Since 1998, the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development of Tigray Region has adopted the making of compost as part of its extension package and by 2007 at least 25% of the farmers are making and using compost. A reflection of the success of this approach is that between 2003...

This publication provides an overview of recent literature on the potential of the informal food sector (IFS) to facilitate an affordable supply of food to urban areas and generate income for low-income households. The goal is to identify global patterns, topics for further research, and policy suggestions. It also draws...

Small-scale forestry – here meaning all activities related to forest ownership, management and enterprise – can contribute significantly to social and economic development when the circumstances are right. This issue of Unasylva examines the conditions and support that make it work. We don’t define “small” by numbers, but use the...

The need to focus on women farmers' productivity, which can be an effective engine for social change, has become increasingly clear in sub-Saharan Africa. Women have a significant role in farming and post-harvest activities in most countries in the region. Nevertheless, a complex set of rights and obligations reflecting social...

Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to hold large numbers of very poor rural people in the near future unless sustainable intervention measures are undertaken. Although both history and theory point to the important role of agriculture in poverty reduction, such growth today faces even more difficulties. This study uses a probit...

This case study presents the status of conservation agriculture in Zambia. It is one in a series of eight case studies about conservation agriculture in Africa, which were developed within the framework of a collaboration between CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of...

Many people in Eastern Africa depend on forests and trees to meet various needs. With growing populations, these resources are being rapidly depleted. Many farmers want to plant trees but cannot readily obtain high-quality tree seedlings. Establishing a tree nursery can help to meet this demand and provide you with...

 Module de formation " Conseil à l’exploitation Familiale", destiné aux écoles d’agriculture qui souhaitent donner à leurs élèves une sensibilité à la gestion des exploitations agricoles en s’appuyant sur des modules ajustés aux spécificités des exploitations familiales en Afrique. Les travaux sur le conseil à l’exploitation familiale agricole (CEF) ont...

ICARDA’s mission is to alleviate poverty by improving the livelihoods of farming communities. Often, the key is to add value to primary crop and livestock outputs. This issue of Caravan provides glimpses of the Center’s work to help farmers and pastoralists add value to their products, and thereby improve their...

AGRIDAPE (Revue sur l'agriculture durable à faibles apports externes), is a Magazine about Sustainable Agriculture with Low External Inputs. This notion refers to all those technological and social choices available to farmers that are willing to improve their production with an eye for a better environmental management. The French language magazine's focus is on the optimal use...

Tanzanian agriculture is dominated by small-scale subsistence farming. Like the entire economy, agriculture is in a transition from being a command to a market-based production system. The transition process started in the mid-1980s as part of the economic adjustment and structural reform programs and policies supported by Tanzania’s development partners....

The meat dryers are constructions of wood, metal and/or concrete, stationary or mobile, without or with a roof. For strips suspended by hooks or with a loop attached or fixed by clips, removable horizontal bars, either made of wood or metal or horizontal wire strings are needed. The following description...

The choices that smallholder farmers are able to make are strongly conditioned by the geographic conditions in which they live. The importance of this fact for rural development strategy is not lost on policy makers. For example, the government of Ethiopia frequently frames policy discussions by broadly different geographical conditions...

Smallholder irrigated horticulture has proven to be a viable and attractive option for poor farmers in developing countries. This paper relates two important lessons learned: low-cost productive technologies must be available to smallholders in terms of both location and price and must correspond to their needs, and the importance of...

Access to land is an important issue for the majority of Ethiopian people who, one way or the other, depend on agricultural production for their income and subsistence. Land tenure issues therefore continue to be of central political and economic importance, as they have been at several junctures in Ethiopia’s...

The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) facilitates the transfer of appropriate proprietary technology, held by private and public organizations in the North and South, for use by smallholder African farmers. AATF serves as an honest broker in negotiating the royalty-free transfer of technologies held by public and private organizations in...

The objective of this manual is to provide producers and exporters in East Africa with: • information related to regulations of main import countries • information on major certification programmes • contacts where more information on import regulations and certification schemes can be found. In East Africa, intensive farming with the use of agrochemicals...

This paper proposes to discuss the current vulnerability of the southern African region to climate variability, the projected impacts of climate change and the various strategies and policies that are being deployed to address climate issues, focussing mainly on the agricultural sector. The potential role of research and technology in...

This manual, provides an overview of options for farm power and technologies that could be suitable for small and medium-sized farmers who are faced with making decisions about the different types of farm power sources available. The manual also lays out the importance of the farming systems and the economic...

Southern Africa is one of the regions estimated to be most at risk from climate change. While policy responses to global warming have been mainly driven by debates among scientists, the insights of poor people living on the frontline have been largely neglected. This study seeks to understand what is...