AICCRA Validating Climate-Smart Agriculture Innovations through Piloting (Component 3)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/115674

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Scaling climate-smart innovations in Mali
(Brief, 2025-11) Ewell, Hanna Louise Deborah; Carbonell Barlis, Angelica; Dossou Yovo, Elliot R; Suh Neville Ndohnwi; Aboubacar Diallo; Toure Haissa; Zougmore, Robert Bellarmin
Mali’s scaling pathway evolved from piloting individual innovations to bundling CSA and CIS solutions such as improved rice varieties, advisories, irrigation and finance, delivered through farmers’ hubs with strong institutional and private sector partnerships. Since 2021, nearly 500,000 farmers (41% women) have adopted CSA and CIS, achieving yield gains of up to 45%, higher incomes and improved food and nutrition security, while women and youth have benefitted from tailored innovations and service delivery roles. Scaling is constrained by weak institutional coordination, finance gaps, and socio-political fragility, but Mali is poised to expand multi-stakeholder platforms, inclusive finance and gender-responsive bundles.
The power of partnerships: CSA transforming lives in northern Kenya
(Video, 2025-09) Nzuki, Esther Ndumi; Nderi, Alex Nduah; Ogutu, Elizabeth; Lawrence Riungu
In 2023, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy (LEWA) partnered with the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) to scale climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in northern Kenya. This collaboration introduced CGIAR-validated technologies and science-based strategies to address key challenges faced by smallholder farmers, including limited land size, low soil testing rates, minimal crop diversification, and poor market access. Through a comprehensive training program, 4,968 community members were equipped with skills in soil health management, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, and fodder production. Demonstration farms, irrigation support, and soil testing services enhanced peer-to-peer learning and adoption of CSA practices. Early outcomes show improved crop yields, household incomes, and resilience to climate shocks, underscoring the transformative potential of partnerships in promoting sustainable agriculture and climate adaptation.
Promoting Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) as a pathway to sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food systems in Makueni County Kenya
(Report, 2025-11) Nderi, Alex Nduah; Nzuki, Esther Ndumi; Ogutu, Elizabeth; Ewell, Hanna Louise Deborah; Waswa, Boaz Shaban; Wanyama, Rosina Nanjala; Bullock, Renee M.; Majiwa, Hamilton; Gichunge Kathure, Karen
The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, through the AICCRA project, partnered with the Kimatwa Women Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) in Makindu, Makueni County, to promote Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) as a strategic pathway toward resilient, inclusive, and gender-equitable food systems. This initiative responds to the intensifying climate challenges that jeopardize the food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, particularly women. Building on foundational CSA and climate information services training conducted in 2023, a follow-up workshop in 2025 engaged 120 farmers using participatory approaches to identify systemic constraints and opportunities across farms, households, markets, and SACCO operations. The workshop aimed to assess the scaling readiness of CSA innovations and deepen their adoption. Findings underscored that resilience is not solely technological—it is also social, rooted in equitable household decision-making, shared responsibilities, and collective action. The engagement reaffirmed the importance of empowering women and strengthening community structures to drive sustainable climate adaptation and agricultural transformation.
Climate services bundles preferences of smallholder farmers in West Africa: a stated choice modelling
(Journal Article, 2025-07-09) Ouedraogo, Adama; Ouedraogo, Mathieu; Egyir, Irene S.; Läderach, Peter; Mensah-Bonsu, Akwasi; Jatoe, John Baptist D.
This study investigates the preferences of rainfed farmers in West Africa for bundled agroclimate services, addressing challenges posed by climate variability and limited purchasing power. With various startups offering digital communication channels, credit, and insurance services, farmers often struggle to afford individual services, necessitating coherent service packages. The research aims to identify the most preferred attributes of agroclimate services and predict how increasing climate variability affects farmers' choices. Using a Choice Experiment and Mixed Logit model, data was collected from 1,212 farmers across four West African countries (Ghana, Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso). The findings reveal that the most preferred service bundle (Bundle 4), which includes daily weather forecasts, seed advisories, and drought insurance, garnered a preference of 45%. In contrast, Bundle 0, which lacks these features, was selected by only 22% of farmers. Notably, the introduction of a USD 1,000 credit option increased the likelihood of selecting preferred bundles by 39%. Additionally, 62% of farmers indicated that weather-based information is a critical factor in their decision-making. Access to agricultural credit significantly influenced choices, with a 17% increase in the likelihood of selecting preferred bundles when credit was available. The study underscores the importance of designing comprehensive service packages that cater to farmers' specific and urgent needs. It highlights the necessity for partnerships among service providers to improve the delivery of these essential services. By showing the agroclimate service bundling power, the study provides valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders to support agricultural development and sustainability in West Africa
Bundling climate smart agriculture and climate information services: the CSA Bundler Application
(Brief, 2025-04-01) Tepa Yotto, Ghislain; Dalaa, Mustapha Alasan; Obeng Adomaa, Faustina
Climate smart agriculture (CSA) implementation can be challenging in instances where promoting single standalone CSA practices or technologies would hardly achieve the expected triple-win climate smartness outcome with maladaptation and stagnation risks in a business as usual scheme. To the best of our knowledge and based on consulted literature, there is little data about climate smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information services (CIS) bundling. The current brief aims at documenting an approach developed under the framework of the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project for CSA and CIS bundling through stakeholder consultations in Ghana. Erratic rainfall, prolonged drought and dry spells, decline in yields, and pest outbreaks were scored top five (5) primary climate challenges by stakeholders. Other challenges of importance included soil fertility, irrigation and water management, and access to inputs and finance. Five priority value chains were selected including maize, rice, cowpea, yam, and vegetables. To achieve inclusiveness, soybean, groundnut, cocoa, poultry and goat were added as strategic value chains with high value addition potential. Climate smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information services (CIS) bundles around these value chains were prioritized for scaling in ten regions in Ghana: Bono, Bono East, Central, North East, Northern, Oti, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West and Volta. Insights from stakeholder perspectives indicated preference for the following CSA practice and technology types as key to building climate resilience: high-yielding varieties, early-maturing varieties, drought-tolerant varieties, integrated soil fertility management including the use of organic fertilizers, irrigation and water management, integrated pest and disease management, improved breeds, improved postharvest techniques, and climate information services and advisories. Gender and social inclusiveness (GSI) was explored to map relevant CSA practices and technologies for male, female, youth (male and female), and commercial farmers. Generic customizable bundles of CSA-CIS were explored using basic ecosystem and climate risk metrics. A stepwise CSA-CIS investment bundling was designed considering a full CSA investment principle that consists of triple-win productivity-adaptation-mitigation benefits of CSA. The current brief describes a basic CSA-CIS bundling approach using simple metrics. It provides new insights for developing an appealing tool called “CSA Bundler”. The CSA Bundler has potential for further advancement into web- or phone-based applications and with robust algorithms or AI component integration for accurate and high-resolution site-specific recommendation
Bias-Aware AI in Agricultural Extension: Enhancing Equity and Inclusivity Through Human-Centered Design
(Poster, 2025) Nganga, Kevin Gitau; Ghosh, Aniruddha
This Info Note explores the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), in agricultural extension services. It emphasizes the importance of inclusivity and bias mitigation to ensure equitable outcomes for smallholder farmers, women, and marginalized groups. While LLMs can enhance climate resilience and decision-making by offering timely, context-aware advisories, they risk reinforcing systemic biases if not carefully designed. Moreover, it advocates for the integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) principles and participatory methods throughout AI development to align technologies with diverse user needs. A novel methodology using the DALL·E image generation model demonstrates how prompt engineering can mitigate stereotypical representations in AI outputs. By combining ethical AI practices, localized insights, and inclusive visual and textual content, the InfoNote presents a roadmap for equitable innovation in agronomic and climate information systems. Policy and governance recommendations to foster trust, transparency, and broad adoption of AI tools in agriculture are also outlined.
Building women’s climate resilience through smart groundnut socio-technical innovation bundle in Ghana
(Brief, 2024-11) Obeng Adomaa, Faustina
Interventions aimed at building climate resilient communities require a mixture of instruments that speak to the peculiar realities of women, youth, and other vulnerable groups. Building of learnings from 2021-2023, this InfoNote presents a social technical innovation bundle for smart groundnut production that brings together technical solutions and institutional arrangements to address the primary challenges that women groundnut farmers in northern Ghana face. The Info Note also presents pathway for scaling this smart groundnut socio-technical innovation bundle.
Initial Training of New Platforms on Climate Change - Climate-Smart Agriculture - Positioning of Multistakeholder Platforms within the AICCRA System
(Report, 2024-02) Sidibe, Mahamadou
This report summarizes the initial training of two newly established multi-stakeholder platforms under the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project, in partnership with AfricaRice and the Office du Niger. The training aimed to enhance the capacity of the Synergie des Exploitants Agricoles de l’Office du Niger (SEXAGON) and the Collective of Women Farmers of the Office du Niger (CFEON) to disseminate climate-resilient and nature-positive solutions. The objectives were to provide participants with knowledge about the AICCRA project, climate change, and Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), and to develop their skills for scaling up smart agricultural technologies. The training covered key topics, including the concept of CSA, climate change adaptation and mitigation, change management, and communication strategies for social and behavioral transformation. The report highlights the methodological approach, training content, and participant engagement, emphasizing the role of platforms in fostering sustainable agricultural practices and climate resilience. Outcomes included improved understanding of CSA, enhanced dissemination skills, and actionable plans for integrating these solutions into local farming systems. Gender considerations and participant feedback were also addressed to ensure inclusivity and relevance. This initiative contributes to AICCRA’s goals of improving climate resilience, food security, and sustainable agricultural practices in Africa.
Ethiopia Climate-Smart Agriculture Investments Summary
(Brief, 2023-01) Tesfaye, Lidya; Barale, Kelsey; Alemayehu, Sintayehu; Nowak, Andreea C.; Jaquet, Stéphanie
In Ethiopia, a group of stakeholders, including representatives from local governments, research institutions, the Ministry of Agriculture, farmers' unions, the private sector, and NGOs, developed the planning framework that formed the basis for Ethiopia's Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan (CSAIP). The CSAIP outlines seven priority investments identified by stakeholders to meet the goals of productivity, adaptation, and mitigation. This Info Note briefly summarizes these prioritized investments, key considerations for success, and the monitoring and evaluation plan.
Sorghum Value Chain Business Case Development
(Report, 2022-09) Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa; Financial Access Consulting Services
Sorghum production is vital to the country’s food security and can play a major role in improving the livelihoods of farmers in arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL). Being a drought resistant crop that can tolerate extreme temperatures and flooding conditions, it offers farmers in ASAL regions a better alternative to generate higher incomes compared to other staples such as maize and wheat. Despite this, uptake of sorghum farming has been slow with production lagging demand nationally. Most farmers have yet to adopt the good agricultural practices (GAP) necessary to boost production. 84.4% of sorghum farmers in Makueni utilize uncertified seeds from their own stored sources while 30.9% of them grow the crop without any fertilizer. The AICCRA project seeks to remedy this by developing a climate-smart lending business case that will encourage financial institutions to lend to these farmers. The business case shall facilitate the formulation of a pilot lending scheme involving a Partner Financial Institution (PFI) covering the semi-arid counties of Kitui and Makueni in Lower Eastern Kenya.

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