Global Food Security

Human Faeces-Derived Biochar for Agriculture

The aim of the project is to develop an effective faeces-​​derived biochar soil amendment by enriching it with source-​​separated urine as well as organic compost. The project follows the premise that recovery and value-​​added utilisation of excreta through pyrolysis could provide a safe, decentralised, and simple to install excreta management facility for dry sanitation solutions in low-​​ and middle-​​income countries while simultaneously closing the nutrient loop and improving soil quality. The application of biochar in agriculture has received extensive attention due to its potential in restoring soil health by improving soil structure, thus increasing microbial activity, bioavailable nutrients, and water and fertiliser retention capacity. Moreover, its porous, sponge-​​like structure can lead to effective nutrient absorption and slow nutrient release leading to decreased loss and more balanced nutrient fluxes, making it potentially a base for slow-​​release organic fertilisers. To date, little work has been done to assess the potential of biochar produced from human faeces, a currently underutilised organic source available in enormous volumes.

The study will employ Farmer Participatory Research (FPR) methodologies involving farmers throughout the process, ensuring the development of products that are suited socially, culturally, and practically to smallholder farmer conditions.

Focus Country: Guatemala

Contact: Prof. Johan Six

Partners: external page Mosan (Guatemala), external page Vivamos Mejor (Guatemala)

ETH4D Grant: ETH4D Research Challenges Grant

The Future of Rainfed Agriculture and Sustainable Food Production in Ethiopia

Agricultural transformation is the top sustainable development priority for poverty eradication (SDG 1) and ensuring food security (SGD 2) in developing countries like Ethiopia. Climate change poses a significant challenge, impeding the achievement of these development goals. Success in these goals requires informed national and sub-national agricultural development plans, policies and decisions aimed at increasing productivity and ensuring a resilient rainfed agricultural system. This research aims to support such informed actions by providing a comprehensive data-driven understanding of the agro-environmental conditions within the context of climate change in Ethiopia. It investigates the climate-crop and climate-agroecological interactions that are relevant for climate risk, and water and soil management planning and actions in the face of a changing climate in Ethiopia through data analyses and modeling.

Focus Country: Ethiopia

Contact: Mosisa Wakjira, Prof. Peter Molnar, Prof. Johan Six

Partners: external page Water and Land Resource Center (Ethiopia), external page Ministry of Agriculture (Ethiopia), external page Prof. Nadav Peleg (Hydrometeorology and Surface Processes Group, University of Lausanne)

ETH4D Grant: E4D Doctoral Scholarship

Project Page

Climate Adaptation through Improved Storage (Adopt2Adapt)

Climate change is expected to worsen global food insecurity and poverty. These adverse effects will be most pronounced in areas already suffering from high levels of poverty and hunger, including Sub-​Saharan Africa. Yields, in particular for maize – the staple crop for most countries of Eastern Africa – are projected to experience a double-​digit decrease in tropical regions, even when adaptation measures are implemented, and yield fluctuation is expected to increase, further amplifying poverty and food insecurity in the region.

The research focused on low-​cost technology for improved on-​farm storage. Hermetic storage bags limit atmospheric oxygen, which causes desiccation of insects and other pests that damage stored grains whereby fungal growth is restricted in hermetically stored grains, if the produce is sufficiently dried. Hermetic storage bags could thus curb post-​harvest losses and allow farmers to store their produce longer and could help farmers’ cope with yield fluctuations induced by climate change. However there are no studies that systematically analyze these effects under realistic everyday conditions. This transdisciplinary project analysed the potential of improved on-​farm storage for reducing the adverse effects of climate change on smallholder farmers' income and food security. The research was carried out with a sample of ~8’000 smallholder farmers in Western Kenya with randomly allocated interventions of hermetic storage bags per smallholder farming household. Over the course of two years, data was collected through SMS-​based mobile phone surveys, an efficient and effective method to collect data at high frequency.  

Focus country: Kenya

Contact: Prof. Dr. Thomas Bernauer

Partners: external page World Food Programme, external page Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, external page Helvetas

ETH4D Grant: ETH4D Research Challenges Grant

 

Improving the Sustainability of Food Production under Climate Change: Reinventing Agroecological Rice Farming in Iran

Climate change is a growing threat to the global agricultural system and food security. This reality is particularly evident in the agriculture sector of northern Iran, where farming is predominantly rainfed and smallholder rice farmers have limited alternative sources of livelihood. Rice is the second most important staple food in the Iranian diet. Water scarcity, Input-intensive, and rice monoculture farming practices have decreased yields and increased pesticide and fertilizer use, causing food insecurity in Iran. On top of this, the adaptive capacity of smallholder rice farming communities, whose food and income security are based on rice farming, is very limited.

Agroecology, a sustainable approach to farming for climate change mitigation and adaptation that reduces climate risk has been described as feasible for smallholder farmers and as a knowledge-intensive field. However, agroecological research has not been the focus of international and national agricultural research centers, especially in Iran, and therefore, there are few standardized methods to assess the social, economic, and ecological performance of agroecological farming systems. To this end, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) developed an analytical framework, the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) to produce global and harmonized evidence on the multidimensional performance of agroecological systems.

In the initial phase, Fatemeh will create a comprehensive model to evaluate water resource supply and demand in the pilot region, Mazandaran province, Iran. The aim of this part is to identify specific climate vulnerabilities and subsequently connect them to the next relevant parts of the project for the purpose of determining site-specific agroecological practices.

Afterward, Fatemeh will utilize TAPE to evaluate the multidimensional agroecological performance of 200 conventional and innovative rice farms in a purposeful sampling design. The outcomes will be disseminated across the pilot region through extension services provided by farmer field schools, and F2F training-learning networks.

The project's outcomes will encompass three key aspects: Firstly, the community diagnostic provides crucial information about the climate change impact hotspots, the current level of agroecological performance; and most importantly the main challenges of achieving sustainable livelihoods for smallholder rice farmers. This diagnostic allows for the development of a timeline, benchmarks, and outcomes to keep the work on track. Secondly, it will drive paradigm shifts that encourage the recognition and seamless integration of agroecological principles and practices into both policies and broader societal frameworks. Lastly, the project will strategically focus on building capacities, particularly smallholders. This capacity enhancement will extend from on-farm learning to fostering Farmer2Farmer learning knowledge networks.

Focus Country: Iran

Contact: Fatemeh Adelisardou, Prof. Dr. Johanna Jacobi, external page Prof. Dr. Lutz Merbold

Partners: external page The Ministry of Agriculture (Iran), external page Agriculture Jihan Organization of Mazandaran Province (Iran), external page Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (Iran)

ETH4D Grant: E4D Doctoral Scholarship

Project Page

WE SEED: Scientists and Farmers for Better Seeds

Crop breeding programs are asked to supply the world with healthy, nutritious, and sustainable crops. To deliver on this promise, a strong partnership between scientists and farmers is required. 

Joining ethnographic, econometric and machine learning methods, the WE SEED (Scientists and Farmers for Better Seeds) project explores how on-farm and on-station participatory methods are chosen and used by breeding programs. WE SEED investigates how these choices affect the engagement and representation of farmers’ knowledge, including knowledge of marginalized and underrepresented groups (e.g., women farmers). 

A team of agricultural economists, gender in agriculture specialists, anthropologists and breeders from Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Malawi Department of Agricultural Research and the Food Systems Economics and Policy Group at ETH Zurich lead the effort. Leveraging methods and tools of participatory research in agriculture as a pathway to farmer-scientist dialogue, this project aims at operationalizing knowledge coordination in breeding new and improved varieties. 

The project will engage women and men farmers and scientists working on pigeon pea and cowpea. Outcomes will include a farmer-led crop ontology, an ethnographic review of how farmer-scientist interactions evolve on-station and on-farm and a role-game workshop, where farmers and scientists will walk in each other’s shoes. The findings will support interventions promoting participatory and transdisciplinary methods in crop improvement, benefiting both households and broader food systems. The project will provide policy recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of public breeding programs and get high-yielding and resilient varieties “off the shelves” and in farmers’ fields.

Focus Country: Malawi

Contact: ,  (Food Systems Economics and Policy Group)

Partners:  Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (external page LUANAR); the Malawi Department of Agricultural Research external page (DARS)

ETH4D Grant: ETH4D Research Challenges Grant

Pathways to Scalable and Sustainable Success of AgriFoodTech Startups for Agrifood Systems Transform

This study examines how AgriFoodTech startups in Africa can achieve sustainable success for agrifood systems transformation. Despite growing venture capital investments, African AgriFoodTech startups continue to trail the global trends. Yet research is very limited, and the evidence is mostly qualitative. This project proposes to address this gap by answering three critical questions:

(1) Does bundling innovations improve startup survival and scaling potential?
(2) How does following Human-Centered Design (HCD) principles affect the growth and retention of the client base? 
(3) Does a startup’s focus on climate resilience improve its viability?

The project proposes an integrated theoretical approach with the Dynamic Capabilities Theory to understand adaptive capacities, the Resource Orchestration Framework to examine strategic bundling, and Contextual Design Theory to analyze user-centered design approaches. The study relies on both secondary and primary data of AgriFoodTech startups in selected Sub-Saharan African countries. The researchers follow a mixed method research design, making use of qualitative approaches, machine learning strategies, and econometric frameworks. By focusing specifically on the African context, the project addresses the geographical bias present in existing literature.

The project aims to inform ecosystem-supportive policies, including funding mechanisms for bundled innovations and increased investments in startups with scalable models. This project is being implemented in collaboration with ETH Food Systems Economics and Policy Group and the Alliance Bioversity International & CIAT, among other CGIAR centers. 

Focus Country: Kenya 

Contact: Wycliffe Otieno, Prof. Eva-Marie Meemken

Partners:  external page Alliance Biodiversity & CIAT(International Center for Tropical Agriculture)

ETH4D Grant: ETH4D Doctoral Scholarship

Project Page

Empowering Informal Workers through Unionization

In lower-income countries, over 80% of the workforce sustains their livelihood through the informal economy. This has drawn attention to the precarious working conditions in these activities and underscores the need to prioritize informal economy workers in striving for more and better jobs (SDG8). However, there is very little research on workers’ own conception of “good” work, and scholars have largely overlooked collective action by informal economy workers (e.g., through unions) to enhance their working conditions.

In this transdisciplinary research project, we address these two research gaps. We will investigate (i) what informal economy workers consider as “good” work and (ii) what avenues of collective action could improve working conditions in alignment with their own conception of “good” work. We focus on the food service sector in Accra, Ghana, due to its rapid growth, large informal (and female) labor force, and the unique presence of a Informal Economy Workers’ Forum (INFORUM, an umbrella trade union organization for informal workers) in Ghana – a rarity in sub-Saharan Africa. 

We employ a transdisciplinary photovoice design, a participatory action research methodology. By asking informal economy workers to take pictures of key aspects of their work activities and reflect upon them in-depth interviews and group sessions, we can reveal their lived experience and facilitate dialogue among informal economy workers and unions. With this transdisciplinary research project, we identify solutions to informal economy workers’ precarious work conditions and barriers to collective action (e.g. unionization). Our close collaboration with INFORUM will help to increase union benefits and understand barriers to unionization, both of which will yield important policy recommendations for our partner and beyond.  

Focus Country: Ghana 

Contact: Dr. Patrick Illien

Partners: external page Informal Economy Workers’ Forum Ghana

ETH4D Grant: ETH4D Pilot Grant

 

Reducing Child Labour in Cocoa Production

Ghana is the second leading producer of cocoa globally and Switzerland’s main supplier, where 50% of all cocoa consumed is imported from Ghana. Meanwhile, cocoa producers earn less than 5% of the final purchasing price of chocolate and poverty is a paramount issue. 50% of all children in cocoa-growing areas in Ghana are engaged in hazardous work and miss school regularly. Tackling financial hardship while incentivizing schooling seems to be key to decreasing child labour and increasing schooling. We conduct a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) to understand the impact of school kits (including a bag, shoes, exercise books, etc.) on child labour and and learning in cocoa communities in Ghana. Although commonly applied worldwide by industry and civil society, no scientific study has analysed how this intervention affects children's work or schooling and how it could be made more cost-effective.

With this project we want to generate robust evidence on what works to prevent hazardous child labour at low costs– which affects 1 in 10 children world wide and which affects around 50% of children working in cacao communities in West-Africa. The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), a partner on the project, will use the results to inform the planning of activities to prevent and address child labour in cocoa-growing communities in West-Africa.   

Focus Country: Ghana

Contact: Prof. Isabel Günther

Partners: external page University of Ghana, external page International Cocoa Initiative

ETH4D Grant: ETH4D Research Challenges Grant