Ils ont pratiqué l’agriculture pendant des générations mais, pour la première fois, des milliers de gens vivant sur l’île de Zanzibar, en Tanzanie, apprennent à cultiver. Grâce à ce nouveau savoir, ils parviennent à accroître leurs rendements de manière spectaculaire et à se libérer de la pauvreté.

Smallholder agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Its importance for livelihoods cannot be overstated. 94 percent of rural residents and 38 percent of urban residents engage in agriculture to some extent (Jones, Shrinivas, and Bezner-Kerr 2014), the vast majority as smallholder farmers with landholdings of less than one hectare....

Thomas Machokoto surveys his farmland – three hectares of bare soil neatly dug with ditches, pits and furrows in preparation for the rains. Together with other members of a small group of local farmers, he has been digging these contour bunds and infiltration pits to capture and store rainwater. The...

This case study examines SNV Kenya’s approach to connecting school feeding buyers to smallholder farmers through matchmaking events organized through the Procurement Governance for Home Grown School Feeding project. SNV’s baseline found that the participation of smallholder farmers as Home Grown School Meals (HGSM) suppliers was negligible, despite the market’s...

Land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is believed to be expanding at an alarming rate, accompanied by the lowest agriculture and livestock yields of any region in the world. While cereal production has increased marginally over the past two decades, more than 70 percent of this growth is due to...

Added value to improve Agriculture and Farmers’ living standards. A journey through the activities of the Food Security through Commercialization of Agriculture Project (FSCA) in the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali Senegal and Sierra Leone

Sao Tomé était autrefois le plus gros exportateur de cacao mais, il y a une dizaine d’années, ce secteur a été pratiquement anéanti et des milliers de cultivateurs désespérés ont commencé à détruire des forêts protégées pour gagner leur vie. L’augmentation, à l’échelle mondiale, de la demande de cacao biologique...

We explore the determinants of wheat output per hectare in the 2011-2013 Meher crop seasons in Ethiopia’s four major growing regions by using a panel data approach and combining national agricultural field surveys with relevant publically available GIS and remote sensing products. Despite the extremely heterogeneous agro-climatic conditions and fragmented...

En 2011, un programme de coopération technique intitulé « Appui à la viabilisation des Villages Ruraux Intégrés dans le cadre du rapatriement et de la réinsertion du Burundi- composante sécurité alimentaire agricole » a été mis en œuvre par l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’Alimentation et l’Agriculture(FAO) avec l’appui financier...

4 September 2015, Yaoundé - Cameroon and FAO today signed two agreements: one creating a $20 million, five-year Partnership Programme aimed at promoting agricultural development in the Central African nation, the other establishing an expanded Partnership and Liaison office here in the capital.

Equitable Inventory Credit in Niger and Burkina Faso explains, step by step, what equitable inventory credit - or warrantage - is and how to adopt the good practices exemplified by the use of this rural finance method in Niger and Burkina Faso. The video summarizes the innovations and practices related...

Dans le Sahel, les politiques de protection sociale en lien avec la sécurité alimentaire ont un rôle fondamental quant au bien-être de la population. Étudier ces politiques ainsi que leurs mesures profite aux organisations qui œuvrent pour la sécurité alimentaire de la région et peut contribuer à la conception de...

The challenges facing small holder farmers in Zimbabwe are multi-faceted; they include low smallholder agricultural productivity caused by, among other things, reliance on rain-fed systems, poor input/output markets, low soil fertility, lack of draught power, lack of smallholder oriented credit support systems and weak agricultural extension service delivery systems. The...

Food-borne disease remains a major public health challenge in Africa and Asia. Most of the foods that carry the highest pathogen risk are produced by smallholder farmers, marketed through the informal sector, and sold in wet markets. Given the significant role of informal markets in African and Asian food systems,...

Abeline, veuve âgée, vit dans la région centrale de Madagascar. Elle se refuse à dépendre de qui que ce soit pour vivre. Afin de garder son indépendance, elle cultive du riz en utilisant une technique très spéciale. Non seulement, elle gagne suffisamment d’argent pour elle-même, mais elle transmet désormais cette...

Le Rwanda possède un climat favorable, une flore mellifère riche et variée propice au développement de l’apiculture. La présente fiche explique comment construire une ruche modèle traditionnelle qui se compose d’un cylindre allongé fabriqué avec des tiges de Pennisetum (Urubingo), de bamboo ou de papyrus. Ce modèle longiforme est très...

En 2011, un programme de coopération technique intitulé « Appui à la viabilisation des Villages Ruraux Intégrés dans le cadre du rapatriement et de la réinsertion du Burundi- composante sécurité alimentaire agricole » a été mis en œuvre par l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’Alimentation et l’Agriculture(FAO) avec l’appui financier...

This special issue of Nature & Faune journal, with its exciting variety of papers dealing with issues related to sustainable soil management in Africa is an important contribution towards promoting sustainability on the continent.

In semi-arid cropping regions of West Africa, fallow periods are getting shorter. As land becomes more scarce, farmers are not able to give their soils enough time to rest. This is leading to depletion of soil organic matter, severely threatening soil fertility and damaging soil structure. In the worst cases,...

Important changes to Ethiopia’s coffee sector have occurred in the last decade. The adoption of improved production, harvest, and post-harvest practices has been increasing with positive impacts on coffee productivity and incomes. Upstream marketing has improved, along with large investments in processing capacity, shown by the extended coverage of wet...