Knowledge Management Portal

A report on the launch of the sheep-fattening community of practice (CoP) in North Shewa.

The overall goal of this manual is to equip smallholder farmers, youth groups, and other community-based organizations with basic concepts of entrepreneurship and business planning knowledge essential for the success of budding entrepreneurs involved in small businesses along the livestock value chain in Ethiopia. The chapters of this manual can be delivered as a complete package or as selected according to the specific training needs of the intended participants.

An important research target is improving the health benefits of traditional Mediterranean, durum wheat-based foods using innovative raw materials. In this study, we characterised wholemeal flours obtained from a traditional durum wheat cv. Svevo, two innovative durum wheat varieties (Svevo-High Amylose and Faridur), the naked barley cv. Chifaa and the elite lentil line 6002/ILWL118/1-1, evaluating them for targeted phytochemicals, untargeted metabolomics fingerprints and antioxidant capacity. To this aim, individual phenolic acids, flavonoids, tocochromanols and carotenoids were identified and quantified through HPLC-DAD, and the antioxidant capacities of both the extracts and whole meals were detected by ABTS assays. An untargeted metabolomics fingerprinting of the samples was conducted through NMR spectroscopy. Results showed that the innovative materials improved phytochemical profiles and antioxidant capacity compared to Svevo. In particular, Svevo-HA and Faridur had higher contents of ferulic and sinapic acids, β-tocotrienol and lutein. Moreover, Chifaa is a rich source of phenolic acids, β-tocopherols, lutein and zeaxanthin whereas lentil of flavonoids (i.e., catechin and procyanidin B2). The NMR profiles of Svevo-HA and Faridur showed a significant reduction of sugar content, malate and tryptophan compared to that of Svevo. Finally, substantial differences characterized the lentil profiles, especially for citrate, trigonelline and phenolic resonances of secondary metabolites, such as catechin-like compounds. Overall, these results support the potential of the above innovative materials to renew the health value of traditional Mediterranean durum wheat-based products.

A business plan for animal feed processing by sheep fattening youth groups in Doyogena, Ethiopia

This document presents the results of an inventory of agroecology-related initiatives implemented in Tunisia since 1999. A total of 26 different initiatives were analyzed through a rapid review of grey literature, scientific papers as well as electronic resources found on project/organization websites. The review highlights a fairly significant diversification of the agroecology-related intervention strategies over time – from early initiatives exclusively focused on research-and-development, demonstration, and technical support, to sensitization and capacity building approaches after the mid-2000s, and initiatives centered on value chains, multi-stakeholder platforms and credit/financial facilities after the mid-2010s. It also shows that the agroecology principles the most addressed by the different initiatives are ‘co-creation of knowledge’, ‘synergy’, ‘biodiversity’ and ‘soil health’ while the less frequently addressed are ‘animal health’, ‘social values and diets’, ‘fairness’ and ‘connectivity’.

Hotspot mapping using real-time geospatial information of climate, soil, water, and vegetation indices provides a guideline for developing appropriate agricultural practices and policies and strategies for sustainably utilizing natural resources, implementing adaptation strategies, and optimization of the production resources in agriculture. OneCGIAR Initiative F2R-CWANA WP3 mapped natural resources (climatic parameters, water, soil, and vegetation indices) in Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region country, Morocco. Climatic variables used for mapping include long-term rainfall, rainfall variability, drought-prone areas, temperature (average, maximum and minimum), and the trend of rainfall and temperature over time and space. Similarly, soil quality parameters such as texture, soil organic carbon, slope/elevation, soil salinity, and soil displacement by water are mapped. Further, water resources and vegetation indices are mapped. Considering the major parameters of climate, soil, and water, a hotspot/suitability map of Morocco for wheat cultivation is developed. Remote sensing data such as Sentinel-2, Landsat-8, and MODIS satellites and the data sources such as FAO (soil salinity and soil organic carbon), ISRIC (soil parameters), and ESRI (10-m land use land cover) were used for mapping specific natural resources to identify hotspots of climatic parameters. This mapping work has provided a consolidated resource map which was scattered in different form and literature and also has identified a number of hotspots that requires due consideration for sustainable agriculture production.

Implementing strategic field experimentation not only provide opportunities to solve the research questions but also provide a useful way to address a number of important issues in crop, soil, water, environmental and resource economics using different analytical tools. As implementing field experimentation is resource intensive (cost, time and energy), it is important to plan for collecting/generating standard data set (both quality and minimum number).

Tutorial video on sheep fattening as a business.