I grew up in a place known as Kabazi, Subukia Constituency and Nakuru County in Kenya. As a child of a family farming household, I had to participate in farming activities alongside my education. The family depended on its member’s labour to be able to provide adequate and nutritious food...

Depuis près de 20 ans, le Réseau international FAR réunit les acteurs africains de la formation agricole et rurale et alerte sur le manque crucial de formation et l’urgence à relever le défi de sa massification auprès des producteurs et productrices, majoritairement jeunes et peu alphabétisés. La Formation agricole et...

Le 31 août 2023, une étape décisive a été franchie dans la promotion de l'agroécologie au Burkina-Faso avec la première réunion de mise en place du Groupe de Travail sur le Conseil en Agroécologie. Cette initiative, pilotée par le Réseau des Services de Conseil Agricole et Rural d'Afrique de l'Ouest...

The One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) initiative in Africa aims to build more sustainable food value chain systems, support family and smallholder farmers to be profitable and improve their livelihoods, minimize the use of chemical inputs and natural resources, reduce food loss and waste, and limit the negative impacts...

Transformation to sustainable agriculture in the Netherlands is increasingly called for. Agroecology is acknowledged as a sustainable – potentially transformative – alternative for conventional methods of agriculture. However, few farmers adopt agroecological practices. Recent literature suggests failure to achieve sustained and transformational change may be due to neglectance of personal,...

The Family Farming Knowledge Platform in collaboration with the Barefoot Guide Connection organized a series of “writeshops”, writing classes to support practitioners to write their own experience, generating knowledge which highlight the practices, changes, innovations and impacts of what they do in support of family farming. These writeshops represented an opportunity...

In the early 2000s, the Shashe farming area in Mashava, Zimbabwe, was a barren land, ravaged by deforestation and diminishing water levels. Fast forward two decades, and the region stands transformed into a beacon of agroecological innovation. Nelson Mudzingwa and Elizabeth Mpofu are among the smallholder farmers who pioneered this...

Animal welfare is an integral part of the European Union’s Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, which aims to accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems in Europe through an integrated food policy that covers the whole food system. A clear example of the growing public concern around this topic is...

Charles Dhewa, a knowledgeable broker and management specialist, penned an article emphasizing the shift from industrial agriculture to agroecology, which applies ecological concepts to farming. Dhewa points out that while critics question agroecology's ability to support the booming global population or address unemployment in Africa, traditional commercial agriculture hasn't provided...

Livestock is the subject of widespread allegations regarding its responsibility for global warming. And yet authorisations for factory farms continue to be granted and there is still major confusion about the different types of livestock farming. This confusion, added to the call for people to eat "less but better meat",...

Organic tree fruit quality and yield are often reduced (10 - >80%) because of insect and pest damage. No effective control measures exist for many of these pests. This increases economic risk and can reduce growers’ motivation to develop organic production. At the same time, there is a large potential...

In a recent Daily Monitor article titled "How agroecology battles nutritional deficiencies and food insecurity," the merits of agroecology over conventional farming were brought to the fore. Through testimonials from Ugandan agriculturalists, the piece underscores the adverse effects of inorganic farming, such as soil degradation and excessive fertilizer use, while...

Located in Central Asia, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated fully sovereign country in the world. Landlocked and far from the sea, the vast grazing lands and grassy steppe of Mongolia have for centuries been a heartland of nomadic animal husbandry. About 73 percent of agricultural land is pastureland used...

Want to know more about IIED’s research on the environment, climate change, urban issues, sustainable markets and lots more. You’ll find information on upcoming events, details of new projects, links to download our latest publications and more. The newsletter is sent every two weeks, so you’ll never miss out on our...

This webinar focuses on the processes of getting planning permission for horticultural land. Speakers include Bill Knight, an organic farmer, sustainability consultant and Permaculture tutor; James Shorten, a planning specialist at TerraPermaGeo specialising in sustainable and regenerative land use; and one of the OGA directors Jim Aplin of Hotchpotch Organics,...

We invite you all to join us on a virtual trip to the 7th Annual West African Farmers' Seed Fair organised by the West African Committee for Farmers' Seeds (COASP) in Zoungbonou, Benin, from 9 to 11 March 2023.  The seed fair brought together farmers, CSOs, government officials, academics and...

Agroecology holds that agricultures that are part of sustainable food systems are closely interwoven with local contexts and communities. These agricultures are embedded into farmers’ local and practice knowledge which is articulated in constructive ways with scientific knowledge. They combine producers’ concerns with concerns of consumers and environmental protection and...

As part of the RISE ATTER project, consortium partners co-designed and delivered a 7-day event at Monkton Wyld Court in Dorset, UK. This is the first of three summer/autumn schools planned to take place over the course of the ATTER project. The main objective of this week-long collective space was...

This general fiche summarises all the environmental and climate impacts of organic farming systems and specifically on organic livestock systems, found in a review of 30 synthesis research papers [1]. These papers were selected from an initial number of 220 obtained through a systematic literature search strategy, according to the inclusion criteria reported...

People who traditionally eat insects, such as grasshoppers, termites, white ants or crickets catch them in the wild when they are in season. In some places there are now fewer edible insects because the environment has been damaged. Rearing insects on your farm can provide proteins throughout the year. Edible...