Women are key stakeholders in sustainable and resilient food systems, given their roles as primary food producers and household caretakers (Visser and Wangu 2021). Understanding how gendered roles affect food security and women’s well-being is essential for pursuing sustainable development (Angel-Urdinola and Wodon 2010; Doss, Meinzen-Dick, and Quisumbing 2018; Meinzen-Dick et al. 2019).

Agriculture is key to economic growth and poverty reduction in Kenya as it plays a pivotal role in employment creation, food security, exports, and sustainable development. In 2019, it directly contributed 22.7 percent of GDP, accounted for 20.9 percent of total exports, and generated 43.3 percent of employment (Chapter 2). The sector is thus not only an important driver of Kenya’s economy but also the means of livelihood for many Kenyan people.

Contract farming is one potential mechanism that smallholder farmers in developing countries can use to participate in and benefit from domestic and global value chains (Okello and Swinton 2007; Barrett et al. 2012; Minot and Sawyer 2016; Ruben 2017; Ton et al. 2017). Linking smallholder farmers more directly with national and global consumers should increase both the demand and producer prices for their fresh produce. Increased access to and participation in such value chains increases farm income earned by smallholders.

The 2010s were a decade of strong economic development in Kenya. Gross domestic product (GDP)—an indicator of the economy’s size—expanded by an average of 5 percent per year (KNBS 2022). This exceeded population growth and helped raise household incomes, leading to a decline in poverty rates and, more importantly, in the number of poor people, for the first time in at least three decades (World Bank 2022). Agriculture played an important role in this. The sector grew alongside the rest of the economy, despite facing many challenges, including climate variability (Ochieng et al.

This book has adopted a food systems framework as a new way of conceptualizing and designing food policies and research. Looking beyond agriculture and value chains makes it possible not only to turn food systems into a driver of economic transformation but also to better include health, productivity, resilience, inclusivity, and sustainability as integral parts of system transformation. Such a fresh approach is urgently needed in light of limited development progress over the past years in Kenya and other countries.

Digital innovation is a key feature in the global and national discourse on food systems transformation. Efforts to better integrate food systems—defined here as the constellation of actors and their activities originating from agriculture, livestock, forestry, or fisheries, as well as the broader economic, societal, and natural environments in which they operate, including the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food products (Dwivedi et al. 2017; FAO 2018; Njuki et al.

Management of postharvest food loss and waste (FLW) is an important strategy in efforts to sustainably meet the food and nutrition needs of the world’s growing population. Sustainable food systems are critical to achieving food security and nutrition for all, now and in the future. Food systems cannot be sustainable when a large proportion of the food produced using limited resources is lost or wasted in the supply chain.

Agricultural inputs, including fertilizers, seeds, breeding stock, crop protection chemicals, machinery, irrigation, and knowledge, are key to innovation and productivity improvement, and are the backbone of any agricultural revolution. They are an integral part of the food supply chain, which comprises the production and distribution of food, and as such a key component of the food system (HLPE 2017).

Food systems are a foundation of human and planetary well-being and central to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet they also contribute to ill health, inequity, environmental degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions. These challenges demand urgent food systems transformation. Such a transformation requires understanding the status of food systems across their diverse functions.

The highlands of North Shoa in Amhara region are dominated by cereals (wheat, barley and tef) followed by food legumes. The productivity of cereals and food legumes is low due to biotic and abiotic stresses as well as insufficient input supplies like certified seeds, planting materials, inoculants, and other inputs. Because of diseases and insect pests, acidity and water logging problems, farmers are reducing areas of food legumes and growing more cereals leading to low crop diversity that can reduce soil fertility and health, incomes, food diversity and increase disease threats.

This document explains ongoing activities and preliminary plans for the establishment of a
multipurpose innovation hub at the WorldFish Nusatupe Research Station in Western Province,
Solomon Islands.The innovation hub concept responds to national demand for a facility to convene research, training and services with national and provincial partners.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are rapidly transforming the way people work, providing opportunities for improving efficiency, accelerating innovations, and supporting human decision making. The area of policymaking is no exception. To explore the advantages and disadvantages of customized chatbots for supporting food policy research, we created a virtual food policy expert using a customized AI system using training literature drawn from about two dozen food policy research reports or food policy documents.