In sub-Saharan Africa, almost 239 million people face serious problems related to food security and nutrition. Family farming appears as an effective model that can provide solutions to overcome this challenge. During the African Regional Dialogue on Family Farming (6-7 November 2013, Cape Town, South Africa), participants identified specific actions...

What used to be considered wasteland – patches alongside roads, streams or between houses – has become a new food basket for cities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, thanks to an FAO project that shows how urban and peri-urban horticulture can have a profoundly positive effect on national...

 Le Cameroun présente une grande diversité agroécologique, qui se traduit par une grande variété d'espèces végétales cultivées et de pratiques. L'agriculture est majoritairement familiale. Cette étude a été menée dans deux sites au Cameroun, l'une dans la région de l'Est dans les villages de Mindourou, Ampel et Medjoh en pleine...

Raised wire-mesh racks, covered with small, silver lake fish drying in the sun, stretch across the Burundi shore of Lake Tanganyika near the small fishing village of Mvugo. While simple in design, these drying racks have made an enormous contribution both to local nutrition and the local economy. Before the...

The Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM) is an initiative focused on making risk management an integral part of policy planning and implementation in the agricultural sector in developing countries. The overall objective of PARM is to contribute to sustainable agricultural growth, reduce food insecurity, and improve livelihoods of rural and...

This paper describes why small-scale food producers have so many difficulties to get to markets, delineates types of agricultural markets and main players, defines main challenges and constraints that small-scale food producers face in relation to food production and access to markets, shows cases of good practices and presents solutions...

This edition opens with a report of the last session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which has helped to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment feature prominently in the post- 2015 Development Agenda. This will take over from the Millennium Development Goals, whose 2015 deadline...

While conflict and competition over land is a major trend in Africa, and there are allegations of ‘land grabbing’ of large areas of land from local people, usually by foreign companies, other more localised forms of competition over land are less well understood. This paper presents the case of disputes...

Article relatant les résultats d'études qui démontrent la capacité d’adaptation du mil aux variations du climat, dans les systèmes agricoles dominés par des exploitations familiales au sein desquelles des variétés cultivées présentent une forte diversité génétique.

Recurring drought and crop failure in many parts of the world have led to food and nutrition insecurity, and a dependence on food aid. But recently, some farmers in Kenya have been developing their own sustainable way to secure enough nutritious food along with extra income so that they can...

Face à l’arrivée d’investisseurs  dans le périmètre irrigué de l’Office du Niger (Mali), la recherche-action menée par l’UMR G-EAU avec comme objectifs : d'analyser et comparer les pratiques foncières des exploitants familiaux et des investisseurs ; d'accompagner les acteurs dans l’identification des enjeux à long terme et l’anticipation des conséquences des nouvelles attributions foncières...

Food fairs are an important tool and space to promote food sovereignty as they take place in local public spaces and within people’s own socio-cultural settings. One excellent example was a food fair in Ghana, organised by the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD). Women farmers exhibited traditional...

Groundnut is among the most important crops for smallholder farmers in Tanzania, providing both food and income for households. Groundnut is a nutritious source of fats, protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals for human consumption and parts of the crop can be used for livestock feed. This study identified factors which...

The study conducted in Southern Zambia investigated smallholder farmers’ use of indigenous knowledge to respond to rainfall variations and soil fertility problems. Farmer and key informant interviews and observations were employed to collect data. A total of 60 smallholder farmers and 6 key informants were interviewed. Chipepo lies in the...

This edition opens with a report of the last session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which has helped to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment feature prominently in the post-2015 Development Agenda. This will take over from the Millennium Development Goals, whose 2015 deadline is now close. Today, the post-2015 Development Agenda...

Field schools in Mali that have been training farmers on alternative methods of pest control have succeeded in reducing the use of toxic pesticides by participating cotton farmers in the country. These reductions are a staggering 92 percent, according to a new FAO study published today by the London-based Royal...

This issue highlights experiences of development approaches that are helping in the fight against poverty in rural areas. Reducing rural poverty is one of FAO’s strategic objectives for the coming years, to which the Dimitra project is making a special contribution. Innovative methodologies have been developed which seek to place...

The warehouse receipt system for maize (Zea mays L.) was introduced in Uganda to enhance farmer access to markets and credit in order to increase the efficiency of the maize value chain and to improve smallholder incomes. Though, since the inception of the warehouse receipt system in Uganda, there has...

This report presents the synthesis of case studies analysed by the action-research activity. The aim is to give a description of the practices carried out by farmers, individually or collectively, which can be considered as sustainable ways to use plant genetic resources with the purpose that these practices be spread...

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...