This user evaluation report focuses on extension workers’ experiences with using the Maize- Nutrient-Manager (MNM) mobile phone application for field-specific advice provision in the period November 2020 to January 2021. It provides a systematic overview of user experiences to inform adaptations and re-design of MNM data collection and advice protocols to enhance its usability and scaling potential.

Since 2012 the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has been piloting the Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) approach in East Africa, including the Nyando basin of western Kenya, introducing a wide range of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies and practices. The CSA interventions were tailored to address the climate risks in Nyando, the needs and circumstances of individual farmers, and were collectively piloted with the farmers for potential adoption.

By 2050, the United Nations projects that 68 percent of the world population will live in cities (UN DESA 2019). However, with continuous population growth, the number of people living in rural areas of many low- and low-middle-income countries (LMICs) will continue to rise. Two- thirds of the extreme poor live in rural areas (World Bank 2016) and the livelihoods of two to three billion rural people, often the most food in-secure and vulnerable, still depend primarly on small farms (Laborde, Parent, and Smaller 2020; Woodhill, Hasnain, and Griffith 2020).

The climate crisis is having a significant detrimental influence on livelihoods in developing countries. Climate variability and extremes can negatively impact climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture and livestock which are a considerable source of employment and a key contributor to economic growth in developing countries (Burke, Hsiang, and Miguel 2015; Dell, Jones, and Olken 2014; 2012). The intensification of the climate crisis poses a threat to efforts aimed to eliminate poverty and food

In this study we investigate whether the increasing investment in smallholder oil palm plantations that contributes to deforestation is motivated by financial gains or other factors. We evaluate the financial viability of smallholder farmers selling fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) to intermediaries or agro-industrial companies with mills, or processing the FFBs in artisanal mills to produce palm oil. We use data collected in four oil palm production basins in Cameroon and carried out a life cycle assessment of oil palm cultivation and CPO production to understand financial gains.

Analysis of farmer risk perceptions is usually limited to production risks, with risk perception as a function of likelihood and severity. Such an approach is limited in the context of the many risks and other important risk attributes. Our analysis of the risk perceptions of farmers extends beyond production risks, severity of the risks, and their likelihoods. We first characterize agricultural risks and identify their main sources and consequences. We then analyze risk perceptions as a hierarchical construct using partial least squares path modelling.

Sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) has the potential to increase food security without detrimental effects on ecosystem services. However, adoption of SAI practices across sub-Saharan Africa has not reached transformational numbers to date. It is often hampered by lack of context-specific practices, sub-optimal understanding of tradeoffs and synergies among stakeholders, and lack of approaches that bring diverse evidence sources together with stakeholders to collectively tackle complex problems.

Site‐specific soil fertility management requires a fundamental understanding of factors that modulate soil fertility variability in the local context. To verify this assumption, this study hypothesized that soil fertility variability across two regions in Central and Western Ethiopia is determined by inter‐related effects of agro‐ecological zones and farmers’ resource endowment (‘wealthy’ versus ‘poor’ farmers).

To increase understanding of agricultural intensification processes over time and their sustainability, we studied dimensions of sustainability in the context of ongoing expansion of intensive, commercial mono-cropping of banana in Southwestern Uganda. In our approach we considered five dimensions of sustainability: economic, agricultural productivity, environment, social and human. We compared farming systems in 1998 and 2018 and integrated a gender lens.