La 29ème session de la conférence régionale de l’Organisation des Nations-Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO) se tiendra à Abidjan du 4 au 8 avril 2016. A quelques jours de l’ouverture de ces assises, le ministre de l’Agriculture et du Développement rural Mamadou Sangafowa a co-animé en compagnie du sous-directeur...

  Learning is a lifetime activity. Nowhere is this clearer than in agriculture, and especially among women farmers. Being responsible for over 70% of agricultural production on our continent, we farm through knowledge sharing. In complex and closely knit social groups, starting in early childhood, knowledge is birthed, nurtured and passed...

The role of small-scale family farms in development is the subject of long-standing debate. Despite predictions on the likely evolution of small farms, as urban and industrial sectors account for larger shares of economic activity, the agricultural landscape in the developing world continues to be dominated by family-operated smallholdings. Consequently,...

This study identifies factors that affect resilience to drought among smallholder farmers in Salima, one of the districts frequently affected by drought in Malawi. The study contributes to the existing literature by constructing a drought resilience index (DRI) and uses it to determine the effect of drought resilience on the...

Organizations that are advocating for agroecology farming practices among small holder farmers in Uganda and Africa at large have urged Uganda government and policy makers to support small farmers in terms of finances and knowledge to increase food production for their families and income earning, instead of opening Uganda to...

Somalia’s agricultural sector has been undermined by years of conflict and climatic shocks, but WFP and its partners are helping farmers rebuild the sector and reconnect with markets. In partnership with FAO and the Somali Ministry of Agriculture, and with long-term support from the European Union (EU), WFP is working...

Over the past 25 years, Ethiopia has made remarkable headway in addressing the country’s nutrition situation. Despite ongoing challenges, significant progress has been made toward meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, including halving child mortality, doubling the number of people with access to clean water, and quadrupling primary school...

International Conservation Agriculture Advisory Panel (ICAAP - Africa) has been called for under the auspices of the Lusaka Declaration of the 1st Africa Congress on Conservation Agriculture (IACCA) held in Lusaka in March 2014. It is a group of global conservation agriculture experts acting as a thinktank to advise ACT...

Entrevista com o Representante da FAO em Moçambique, Castro Camarada, sobre Escola na Machamba do Camponês. Cerca de 27.500 camponeses estão a ser beneficiados pela Metodologia das Escolas na Machamba do Camponês (EMCs) introduzida pela FAOMZ, num total de 1.095 escolas, que se estendem por todo o país.  Esta abordagem tem...

This edition of the UN in Zimbabwe newsletter is dedicated to shed light on the partnerships, progress and challenges in the collective humanitarian response in Zimbabwe.

A platform of farmers, retailers and service providers,civil society organisations, NGOs, government officials, and researchers improves livelihoods in Rwanda. Through interaction and collaboration, these groups experiment with various technological and institutional innovations, thereby tackling local agricultural challenges. This experience illustrates the importance of institutionalising a space where knowledge can be...

In the Sahel, extreme poverty, fastgrowing populations, climate change, recurrent food and nutrition crises, armed conflicts and insecurity are building up to a perfect storm threatening the lives of communities already living on the brink of crisis. The region is one of the world’s climate change hotspots. Increasingly unpredictable weather patterns,...

Zimbabwe is one of a number of countries in southern Africa that has declared a drought disaster this year due to the impact of a strong El Nino weather event which meant reduced rainfall for much of southern Africa late last year and during the early months of this year - the same period...

Since the 1970s and 1980s, community-based forestry has grown in popularity, based on the concept that local communities, when granted sufficient property rights over local forest commons, can organize autonomously and develop local institutions to regulate the use of natural resources and manage them sustainably. Over time, various forms of...

Agriculture and social protection are fundamentally linked in the context of rural livelihoods in Africa. Poor and food-insecure families depend primarily on agriculture and partly on non-farm income and private transfers for their livelihoods, and are the main target of social protection interventions (FAO, 2015). When embedded within a broader...

Este artículo tiene algunas nociones básicas para el uso correcto de tracción animal, incluyendo enganche e implementos. También se explican las ventajas y desventajas de esta práctica, que incluyen ahorro de mano de obra, diversificación de los medios de vida, fortalecimiento de la resiliencia de los medios de vida, equipos,...

This “Lessons Learned” document of the conservation agriculture (CA) in sub-Saharan Africa toolkit reviews experiences over the last two decades. First, the context and challenges of CA in sub-Saharan Africa are addressed. Then the main issues follow – those previously raised in the Teaser as being crucial to the successful...

Today more people live in cities than ever before, but we still depend on rural areas for our food. In the developing world, up to 80 per cent of food is produced on small farms that are usually family run. Yet it's also true that 70 per cent of the...

Sustainability is the cornerstone of FAORwanda’s work, from building the resilience of Rwandan families to supporting the domestication of the Sustainable Development Goals. Explore these initiatives and more in this quarter’s newsletter

The purpose of this paper is examine the notion of tenure in connection with water resources and to explore whether the concept of water tenure has the potential to make a useful contribution towards resolving the world’s water resources challenges. It seeks to provide answers to the following questions: (a)...