The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have begun providing seeds, hand tools and food to nearly 50,000 hungry farming families for this planting season in the most food-insecure areas of the Central African Republic (CAR). It coincides with the height of the lean season when household food stocks are typically lowest.

FAO has just released a new publication entitled Methods for estimating comparable prevalence rates of food security experienced by adults throughout the world. This report presents a detailed description of the methodology and first results of FAO's Voices of the Hungry project.

A collaborative video project aimed at raising farmers’ awareness of small-scale agricultural machinery, water, time, and labor saving crop management practices in South Asia has won the bronze prize in the Event and Visual Communication Association (EVCOM) 2016 Award for Communication Effectiveness at an event in London on April 28.

The Rockefeller Foundation, Dalberg Global Development Advisors, and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) announce an Innovation Challenge to provide support for innovative solutions that can increase cassava shelf life in Nigeria, thereby enhancing food security and increasing income for millions.

As part of the 7^th FARA Science Week, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is facilitating the Thematic Session on “Sustainable Productivity Growth”. This session is scheduled for Tuesday 14 June 2016 (http://faraafrica.org/aasw7/the-7th-aasw/program/). This Concept Note introduces the session, and also invites papers for oral presentation.

Rationale

The Grow Africa Smallholder Working Group has published four new briefing papers summarising best practice in business models for integrating smallholders more effectively into agricultural value chains. 

Public-Private Sector Partnerships looks at making public-private partnerships work in smallholder inclusive agricultural value chains.