Restoring Degraded Landscapes blog posts

Even without climate change, there is an enormous challenge to meet the growing demand for food with the current status of soil health in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Closing this yield gap is possible - with the right technology and best practices - but represents a herculean task.  

This year, Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 29, the earliest date yet, which tells us that we have prematurely exhausted Earth's resources beyond what can be regenerated. To move back the date, we are working with farmers to test new practices to halt environmental degradation and make food production more sustainable.

This month marks World Environment Day and the Stockholm EAT Food Forum, as we search for solutions on how to better manage our food systems and natural resources. Some of the best solutions will involve science, government, and business working together through cutting edge business models.

Africa is rapidly developing, but this growth is uneven and has come at great cost to critical ecosystems and social stability. If African nations are going to reach their SDG targets by 2030 and their African Union Agenda by 2063, what has to change to ensure more ecologically sound, equitable development?

How can decision analysis help save biodiversity hot spots while improving the livelihoods of people in East Africa? Thrive talks to two researchers from ICRAF to find out.

Green manure cover crops have many benefits - they keep the soil moist, fix nitrogen, and provide important nutrients when composted back into the soil, just to name a few. So why aren't they more widely used?

As young people leave rural farming communities in Africa and land degradation takes its toll, agricultural practices must be adjusted. Conservation agriculture offers a possible solution.

For International Day of Rural Women, Thrive contemplates how women farmers are coping with today’s agricultural challenges.  Researchers are finding that the right interventions can benefit not only struggling farmers but also women specifically as well. 

It’s time to take a scientific approach to understanding the origin of water resources.

If a farmer managed his or her soil in a certain way for one year, they could offset the carbon emissions of a round trip flight from New York to Nairobi.

Cassava, or Tapioca as it is more popularly known, is a very important staple crop in Vietnam, as well as most of Southeast Asia. This robust crop is facing some serious threats, in the form of pests, depleted soils, and unsustainable farming practices.