In Dodoma, Tanzania, a group of poor smallholder farmers is planting grapes and setting up a vineyard in a bid to pull themselves out of poverty. It's a project they hope will ensure they and their families have an income for the next 30 years. To get started, they needed...

Liberia was making frantic efforts towards achieving food security through improvements in smallholder farmers’ productivity. However, the 1989-2003 civil conflict destroyed the economic life of the country, and reversed the positive trend towards food security. This situation undermined the growth of smallholder farmers’ entrepreneurship. Hence, this research assesses the extent...

The potential benefit of indigenous chicken (Gallus domesticus) production is still under exploited in Kenya despite the efforts by different stakeholders to mainstream this production system as a pathway to rural development. The production system is often characterized by low input-low output productivity and low commercialization of the enterprise. This...

En appui au bureau d’études Bourbon Madagascar, le Gret a participé à l’évaluation de la convention programme de l’ONG Inter Aide dans quatre pays (Madagascar, Ethiopie, Malawi et Sierra Leone) sur le renforcement de l’autonomie et des capacités productives des agricultures familiales en zones rurales isolées d’Afrique Subsaharienne. Le Gret...

This study was conducted in Musanze and Bugesera districts of Rwanda .The objective were to estimate the level of technical efficiency in maize production. The study also attempted to determine some socio-economic characteristics which influence technical efficiency in maize production. It used primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected...

Vidéo produite par la RTNB sur les thématiques de genre, VIH et nutrition au Burundi à travers l'approche Farmers Field School et Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools promue au Burundi par la FAO.

Farmers’ Africa is a capacity-building programme that aims to improve the livelihoods and food security of rural producers in Africa. It works with farmers’ organizations (FOs) to help them evolve into more stable, performing and accountable organizations that effectively represent their members and advise them on farming enterprises. The programme...

The publication forms part of FAO’s effort to assist its member countries, FAO emergency staff and humanitarian partners to improve emergency preparedness and response effectiveness. The aim of Part I of these Guidelines is to enable Field Officers to clearly identify and describe the agricultural hand tools required for the...

This Issue of Nature & Faune puts forward the case of “African Youth in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development”. It carries twenty one articles contributed by different individuals, from: policy arena, conservation NGOs; the private sector; civil society groups; research and academia as well as youth groups. The United...

The study examined the challenges and prospects of smallholder oil palm production in Awka Agricultural Zone of Anambra State. Seventy two smallholder oil palm farmers were interviewed for the purpose of eliciting information. Smallholder oil palm farmers in Awka Agricultural Zone were educated (79.2% - Senior Secondary School Certificate and...

About 90 percent of Burundi population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture employs the majority of labour force and is the basis source of income particularly for people living in rural areas. Agricultural income determines the purchasing power of many people living in rural areas. It is therefore important...

Smallholder sugarcane growing is central to rural development and poverty alleviation in Swaziland. The main objective of smallholder sugar cane growing is to reduce poverty through increased household income. This study investigated the relationship between water use agricultural and financial performance, and governance (accountability and transparency) in smallholder irrigation schemes...

Objectif global du projet à long terme:  améliorer les conditions économiques et de sécurité alimentaire des familles des 18 villages du district d'Ambatolampy, dans les Hauts plateaux de Madagascar par l’intensification de l’agriculture familiale.Dans un premier temps, le projet d’une durée de 18 mois concerne neuf groupements d’agriculteurs dans trois villages...

Agricultural mechanization is a crucial input to agricultural crop production. It is frequently very capital intensive, compared to other (usually annual) inputs and it has repercussions on the efficiency of all other inputs used in crop production, including seeds, fertilizer, water, and time/labour. It is also much more complex in...

This paper is an attempt to measure the economic efficiency of Dedza smallholder Irish potato (Solanum tuberosum) farmers in Malawi using a translog cost frontier, inefficiency effect model and input Elasticities from Seeming Unrelated Regression Model for asystem of cost share equations for labour, fertilizer, seed and land. A sample...

As part of the activities being implemented through the Italian contribution to the FAO Trust Fund for Food Security and Food Safety, several projects in different countries and regions are following a common strategy. In West Africa this Programme, “Food Security through Commercialization of Agriculture” (FSCA), or «Programme Italien pour...

Formed in 2007, Food Plant Solutions Rotary Action Group (FPS) creates science-based educational materials, which: identify highly nutritious local food plants, explain how to grow them in a sustainable, agroecological way, detail the nutritional value of the plants and describe why human bodies require those nutrients. The resources created by FPS allows people to better...

The agrarian labour relations generated after the ‘Fast Track’ Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) tend to be neglected in most literature after 2000. This neglect largely resulted from the dismissal of the redistributive nature of the FTLRP and changing patterns of agricultural production by some studies (see Marongwe 2009; Masiiwa and...

The area around Wum in the Northwest Province of Cameroon is notorious as a conflict hotspot. As pressure increases on available land, conflicts occur more frequently between sedentary family farmers and pastoral communities. Farmer-pastoralist alliances are helping to resolve the conflicts by transforming the relationships between these families.

This present guide is prepared from a compilation of many documents published by FAO in this domain and is a guide to the process of formulating an agricultural mechanization strategy. The aims are:
To raise awareness of the main constraints which hinder the development of agricultural mechanization and especially those...