Mobile phones are increasingly being used to provide smallholder farmers with agricultural and related information. There is currently great interest in their scope to communicate climate and weather information. Farmers consistently identify demand for weather information and whilst ICTs may be one way of delivering this at scale there are...

Fewer clients, more private partnerships, more cooperative business development, more strenghtened and new groups, more producers being reached directly and farmers' organizations with better networking capacity - in a nutshell, these were Agriterra's achievements in 2014.

The events in the Central African Republic (CAR) over the last two years have left more than 2.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Thanks to funding received in 2014, FAO and partners managed to contain a major food crisis but overall agricultural production is still nearly 60 percent...

Cet article analyse les avancées obtenues pour les exploitations familiales en matière de sécurisation foncière en Afrique. Il identifie plusieurs défis à venir, comme la régulation des investissements à grande échelle, le renforcement des acteurs de la société civile ou  encore l’élargissement de l’offre de sécurisation foncière.

The Kenya Sustainable Agriculture Land Management Project has helped small-holder farmers build smart agriculture skills. This in turn has led to higher crop yields, increased income and food security, and resilience to a changing climate. The project has been implemented with support from the Swedish nongovernmental organization, Vi Agroforestry, on...

In Niger, as in many other African countries, productivity is even lower among female peasants. To build policy interventions to improve agricultural productivity among women, it is important to measure the potential gap between men and women and understand the determinants that explain the gap. This paper uses the Oaxaca-Blinder...

This edition opens with a critical issue: the Ebola crisis and how Dimitra clubs are helping contain the threat of the epidemic in Senegal. The Dimitra approach not only allows to inform and raise awareness in rural communities, but above all ensures a space for communication, where everyone can express...

Au Sénégal, Agrisud et son partenaire local JAPPOO Développement tentent de lever les contraintes qui pèsent sur l’agriculture familiale des régions de M’bour (sud de Dakar) et de Basse-Casamance. Objectif : se reconnecter aux marchés porteurs, en particulier celui des structures hôtelières du littoral.

The debate about agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) has largely ignored the role of the capital service market in spreading the use of mechanical technologies. Yet, custom machinery hiring ser-vices have been essential for the widespread use and ownership of tractors and other agricultural machines in...

This study examined farmers’ perception of climate change and coping strategies across gender in two agro-ecological zones of Nigeria. Two agro-ecological zones namely north-central and north-west were purposively selected and one State Agricultural Development Project each namely Niger and Kaduna were selected respectively. Structured questionnaire was used to elicit information...

This edition of Nature & Faune journal will be a special Issue to mark the International Year of Soils. It is planned to be issued during the Conference of the African Soil Society taking place in Ouagadougou - Burkina Faso from 2nd to 10th December 2015. The special edition of...

Bouwas Mawara and his wife Nyengeterai, small scale farmers in the semi-arid Zvishavane district of Zimbabwe, are renowned for their innovation in water harvesting for crop and animal production, and for setting up local structures and systems to spread innovations amongst fellow farmers. Today at least 160 farming families in...

Established in 2001, FAO’s Integrated Production and Pest Management (IPPM) programme is a multi-donor initiative that aims to improve farming skills, and raise smallholder farmers’ awareness of alternatives to toxic chemicals using the farmer field school (FFS) approach. Initially focusing on West Africa, the programme has implemented activities in nine...

Dans le cadre du renforcement de la résilience des populations victimes de la crise Centrafricaine, un certain nombre de projets avaient été mis en œuvre par la FAO à travers les partenaires techniques dans le Sud du Tchad précisément dans les régions du Moyen Chari et du Mandoul. Le Tchad fait...

Conservation agriculture (CA) is an increasingly adopted production system to meet the goals of sustainable crop production intensification in feeding a growing world population whilst conserving natural resources. Mechanization (especially power units, seeders, rippers and sprayers) is a key input for CA and smallholder farmers often have difficulties in making...

Many of the pesticides used in desert locust control pose a risk to the environment and to human health, even if they are used judiciously. To minimize the impact of pesticides use on human health and the environment, member countries of the FAO Commission for Controlling the Desert Locust in...

Since 2012, 31 Chinese experts and technicians have been sent to Uganda to provide technical assistance in crop production, aquaculture, horticulture, livestock and agribusiness. The team has successfully transferred 25 new technologies, and introduced 17 new varieties such as hybrid rice, foxtail millet and maize, as well as four pieces...

What is it that makes the Dimitra community listeners’ clubs so special? This fact sheet answers that question by highlighting the eight key features that are crucial to the functioning of the Dimitra listeners’ clubs, and which make the approach unique.

Many environmental factors constrain the production of major food crops in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. At the same time, these food production systems themselves have a range of negative impacts on the environment. In this paper we review the published literature and assess the depth of recent research (since...

El Niño is a periodic climate phenomenon defined by anomalously warm sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean which affect local weather worldwide and generally leads to increased drought risk at global level. In 2015, since July a strong El Niño is being observed with increasing...