Remaining fish parts that are not eaten are usually wasted. Fish powder made from fish remaining can be used to enrich staple foods such as maize and cassava, and therefore improve levels of micronutrients in the diet. This practice describes the benefits of the fish powder, how to produce fish...

The 88 page illustrated book showcases 15 case studies, showing how agroecology benefits Africa in terms of food and nutrition, livelihoods, restoration of biodiversity, knowledge and innovation, and climate change resilience. Leading experts in their fields explain how agroecology reforms food systems to promote better nutrition and health, especially among poor...

The Italian government established the Wei Wei Irrigation Scheme in the early 1990s, enabling farmers to practice drip and furrow irrigation along the river banks and produce crops off-season.  The farmers have mainly focused on maize production, but further technology has been necessary to increase diversification of food products while...

The first edition of a biannual magazine supported by the Karamoja Development Forum, this publication gives a glimpse into the life of a Karamajong herder. It compiles essays, opinion pieces and articles by individuals who come from the Karamoja region of Uganda, spanning pertinent issues such as climate change, resilience,...

Access to information by rural farming communities is one of the major constraints to agricultural development in Uganda because of inadequate extension service delivery. The use of information communications technologies (ICTs) can potentially address this blockage. Although the application of ICTs in rural development is not new, its application in...

In 2015, drought exacerbated by El Niño ravaged Ethiopia’s highlands and lowlands, resulting in crop failure and wide-scale animal losses. To counter the devastating impact on the vulnerable smallholder farmers that make up the bulk of Ethiopia’s workforce, FAO initiated a number of livestock and crop-based interventions in order to...

The brief aims at summarizing the efforts of FAO to maximize the impacts of social protection interventions in the Sahel and West Africa by strengthening the linkages with resilience, food security, nutrition and economic growth; ensuring the effective reach of most vulnerable households and making national social protection programmes risk-informed...

With funding from the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP), the Water Mobilization Project to Enhance Food Security in Maradi, Tahoua and Zinder Regions (PMERSA-MTZ) is being implemented in Niger and benefits from a UA 40,443,000 financing: 9.34 million from the African Development Fund (ADF), UA 21.02 million from...

From Senegal to Togo, from Guinea-Bissau to Mauritania, from Tunisia to Ghana, communities living from maritime fisheries show the same attachment to the sea and face the same challenges. Between September 2014 and November 2015, the West African Network of Journalists for Responsible Fisheries (REJOPRAO), in collaboration with the CAOPA,...

In October 2017, the Agency for Accelerated Regional Development (AFARD) signed a 2-year (2017 - 2019)grant funding agreement with Manos Unidas for the implementation of Jangokoro Food Security Project in Jangokoro Sub-County, Zombo district, West Nile region, Uganda under the contract number UGA/68355/LVIII D (62).The overall goal is, “to contribute...

What is successful access and benefit sharing’ for smallholder family farmers? This contribution argues it is not about legal contracts or mechanisms that regulate the international transfer of plant genetic resources. It is about farmers’ access to seed diversity and the ability to share in the benefits of the continuing...

Following the declaration of a drought situation in the region of the Greater South of Madagascar, the vulnerability of the rural population has reached an alarming level. A project for emergency agricultural rehabilitation of farming households and vulnerable producers has been implemented to allow them to recover quickly from the loss...

Ethiopia’s economy is rapidly transforming. However, the extent to which this is affecting off-farm income and labor markets in rural areas is not well understood. Based on a large-scale household survey in high potential agricultural areas, we find that total off-farm income (defined as wage and enterprise income) makes up...

A nationwide programme to transfer government-owned forest land to local communities is changing lives in The Gambia while promoting the sustainable management of its forests. As communities manage forest affairs and benefit from the proceeds from forest resources, more forest-friendly livelihoods such as beekeeping and soap making are boosting incomes...

Malawi is a small country located in southern Africa with only 119,000 km2 for a population of about 16.7 million people. With agriculture as the mainstay of the economy, Malawi’s high population density of 140 people/km2 requires that agricultural productivity and other ecosystem services must be optimized. As part of...

Despite strong per capita income growth, the structure of sub-Saharan Africa’s economies has not changed markedly in recent decades. In spite of a rapidly growing labour force and urbanizing populations, employment growth in rural areas in general and in non-farm sectors in particular has been slow, and poverty levels in...

We use qualitative and quantitative information from a number of datasets to study the adoption patterns and labor productivity impacts of herbicide use in Ethiopia. We find a four-fold increase in the value of herbicides imported into Ethiopia over the last decade, primarily by the private-sector. Adoption of herbicides by...

Burkina Faso ranks as the sixth poorest country in the world according to the 2015 UN Human Development Report. Recent studies estimate that 46.4% of the population in the Eastern Region lives below the poverty line. These people are caught in a vicious cycle of degrading natural resources, declining soil...

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Global Soil  Partnership (GSP) have jointly released ‘Boosting Africa’s soils: From the Abuja Declaration on Fertilizers to a sustainable soil management framework for food and nutrition security in Africa by 2030’, a booklet published on the occasion of the 29th Session of...

Convened by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Dutch development organisation Hivos, and led from Bolivia, the network set out to generate and integrate its own knowledge on smallholders and globalisation. Their work has also been complemented by a series of debates in Europe on some of the core...