Research Highlights

by Vanessa Meadu

In Vietnam, everywhere you look there is food. Before dawn, people haul away huge bags of produce, meat, fish and flowers to later sell on the city streets. On every sidewalk of every town, people are chopping, washing, cooking food. And from morning to night, folks are eating at makeshift pavement restaurants, or grabbing refreshment from a steaming or sizzling mobile stall, perched on the backs of their motorbikes.

This country takes food and agriculture very seriously, and has made incredible progress in the last few decades, going from importing most of its food to becoming a major food exporter, and a leading global rice producer and exporter. In recent years neglected crops like cassava have become major income generators in Vietnam, contributing to poverty alleviation. 

Much of this growth is due to government and international investment in Vietnam's small-scale farmers. But climate change is a hazard to this progress. At worst, it threatens millions of people who depend on agriculture, from farmers in the Mekong Delta to consumers in the Philippines and beyond who depend on cheap rice for nutrition. Read more »

By Joost Vervoort

What does the future hold for food security in East Africa? How do uncertain future socio-economic developments, such as changes in the degree of regional collaboration or changes in policies oriented to rural development, change East Africa’s capacity for climate adaptation and mitigation? 

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has explored how different political and socio-economic futures for East Africa may affect food security and environmental change in the region, and how this may affect the region’s vulnerability to future climate change. These futures have been captured in four scenarios, developed and used by stakeholders from governments, civil society, the private sector, academia and the media in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Burundi.

WATCH: How scenarios are developed with regional partners

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In a joint effort, International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), have developed the West African Agriculture and Climate Change monographs. It is the first of three monographs on climate change and agriculture, featuring West, Central, and Eastern Africa. The monographs result from a research project headed by IFPRI Senior Researcher Gerald Nelson.

by Gerald Nelson 

Policy decisions are usually made in a messy process that includes incomplete information and often conflicting desires and goals of different interest groups.

Policy researchers, like me, want to improve the quality and accessibility of the information that feeds into this process. We hope that more and better information will help all parties understand the consequences of the choices being considered.

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by Cecilia Schubert

In Kenya, the government recently made a list of agricultural technologies, such as agroforestry and conservation tillage, that they believe could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while building resilience. At the same time, Peru is planning a nationwide program that will scale up agricultural waste-to-energy initiatives.

A bit further up north, Costa Rica, is developing a mitigation strategy for its coffee sector, responsible for about 25 per cent of their agricultural GHG emissions. As a step towards their goal to become carbon neutral by 2021, the country is suggesting to apply nitrogen fertilizers more efficiently and establish coffee agroforestry systems.

So, what do these mitigation activities have in common? Read more »