
LEG4DEV Outputs
LEG4DEV knowledge products and outputs are open-access and freely available online.
Explore our publication, policy briefs, posters, videos and more below.
The LEG4DEV program is funded by the European Union’s DESIRA program for 5 years (Nov 2020 to Oct 2025) with €6.5 million of EU funding. The Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG International Partnerships or DG INTPA) is one of the departments of the European Commission whose role is to (1) work together with partner countries across the world to achieve sustainable development; and (2) design the EU’s international partnership and development policy. For more visit https://ec.europa.eu/international-partnerships/about-us_en. The EU’s DESIRA program is supported by the European Commission (Development Cooperation Instruments) under the Global Public Goods and Challenges Thematic Programme. It represents around €300 million. https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/desira#Governance-and-funding. DeSIRA is supported by key political and institutional commitments (UNFCC CoP 21, One planet summit 2017, Ouagadougou declaration 2018) and is designed based on key consultations (European Member States, EU Delegations, CAADP, FAO, GFAR, IFAD, BMGF). DeSIRA is fully aligned with the new European Policy on the Green Deal. https://ec.europa.eu/international-partnerships/programmes/desira_en.

Project Outputs
Journal articles and publications
- 2025 | Digital technologies to accelerate the impact of climate smart agriculture by next-generation farmers in Africa
- 2025 | Can Sentinel-2 imagery support the identification of legume fileds in maize dominated smallholder farming systems?
- 2025 | Positive interactions between legume intensification technologies and agronomic magement :Evidence from participatory on farm experiments
- 2025 | Entrepreneurship pathways for scaling legume-based agroecological intensification of maize and cassava cropping systems in Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Ethiopia
- 2025 | Enhancing the resilience of intercropping systems to changing moisture conditions in Africa through the integration of grain legumes: A meta-analysis
- 2024 | Spatio-Temporal Trends in Precipitation, Temperature, and Extremes: A Study of Malawi and Zambia (1981–2021)
- 2024 | Genomic loci associated with grain yield under well-watered and water-stressed conditions in multiple bi-parental maize populations
- 2024 | A combination of joint linkage and genome-wide association study reveals putative candidates genes associated with resistance to northern corn leaf blight in tropical maize
- 2024 | Linkage mapping and genomic prediction of grain quality traits in tropical maize (Zea mays L.)
- 2024 | A critical analysis of soil (and water) conservation practices in theEthiopian Highlands: Implications for future research and modeling
- 2024 | Coupled Impacts of Soil Acidification and Climate Change on Future Crop Suitability in Ethiopia
- 2024 | Legume seed system performance in sub-Saharan Africa: barriers, opportunities, and scaling options. A review
- 2024 | Evaluation of ERA5 and CHIRPS rainfall estimates against observations across Ethiopia
- 2024 | Too fast or too slow: The speed and persistence of adoption of conservation agriculture in southern Africa
- 2024 | Quantifying factors limiting soybean yield in Southern Africa: a yield gap decomposition
- 2024 | Quantifying Residual Soil Moisture through Empirical Orthogonal Functions Analysis to Support Legume-Based Cropping Systems
- 2023 | Discovery of genomic regions associated with grain yield and agronomic traits in Bi-parental populations of maize (Zea mays. L) Under optimum and low nitrogen conditions
- 2022 | Integration of common bean in maize cropping system enhances resilience to rainfall variability in Africa: A meta-analysis
Reports
- 2024 | Cascading Climate Resilience: A Training of Trainers Approach to Integrate Climate Risk Management in Ethiopia’s Agricultural Extension.
- 2024 | Understanding Adoption of Conservation Agriculture Practices in Southern Africa: Insights from Household and Community Surveys and Their Implication for Scaling
- 2024 | Workshop Report and Synthesis. Plausible impact pathways for dryland crops: reaching the hard-to-reach. CIMMYT
- 2024 | The economics of seed for farmers and seed enterprises: The case of groundnut, millet and sorghum
- 2024 | Soybean intensification-based farm typology for the Chinyanja Triangle [Malawi, Zambia]
- 2023 | Research and innovation priorities for enabling legume scaling for development outcomes in Tanzania
- 2023 | Research and innovation priorities for enabling legume scaling for development outcomes in Ethiopia
- 2022 | Research and innovation priorities for enabling legume scaling for development outcomes in Zambia
- 2022 | Research and innovation priorities for enabling legume scaling for development outcomes in Malawi
Theses
- 2024 | Reliability of pedotransfer functions and field-saturated hydraulic conductivity prediction for agricultural soils in Zambia, Africa
- 2024 | Assessing water balance and yields in Malawian cropping systems Maize soybean and maize Gliricidia systems resilience against climate change
- 2023 | Integration of common bean in maize cropping system enhances resilience to rainfall variability in Africa: A meta analysis
Presentations
- 2024 | Enhancing use of sustainable tillage systems under conservation agriculture in Malawi. In: Strauss, J.A. & Swanepoel, P.A. (Eds.). (2024). Title: Proceedings of the 9th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture
- 2023 | Excellence in Agronomy Solidaridad Soy Use Case: review and planning meeting Chipata – Zambia
Posters
- 2025 | The ongoing journey of modelling intercropping: Key insights from the model developers and expert users on fundamental assumptions
- 2023 | A meta-analysis with systematic review reveals that grain legume integration into the cassava cropping system enhances resilience to climate vulnerabilities in Africa
- Identifying smallholder farmers crop management practices with remote sensing to support crop diversification with legumes
- Understanding spatial variability of soil physical and hydraulic properties in agricultural land in Zambia and Malawi
