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NexThought Monday – Test Tubers: Why potatoes in Bangladesh are turning heads in the Andes
If you’re a subsistence farmer of potatoes, cassava or bananas, you’ll often sow your crops by taking cuttings from other plants. An alternative method of in vitro micro-propagation involves cloning plantlets in a laboratory setting. This can lead to dramatic gains in crop yields, but it’s expensive. But there may be a low-tech solution.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Technology
- Tags
- research
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One Drop at a Time : A new book examines how CARE’s long-term efforts in the dairy value chain have benefited Bangladeshi farmers
CARE’s long-term work in the dairy sector in Bangladesh is considered one of the most intensely developed agricultural value chain initiatives in the world. Authors Kevin McKague and Muhamad Siddiquee discuss its business-centered successes in their new book, Making Markets More Inclusive: Lessons from CARE and the Future of Sustainability in Agricultural Value Chain Development.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Grameen Launches Media Project for Ghana Smallholders
A new initiative has been launched to increase food security for small holder farmers in five regions in Ghana. The initiative - ICT Challenge – is a partnership between the Grameen Foundation, Farm Radio International and Digital Green.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- nutrition
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Remittances to Developing Nations to Hit $500 Billion in 2015 – U.N. Official
An estimated 230 million migrants will send $500 billion in remittances to developing countries in 2015, a flow of capital expected to do more to reduce poverty than all development aid combined, a senior official of the U.N. agricultural bank said.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Weekly Roundup : Speaking ‘nuance’ to power
Unilever, Acumen and the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, part of the Clinton Foundation, this week announced the Enhanced Livelihoods Investment Initiative. The initiative aims to build up privately held agricultural enterprises as a conduit for 300,000 smallholder farmers to join the massive supply chain network of multinational Unilever. We were reminded that even as impact investing is moving with a full head of steam, it’s important not to zoom past what it’s really all about.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Agriculture Insurance Turning Around Farmers’ Lives in East Africa
Jackie Kiconco sits in her garden with her right hand supporting her chin. Her eyes are gazing across the maize garden that she had planted but because of late rainfall, the seeds failed to germinate.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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$10 million Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to support smallholder farmers
Unilever, Acumen and the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, have launched a landmark Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment to Action called the Enhanced Livelihoods Investment Initiative (ELII) to improve the livelihoods of as many as 300,000 smallholder farmers and their communities in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Premature Innovation: What happens when a social entrepreneur has a great business idea in a market that isn’t ready for it?
Mauricio Monjaras Cabañas founded GRIMA Biodiesel at the age of 21, a social enterprise that aimed to produce renewable fuel from castor beans. The fuel was touted as cheaper than diesel, better for the environment, and a boon to local farmers. But when he tried to launch his business, complications quickly set in. He discusses his struggles in this post, the latest in our series on social enterprise failures.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment
- Tags
- renewable energy
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