Smallholder farmers in semi-arid Africa are in an increasingly vulnerable position due to the direct and indirect effects of climate change, demographic pressure and resource degradation. Conservation agriculture (CA) is promoted as an alternative to restore soil productivity through increased water and nutrient use efficiencies in these regions. However, adoption...

Once again, the Horn of Africa has been in the headlines. And once again the news has been bad: drought, famine, conflict, hunger, suffering and death. The finger of blame has been pointed in numerous directions: at the changing climate, at environ­mental degradation, at overpopulation, at geopolitics and conflict, at...

FAO in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and PROCASUR launched an initiative to strengthen women's access to micro financial services. The objective of this activity was also to target practitioners of the rural microfinance industry and assist them to generate effective microfinance programs for both women...

Farmers in semi-arid Zimbabwe prioritize climate variability as their major agricultural productivity-reducing problem. This paper raises the importance of considering local farmers’ perceptions on climate risk, as this greatly influences on-farm investments and decision-making in agricultural management and production in semiarid Zimbabwe. A study was conducted in two districts of...

Improving livelihoods in rural areas is important to progress of the developing world and it helps in the creation of the domestic demand for the productive sector. Private sector partnerships in rural areas have been the major driver to reduction of market uncertainties and management of risk and thus bring...

This study is establishing recommendations for spacing, depth and layout of controlled drainage and sub-irrigation that could be practiced in dambos of Central Malawi by smallholder famers’ water user groups. To achieve this, soil physical and chemical properties and field investigations on hydraulic conductivity and topography have been accomplished for...

 En Afrique centrale, les forêts périurbaines dégradées sont les principales pourvoyeuses de la demande toujours croissante des grandes villes en bois-énergie. En l'absence de plan de gestion, ces formations forestières aux enjeux multiples se dégradent de plus en plus.  Le Cirad et ses partenaires ont mené une réflexion autour de...

The sub-Saharan Africa’s population is growing exponentially and it has to fulfill its food and nutrition requirement. An attractive strategy for increasing productivity and labour utilization per unit area of available land is to intensify land use. Intercropping is advanced as one of the integrated soil fertility management practices consisting...

Munira Shemsudin, Gender & HIV/AIDS Programme Officer for Self Help Africa in Ethiopia, talks about the power of investing in women farmers.

There is often a mismatch between the apparent benevolent intents and the practical manifestations of the large scale land deals. The empirical realities of the large-scale land deals call for critical scrutiny and interrogation of the underlying interests of the stakeholders involved to assess the extent to which they genuinely...

Description du programme dont le but est d'augmenter et sécuriser les revenus des petites exploitations familiales agricoles dans différentes zones du Togo et du Bénin par la promotion d’Entreprises de Services et Organisations de Producteurs (ESOP) jouant un rôle de services à la production et d’interface pérenne entre des producteurs...

This is Part 3 of a study, presented in three reports that detail the results of a poverty assessment and mapping project in North and Southern Sudan. The study’s objective was to produce a rural poverty analysis and poverty maps for North and Southern Sudan, and based on these findings,...

This research will evaluate carcass quality and processing potential of goat meat produced by smallholder farmers in Malawi. The farmers will keep local Malawi goat and Norwegian goats under three management systems (intensive, extensive and semi-intensive). The carcasses from these goats will be analyzed for gross and chemical composition. They...

Alice Kachere, a smallholder farmer from Malawi, talks about the challenges she faces as well as the training she has benefited from.

Alors que l'agriculture a occupé une place de choix dans les débats de Rio+20,  et que les forces de la société civile y ont défendu l'agriculture familiale,  l'étude "RuralStruc" permet d'éclairer sous un jour nouveau son rôle  dans la lutte pour le développement. A l'initiative de la Banque mondiale, du ...

The study aimed at determining factors affecting smallholders’ market access so as to advise on crucial strategic interventions.

Cotton has been for the past thirty years, the only credible alternative for the economic development of several Sahel countries in West and Central Africa, including Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Chad, etc. The cotton sector has not only structured rural areas through human capital investment, but also contributed significantly to...

L’agriculture de conservation (AC) est de plus en plus envisagée comme une alternative pour assurer la gestion durable des ressources naturelles et améliorer les conditions de vie et la sécurité alimentaire des exploitants agricoles de l’Afrique subsaharienne mais des doutes subsistent sur son applicabilité dans cet environnement agro-écologique, notamment dans...

An evaluation of smallholder draught animal power systems was conducted in six study areas in Masvingo and Chivi districts of Masvingo province over two seasons 1999-2000 and 2000-2002. The objective was to investigate the effect of renovating animal-drawn ploughs and cultivators on field performance and on maize and cotton yields...

This study is based on fieldwork conducted in Ward 5 Guruve District of Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe. Conservation farming (CF) has been widely embraced as an antidote to the perennial food insecurity situation, bedeviling drought prone regions in Zimbabwe, such as Guruve district and in Africa at large. Despite widespread promotion...