The Smallholder Farmers’ Data portrait is a comprehensive, systematic and standardized data set on the profile of smallholder farmers across the world. This Factsheet generates an overview on how small family farmers in Uganda live their lives by using the Data Portrait, putting an emphasis on the constraints they face, the...

The Smallholder Farmers’ Dataportrait of the ESA Small Family Farms Team is a comprehensive, systematic and standardized data set on the profile of smallholder farmers, bringing out the characteristics of family farms across the world. It is designed in such a way that differences between countries and regions can be...

The purpose of this study is to explore whether and how products from agroecological production systems are being valued in markets. The study is based on a meta-analysis of 12 case studies (Benin, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Kazakhstan, Mozambique, Namibia, Uganda), mainly from...

It is widely accepted that crop yields will be affected by climate change. However, the role played by climate in affecting crop yields vis-a-vis non-climatic stresses, is often unclear, limiting decision choices around efforts to promote increased production in light of multiple stresses.

Food insecurity and poor nutritional status remain widespread problems in the Horn of Africa (HOA). A multi-pronged nutrition-sensitive approach to development has been shown to be the best route for sustained reductions in undernutrition. One of the objectives of this report was to review Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) coordination...

Cet article analyse la progressive institutionnalisation de l’agriculture biologique en Ouganda depuis les années 1990, marquée par l’existence de 200 000 producteurs certifiés biologiques, un mouvement national, ainsi qu’une politique dédiée en cours d’élaboration. Cette success story s’explique par une agriculture au départ « biologique par défaut » (absence d’utilisation d’intrants chimiques de synthèse) et...

Due to land grabbing, native forests and local biodiversity are being lost, people are being evicted from their homes and forced to give up their lands, along with all the other problems linked to the large-scale use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Some individual cases are reported in the booklet “Let’s...

The objective of the assessment is to analyse the agricultural and rural sector of Zambia from a gender perspective at the macro (policy), meso (institutional) and micro (community and household) levels in order to identify gender inequalities in access to critical productive resources, assets, services and opportunities. In particular, the...

This study investigates the determinants of farmers’ crop choice decisions, crop area diversification, and income diversification in Sub-Saharan Africa using nationally representative panel data for Nigeria and Uganda.

As part of FAO’s Blue Growth Initiative (BGI) the FAO Member Countries of the Eastern Africa Sub-Region met to agree on a strategy for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture within the Blue Growth Initiative in Eastern Africa (BGI Strategy). The BGI is an FAO flagship initiative that aims at...

Fisherfolk use their social networks to navigate formal and informal rules in accessing the fisheries of Lake Victoria

For over 40 years, natural hazards (mainly droughts, floods and landslides) have affected millions of people in the eastern Africa sub-region. The impact of these hazards have been high, continue to rise in frequency and are mostly felt in the agriculture and food sectors. In some other countries of the...

Like many problems in the global South, the global food system issues can be traced back to a colonial history. Back in 1989 two sociologists, Harriet Friedmann and Philip McMichael, developed a useful concept in their work on agrarian studies: Global food regimes. They described two key periods where the...

Betty Ndugga used to be a clothing trader in Uganda's capital of Kampala, after her husband died, she returned to her village and joined a local farmer field school, supported by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, where she was trained in coffee production. After that, she decided to establish...

Agroecology is deeply rooted in the ecological rationale of traditional small-scale agriculture, representing long established examples of successful agricultural systems characterized by a tremendous diversity of domesticated crop and animal species maintained and enhanced by ingenuous soil, water and biodiversity management regimes, nourished by complex traditional knowledge systems. Such complex...

“Food and nutrition insecurity certainly has a socio-spatial dimension that is highly influenced by the degree of urbanity along the urban-rural continuum and is related to urban, periurban and rural agriculture” reports Dr. Takemore Chagomaka  in a  new study  entitled “Food and Nutrition Insecurity Mapping (FNIRM) in Urban and Periurban...

World tilapia aquaculture production grew 12 percent annually, from less than a half million tonnes in the early 1990s to over 5 million tonnes in the mid-2010s. Africa accounted for 20 percent of the growth. Yet most of the contribution came from Egypt, whereas in the mid-2010s countries in sub-Saharan...

Betty Ndugga used to be a clothing trader in Uganda's capital of Kampala, after her husband died, she returned to her village and joined a local farmer field school, supported by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, where she was trained in coffee production. After that, she decided to establish...

Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), FAW, is an insect native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas. Its larval stage (photo) feeds on more than 80 plant species, including maize, rice, sorghum, millet, sugarcane, vegetable crops and cotton. FAW can cause significant yield losses if not well managed. It can...

The civil conflicts in South Sudan has since 2013 resulted into increased influx of refugees into West Nile, Uganda. As at February 2017, the FAO estimated the total refugee population in West Nile region at 628,000 people (86% women and children, 3% the elderly, and 5 people per household). While...