This theme focuses on strategies to build system-wide resilience through inclusive policies, climate-smart technologies, and institutional innovations. Emphasis is placed on integrated approaches that protect agricultural productivity, promote income diversification, strengthen early warning and risk mitigation systems, and ensure social safety nets for vulnerable populations
Sub-Themes:
- Soil Health and Nutrient Management: Innovations in sustainable fertilizer use, soil regeneration, and organic matter restoration to improve agricultural resilience and productivity
- Climate-Smart Technologies and Agro-Advisory Services: Tools and platforms for real weather, pest, and market advisory; adaptive cropping systems; drought-tolerant and fast-maturing varieties.
- Early Warning Systems and Risk Reduction Strategies: Community-based early warning systems, anticipatory action plans, and financial risk tools (e.g., weather-index insurance) to protect livelihoods.
- Inclusive Resilience Programming: Gender- and youth-responsive approaches to climate adaptation, resource governance, and food system transformation that leave no one behind.
1. Download the Programme and Abstracts for Day One
2. Download the Programme and Abstracts for Day Two
3. SCIENTIFIC FORUM AGM 2025 PROGRAMME-DAY 3
Agriculture continues to evolve in the face of climate change, population growth, and increasing food demand. The sector is under growing pressure to both reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhance resilience to climate-related shocks. Traditionally dependent on fossil fuels for irrigation, mechanization, and post-harvest processing, agriculture in many parts of Africa contributes to energy-related emissions and remains vulnerable to volatile energy prices and supply disruptions.
Sub-Themes:
- Renewable and clean energy for irrigation and mechanization: Innovations in solar pumps, wind-driven systems, and decentralized energy grids that support climate-smart intensification.
- Bioenergy and circular agriculture: Utilization of agricultural waste, residues, and livestock manure to produce bioenergy, contributing to a closed-loop, low-carbon system.
- Energy-smart value chains: Enhancing the energy efficiency of processing, storage, and transportation through clean energy technologies and management systems
- Agri-energy solutions and innovations: Case studies and technologies that showcase novel energy interventions across various agri-food contexts, including digital and IoT applications.
Below are the abstracts from the above
This theme focuses on equipping youth and early-career professionals with green, digital, and entrepreneurial competencies that enable them to participate in—and lead—the transformation of agriculture from subsistence to sustainable, market-oriented, and technology-enabled systems. Modernizing agricultural and technical vocational education and training (TVET) Curricula are a key entry point. Bridging the gaps between research, extension, and industry also remains critical. Stronger partnerships among universities, agribusinesses, and rural development institutions can promote the adoption of innovation and ensure that training programs respond to evolving needs.
Sub-Themes:
- Curriculum Reform and Competency-Based Learning: Redesign of agricultural and TVET curricula to embed practical, interdisciplinary, and systems-thinking skills
- Green, Digital, and Entrepreneurial Skill Development: Training programmes and innovation hubs that equip youth with climate-smart, digital, and business development competencies.
- Strengthening Research–Extension–Enterprise Linkages: Building synergies among researchers, extension workers, and agri-entrepreneurs to promote inclusive and demand-driven innovation.
- Skilling for Mechanization, Agro-processing, and Value Addition: Capacity development initiatives targeting emerging value chain technologies and industrial food systems transformation.
Below are the abstracts from above sub-theme
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital technologies are transforming agriculture globally, and Africa is no exception. These innovations are enabling precision farming, predictive analytics, and real-time resource management, offering solutions to long-standing challenges in the Continent’s agri-food systems. However, the deployment of AI in agriculture must also consider governance, ethical use, and equity. There is growing concern that digital technologies may exacerbate existing inequalities if they remain inaccessible to rural populations, women, and youth, or if data is misused without adequate safeguards. Issues of data sovereignty, algorithmic bias, and digital literacy are central to ensuring that AI serves inclusive and sustainable development goals in African agriculture.
Sub-Themes:
- AI for Farm-Level Decision Support: Predictive modelling, precision planting, pest and disease detection, and nutrient optimization using AI tools.
- Ethical and Inclusive AI Development: Ensuring responsible AI design that addresses data privacy, algorithmic bias, accessibility, and inclusion of marginalized groups.
- Integrating Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge Systems: Blending traditional ecological knowledge with AI-driven data for context-specific agricultural insights.
- Digital Infrastructure and Innovation Policy: Frameworks and investments needed to support equitable access to data, internet connectivity, and digital agriculture platforms across rural areas