The paper looks at the problems faced by rural African women. It focuses on their role in food production, impediments they face in land tenure, issues they confront in connection to climate change, the global economic system and violent conflicts.

This paper uses Ethiopian data to explore credit rationing in semi-formal credit markets and its effects on farmers' resource allocation and crop productivity. Credit rationing -- both voluntarily and involuntarily -- is found to be widespread in the sampled rural villages, largely because of risk-related factors. Political and social networks...

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

This issue of Caravan looks to the field to present approaches and examples that have been developed through our research with partners in many dryland countries, and can be deployed to benefit smallholder farmers in many more locations. These technologies bring resistance to drought, temperature extremes, or diseases that damage and...

The CRP on Dryland Systems is all about integration: between different research disciplines, between biophysical and socio-economic factors, between crop farming and pastoralism, between research and development. The program aims to develop new technologies, new livelihood opportunities, stronger local institutions, enabling policies to support technology adoption, and ultimately higher incomes...

This issue of Caravan describes the new program, and some of the research innovations it will build on. The issue begins with two ‘opinion pieces’ by scientists from partner organizations in the CRP. They share lessons learnt from past successes (and failures), and ideas that could be applied to dryland systems...

This manual on Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) is based primarily on the direct experience derived from several years of implementing PPB programmes in a number of countries and on a number of crops, and secondly, from a number of training courses (China, Ethiopia, Jordan, Australia, South Africa) and when necessary,...

These guidelines are designed for all those involved in planning and implementing sheep breeding activities with resource-poor farmers in developing countries. This includes research centers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), farmers’ associations and livestock development projects, and government extension officials. The guidelines address the lack of generic direction on designing and implementing...

During the coming decades, global change will impact food and water security in significant but highly uncertain ways. There are strong indications that developing countries will bear the brunt of the consequences, particularly from climate change. In Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture—the mainstay of rural livelihoods—is particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts...

The Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) surveys which have collected information on many dimensions of household well-being for over 36 countries since 1980 are one of the most important data sources for informing policy making on development. The LSMS surveys have been used to assess household welfare, to understand household...

This volume, Climate Change and Food Systems Resilience in Sub‑Saharan Africa, demonstrates the possibility of harmonizing agricultural production with the wellbeing of the biosphere – and that this can be achieved in Africa, our biosphere’s least developed continent, and the continent which is likely to suffer most from climate change....

The document presents a roadmap for developing commercially sustainable quality seed in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. It focuses on directing investments in five key areas along the seed potato value chains. The objectives of this strategic roadmap are to improve productivity, raise incomes of smallholder farmers, enhance food...

The present ability or otherwise of Africa to cope with climate change and improve its agricultural production depends on the environment and natural resources base of the continent, on the impacts of its past and on the nature of its present interactions with the outside world. Africa is a large...

The Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) aims to revitalize African farming in order to reduce rural poverty and hunger. This is a massively important undertaking for a continent where a third of the population continue to struggle with chronic malnutrition. But is CAADP getting the right strategies, policies and...

With financial assistance from the Irish embassy and the embassy of the kingdom of The Netherlands, SNV supports since 2007 fruit marketing cooperatives in Southern Ethiopia. SNV strengthens the cooperatives through facilitating business to business arrangements, business planning and improved operational management, and access to critical services. Results of the...

Producer organisations are widely heralded as leading contributors to poverty reduction and the achievement of food security. Following the withdrawal of state support as part of measures for liberalization, producer organizations in Africa have been in a process of transition, attempting to define appropriate strategies in a competitive open market...

Despite the importance of smallholder agriculture in East Africa, the strategic, conceptual and empirical analysis in the context of the crisis, which would guide policymakers and development practitioners in their efforts to revitalise agriculture in the aftermath of the crisis, is sparse. Moreover, recent studies tend to examine specific constraints...

Smallholder agriculture continues to play a key role in African agriculture. This paper investigates trends, challenges and opportunities of this sub-sector in East Africa through case studies of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. In these agriculture-based economies, smallholder farming accounts for about 75 percent of agricultural production and over 75...

Rural producer organizations, such as farmers' organizations or rural cooperatives, offer a means for smallholder farmers in developing countries to sell their crops commercially. They hold particular promise for Sub-Saharan Africa, where small-scale farming is the primary livelihood but commercialization of food-crops is very limited. Using the experience of smallholders...

This Working Document provides practical guidelines for upgrading agricultural retail markets in rural areas and analyses the strategic potential of upgrading as an important component of rural development. This document presents methodological steps for the design and implementation of appropriate programmes, rather than a single model to replicate. The objective is to propose...