Jada Patrice Howard captures the ups and downs of her life in Through These Eyes, the second volume of her memoir. This heartfelt, personal tale recalls her journey through the life experiences she has had in recent years. She recounts her joy at finally being chosen to attend a live taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show in Chicago. Follow her as she prepares for the trip of a lifetime, traveling from Washington, DC, to Chicago to attend the show; share her delight as she has the time of her life at Oprahs show. She also shares tales of her work as a school bus driver, her brief move to North Carolina to help family members, and her attendance of Dr. Dorothy Heights funeral. Through These Eyes explores the nature of people and their relationships and relates experiences of happiness, sadness, joy, and painlife experiences that we can learn from.

As part of its Feed the future Initiative, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supported the development of an innovative research for development project to promote the sustainable intensification of small-scale agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Smallscale agriculture represents the main economic activity of the majority of sub-Saharan African population. Therefore, to address global hunger and poverty, the Feed the Future initiative (FtF) developed Africa RISING (Research In Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation). Africa RISING is an agricultural research program aiming to provide pathways out of hunger and poverty for small holder families, in particular for women and children, through the development of farming systems that can sufficiently improve nutrition and income security, while conserving or enhancing the natural resource pool.

The Mali Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) Baseline Evaluation Survey (MARBES) survey was implemented during May-July 2014 as part of IFPRI’s Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of Africa RISING. The Africa RISING program aims to create-through action research and development partnerships-opportunities for smallholder farmers in Africa south of the Sahara to sustainably intensify their farming systems and to improve their food, nutrition, and income security. Initiated in 2012, the program is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of the U.S. government’s Feed the Future (FTF) initiative. As part of the program, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) leads a sustainable intensification effort focusing on the cereal-based farming systems in the Guinea Savannah Zone of West Africa (Ghana and Mali) and East and Southern Africa (Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia) while the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) leads the research activities focusing on the crop-livestock systems of the Ethiopian highlands. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has been tasked with M&E of the three projects. Mali Africa RISING is being implemented in Bougouni, Yanfolila and Koutiala cercles (the cercle is a type of administrative region), in the Sikasso region of Mali, within the FTF Zones of Influence. The research activities are led by IITA, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), ILRI, the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC), and the International Center for Research in Agroforestry or World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF), as well as local partners: L’Association Malienne d’Eveil et de Développement Durable (AMEDD), l'Association Malienne pour la Sécurité et la Souveraineté Alimentaires (AMASSA), and Mouvement Biologique du Mali (MOBIOM). MARBES collected detailed household- and plot-crop level data addressing various topics: employment (agricultural and non-agricultural); health; agricultural land; crop inputs, harvest, storage, and sale; livestock ownership, feed, and water; agriculture-related challenges and coping strategies; credit and off-farm income sources; housing conditions and ownership of various durable assets; subjective welfare and food security; household-level food consumption; non-food expenditure; agricultural shocks; and child and women anthropometry. The community survey collected data on access to basic services; access to extension services; social organizations, mobility, and village-level shocks; access to natural resources; metric conversion units; and prices of crops and food items. MARBES covered 705 households and 20 communities drawn from the three project cercles. Data was collected using structured questionnaires in multiple local languages through Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing, using the Census and Survey Processing System (CSPro).