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...

Market participation by smallholder farmers has the potential to pull farmers out of poverty while at the same time increasing food security at the more aggregate level. This paper looks at the dynamics of smallholder maize and beans marketing in Uganda and Mozambique. Using panel data from both countries, we...

Pesticidal plants, also referred to as botanical pesticides, have been used for centuries for pest management. Evidence of their use in agriculture dates back to Greek, Roman and Egyptian empires. They were the main method of crop pest management in modern times until the development of synthetic pesticides in the...

A large proportion of Ethiopians derive their livelihoods from smallholder agriculture. This has provided the impetus for the smallholder agriculture-focused policies that have guided agricultural development efforts in Ethiopia over the past two decades. In this study, we investigate the productivity of smallholder teff farmers in Ethiopia, since this is...

15th September 2015, Addis Ababa– The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched today the East Africa Consultation Workshop on improving small-scale fisheries (SSF) in the context of food security and poverty eradication. This event is organized by the FAO Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa (SFE) in...

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....

This guide is based on information from the Food Plants International (FPI) database developed by Tasmanian agricultural scientist Bruce French.  The source material and guidance for the preparation of the book has been made possible through the support of Food Plants International, the Rotary Clubs of District 9830, particularly the...

This Policy Brief has been issued in conjunction with and partly as a summary of "Towards effective national forest funds", Forestry Paper no. 174. It aims to give a quick overview of the mechanism of financing sustainable forest management projects through national forest funds (NFFs) and on how this financing...

This six-minute video shows how the FAO Dimitra Clubs in Niger have been crucial to ensure women’s access to land and water, while contributing to nutrition, food security and gender equality, thereby reducing rural poverty. The transformative approach of the Dimitra Clubs induces behavioral changes in various aspects of daily...

Efforts to enhance smallholder farmers’ involvement in agricultural markets under the World Food Programme (WFP) Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme have led to a variety of nutrition-sensitive activities. In many rural communities where P4P and partners work, these context- and country-specific efforts have begun to increase farming families’ access to nutritious...

This brief describes the changing context within which public forestry administrations operate and outlines concrete steps they can take to adapt to this changing context and to strengthen their capacity to fulfil their mandates.

11 September 2015, Dakar/Accra - In Senegal, an operational model linking local food production to school feeding programmes is showing the power of public food procurement schemes associated to technical support to smallholders’ agricultural production. Building upon technical principles and knowledge of the Brazilian public food acquisition program, the PAA...

Small family farms account for the bulk of the agriculture sector, since they make up the majority of farms worldwide; an estimated 85 per cent of farms worldwide are less than 2 hectares. In Asia, almost all the farms are small family farms, and in Africa, they are a large...

The Extension Week 2015 brought together more than 300 representatives of agricultural extension and advisory services practitioners and other agricultural value chain actors across and outside Africa. Over 40 countries across the world were assembled under the theme: “Reinvigorating Extension Services for Market-led Agriculture within the Context of the Malabo...

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the effects of selected food and agricultural policies in Malawi over the period 2005-2013 and carefully examines: the effects of policies and market performance on price incentives for producers, consumers and other agents in six key agricultural value chains; the level and composition...

Declining soil fertility, escalating costs of farm inputs and lack of capacity are persistent problems that farmers in eastern Africa continue to grapple with. Such factors have resulted in high levels of poverty and food insecurity due to poor performance of the agriculture sector. Climate change adds a big blow...

An ongoing locust plague is threatening the livelihoods and food security of 13 million people in Madagascar. To address this major issue, the Ministry of Agriculture of Madagascar and FAO developed a “Three-year emergency Programme in response to the locust plague” comprising three successive locust campaigns (2013–2016).

Dans les pays du Sahel où se pratique un élevage pastoral du type extensif, l’élevage joue un rôle essentiel dans la vie socio-économique et l’équilibre alimentaire des ménages. Cependant qu'un certain nombre d’études pointent du doigt cette activité, notamment sa contribution à la dégradation de l’environnement, d’autres études ont fait...