Meet Eunice, a successful smallholder farmer who lives outside of Mombasa, Kenya.In Kenya, around 80 per cent of people have access to some form of farmable land. Although the soil is rich and fertile for farming, many plots of land stand empty or with failed crops. In the Mombasa region, Haller...

The NENA region has a diverse landscape in terms of social protection. Programmes range from government-led social assistance to vulnerable groups, subsidies in food and contributory social security and insurance schemes, to informal social protection systems based on religious and cultural traditions. However, efforts to strengthen linkages between social protection...

This factsheet discusses women's triple work burden in the household, as producers and at community level and highlights their time poverty. It introduces labour saving technologies, practices and services as potential solutions and describes the adoption constraints women may face. A section is on tested technologies and the concluding page...

The ten-year efforts of the Kaydara Agroecology School Farm, in Senegal, led to concrete benefits for the community and for the environment. Gora Ndiaye, founder of the "African Gardens" association, summarizes the some important features of the project.

Even as structural and rural transformation opens up new opportunities, it also generates major risks for smallholders, rural small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and other marginalized groups. This chapter considers if, why and how collective action and rural collective organizations can enhance the scope of inclusive rural transformation.  It considers...

This video showcases FAO’s resilience works in Ethiopia’s Afar region in the last few years. 

In Africa street food vending and consumption have proliferated in the last three and a half decades, especially in urban areas. People who face barriers to the formal wage labor market find in street food vending a viable income option, as it requires little start-up capital and no formal education....

Even as many pockets of the state, including its capital, battle the ravages of development and consumerism, a couple of villages visited by the author stand as examples of resilient local economies and lifestyles.  The village is not very old; it all began in 1963 with three families. Nongtraw comprises of...

Esta sistematización presenta las experiencias generadas a partir de la implementación de cuatro granjas agroacuícolas entre junio de 2014 y los primeros meses de 2015. Dos de ellas están ubicadas en el municipio de San Luis Jilotepeque, departamento de Jalapa, y las otras dos en los municipios de Sibinal y...

Many countries in the region met or exceeded the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on hunger several years before the deadline. Going forward, to meet the 2030 hunger target of the Sustainable Development Goals, the challenge will be to fully eliminate the prevalence of undernourishment across the region and to achieve...

This paper presents an analysis of the characteristics of family farming in Africa and discusses its role in overcoming some of the major development challenges in this region. The main objective of the study is to depict family farming’s diversity in the region. Furthermore, it examines the contribution of family...

This paper examines how women’s empowerment is essential for food and nutrition security and resilience in West Africa and suggests policy “pointers” arising from the West African experience that can help inform policies and strategies, particularly in view of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. West African women play a...

The vast majority of those affected by conflict situations are those dependent on rural livelihoods, most of whom prefer to remain neutral but often have no choice but to join of flee in order to eat.

Peasant agriculture is faced with a constant offensive by transnational companies that are grabbing land and resources, imposing a mode of production based on chemical inputs and industrial seeds, and making profit out of globalized and de-localised food production chains. Millions of small farmers, women and men are left landless,...

The right to adequate food lies at the heart of the mandate of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). That concept takes into consideration the availability, access and adequacy of food, and that individuals, alone or in community with others, may acquire food through their own...

There are three major poverty divides in Ghana: rural-urban, northsouth, and between women and men. To meet these challenges, IFAD, the African Development Bank and the Government of Ghana are investing in rural northern Ghana to create viable economic opportunities – particularly for women – while improving market linkages with...

La agricultura familiar en Colombia está representada por campesinos, indígenas, afrocolombianos, pescadores, agricultores urbanos y neo-rurales que viven, en general, en condiciones de pobreza y abandono. Las políticas y programas rurales del país la subordinan y no existen criterios de política diferencial que reconozcan sus particularidades y potencien sus capacidades;...

If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, productivity could increase by 20 to 30 percent, according to FAO data. Yet females – who make up 43 percent of the agricultural labour force globally – are often viewed as unpaid family labour. Their contribution goes unrecognized, and...

La Plataforma de Conocimientos sobre Agricultura Familiar de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO), el Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres del Ministerio de Desarrollo Social (MIDES) de Uruguay, el Ministerio de Ganadería, Agricultura y Pesca de Uruguay, a través de su Dirección General...

Agricultural Productivity in Africa: Trends, Patterns, and Determinants presents updated and new analyses of land, labor, and total productivity trends in African agriculture. It brings together analyses of a unique mix of data sources and evaluations of public policies and development projects to recommend ways to increase agricultural productivity in...