, and to 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, for example, 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 various 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, in particular using 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 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'.
Reducing pesticide risks and barriers to trade
With the global population growing fast, and food demand expected to double by 2050, creating sustainable agricultural value chains and breaking down the barriers to trade has never been more important. Working with our donors and partners, CABI helps smallholder farmers to produce food safely and 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 famers 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 therefore 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 healthy, 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. An ILM approach 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 needs to be curated, synthesized and made more accessible, to turn it into useful knowledge that is available to different stakeholders 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
For example, CABI is working with partners on the Juno Evidence Alliance which will be 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, the aim is to streamline the synthesis of diverse data sources, providing timely, relevant, and high-quality conclusions for governments, funders, and policymakers.
CABI is also working with partners on the Global Burden of Crop Loss initiative which will produce rigorous evidence about the impact to society of crop losses across our food systems. This will enable decision makers and investors to understand the impact of crop loss on food security and on the economy, and take appropriate action.