Crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa need to increase to keep pace with food demands from the burgeoning population. Smallholder farmers play an important role in national food self-sufficiency, yet many live in poverty. Investing in inputs to increase yields is therefore often not viable for them. To investigate how to unlock this paradox, whole-farm experiments can reveal which incentives could increase farm production while also increasing household income.

This report presents the business plan designs and cost-benefit analyses for selected companies cooperating with the ‘transformational agroecology across food, land, and water systems’ programme, also known as the Agroecological Initiative (AE-I).In Mbire district, the sorghum value chain was prioritised because of the enthusiasm of the contracting company and positive results from the cost benefit analyses showing profitability for both the company and contracted farmers.

Strengthening the production and processing of key food commodities forms the basis of agricultural development in Africa. These value chains follow a quasi-linear progression across seven main segments: farm planning > land preparation and crop establishment > field production > harvest > post-harvest handling > marketing > and value addition. Each of these consists of sub-segments whose improvement depends upon promotion and adoption of specific modernizing technologies.

In the tropics, combining food security with biodiversity conservation remains a major challenge. Tropical agroforestry systems are among the most biodiversity friendly and productive land-use systems, and 70% of cocoa is grown by >6 million smallholder farmers living on <2$ per day. In cacao’s main centre of diversification, the western Amazon region, interest is growing to achieve premium prices with the conversion of high-yielding, but mostly bulk-quality cacao to native fine-flavor cacao varieties, culturally important since pre-Columbian times.

Humanity is challenged with making progress toward global biodiversity, freshwater, and climate goals, while providing food and nutritional security for everyone. Our current food and land-use systems are incompatible with this ambition making them unsustainable. Papers in this special feature introduce a participatory, integrated modeling approach applied to provide insights on how to transform food and land-use systems to sustainable trajectories in 12 countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Finland, India, Mexico, Rwanda, Sweden, the UK, and USA.

CONTEXT: Integration of farms into markets with adoption of maize as a cash crop can significantly increase income of farms of the developing world. However, in some cases, the income generated may still be very low and maize production may also have strong negative environmental and social impacts.

The quality and origin of tree seeds and seedlings affect the survival, growth, productivity, ecosystem services and adaptive capacity of restored forests and landscapes. The availability of seeds and seedlings directly influences the delivery of benefits to land users from restoration efforts. Yet, despite more than a decade of global restoration commitments and programmes since 2011, substantial gaps remain worldwide in individual, organizational and sectoral capacities to source and deliver quality tree seeds and seedlings for restoration, especially of native species.

Livestock are a critically important component of the food system, although the sector needs a profound transformation to ensure that it contributes to a rapid transition towards sustainable food systems. This chapter reviews and synthesises the evidence available on changes in demand for livestock products in the last few decades, and the multiple socio-economic roles that livestock have around the world. We also describe the nutrition, health, and environmental impacts for which the sector is responsible.

Anthropogenic activities profoundly impact soil organic carbon (SOC), affecting its contribution to ecosystem services such as climate regulation. Here, we conducted a thorough review of the impacts of land-use change, land management, and climate change on SOC. Using second-order meta-analysis, we synthesized findings from 230 first-order meta-analyses comprising over 25,000 primary studies.

Soil salinization is a significant form of land degradation in agricultural areas. Remote sensing is a better way to assess soil salinity than traditional methods, as it provides non-destructive and repetitive informative assessment for monitoring and mapping soil salinity. Different sensors can identify soil salinity in remote sensing data through direct and indirect indicators. A Brief review of the major soil salinity mapping studies is presented here.

This brochure is a guide for effective sorghum crop management, covering crucial topics such as land preparation, optimal sowing and seeding rates, fertilizer application, thinning and weed management. It highlights the importance of pest management, specifically addressing issues related to shoot fly, stem borer and bird control. Additionally, the brochure offers valuable insights into proper harvesting and post-harvest handling to alleviate storage pest risks.

This brochure is a guide to cultivation of green gram. It provides the ideal climatic conditions for cultivation of the crop, covering aspects such as land preparation, seed rate, sowing, weed control, optimal fertilizer application and harvesting. It provides insights into managing common insect pests and diseases. Emphasizing integrated pest management as an effective environment sensitive approach to pest management, the brochure provides guidance on application of pesticides.