The eastern Africa region faces serious and worsening problems of food security, decreasing per capita food production and massive poverty. Agriculture in this region is dominated by smallholder farmers. Yield levels on these farms are generally very low for a variety of reasons. One important reason is the declining soil...

This paper provides a micro-level foundation for discussions of land allocation and its relation to income poverty within the smallholder sectors of Eastern and Southern Africa. Results are drawn from nationally-representative household surveys between 1990 and 2000 in five countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Zambia. The paper shows that...

This publication is intended to inform IFAD-supported project management units (PMUs), other donors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in Eastern and Southern Africa about IFAD’s Gender Strengthening Programme in the region. The programme is currently in the process of identifying challenges faced by projects, emphasizing empirical findings from field diagnostic...

The point of departure of this paper is that African nations cannot afford to ignore smallholder agriculture, however difficult its prospects may seem. Region wide, at the beginning of the 1990's, 85 percent of Africa's population was rural, and more than a quarter of the labour force was actively engaged...

In this issue ICARDA is celebrating it’s 20 years old. They have not been easy years; agricultural research for a fragile environment is difficult. What have ICARDA learned in 20 years? It can be highlighted in a single point; it would be the dynamic nature of agricultural research. Agricultural research...