Climate Solutions that Work for Farmers: Success Stories from the Field. This CTA publication written by Charlie Pye-Smith presents 'a review of proven practices, tools or policies that promote resilience and help farmers to address the challenges posed by climate change.

While Bangladesh is more advanced in terms of agricultural mechanization, Ethiopia and Kenya can repeat the same success. Indeed, Ethiopia is one step ahead of Bangladesh in that it has developed an agricultural mechanization strategy – something Bangladesh has not done. This strategy is now being used to address the...

In the context of increasing vulnerability to climate change for people dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, the International Food Policy Research Institute and partner organizations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, and Bangladesh undertook a project broadly aiming to create knowledge that will help policymakers and development agencies to strengthen...

Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAA Africa) – a pilot project inspired by the Brazilian learning on institutional food procurement – recently released a report on the lessons learned from the first phase of implementation. This report details the joint efforts in five countries to increase smallholder farmers’ access to...

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a zoonotic, viral, vector-borne disease representing a threat to human health, animal health and livestock production in Africa, the Near East and potentially, Europe and the rest of the world. Rift Valley fever primarily affects sheep, goats, cattle, camels, buffaloes, and antelopes. The majority of...

The 2007/08 commodity price boom triggered a ‘rush’ for land in developing countries. Yet, many affected countries lacked the regulatory infrastructure to cope with such demand and reliable data on investors’ performance. This study uses the example of Ethiopia to show how simple improvements in administrative data collection can help...

About two-thirds of the developing world’s 3 billion rural people live in about 475 million small farm households, working on land plots smaller than 2 hectares. Many are poor and food insecure and have limited access to markets and services. Their choices are constrained, but they farm their land and...

The aim of the guidelines is to enhance restoration efforts in the world’s drylands. They provide specific guidance for policymakers and other decision-makers, and for practitioners. Well-informed policymakers and other higher-order decision-makers can be enablers in the design and implementation of effective restoration efforts by providing appropriate policies, governance mechanisms...

The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa (NAFSN) launched in May 2012 under the auspices of the G8 aims to create the conditions that will allow the African countries concerned to improve agricultural productivity and develop their agrifood sector by attracting more private investment in agriculture. The...

10 March 2015, Rome - An innovative partnership spanning five African countries is providing important lessons on how governments can procure food for public institutions, such as schools, directly from small-scale family farmers. Modelled on Brazil's achievements in fighting hunger and poverty, the Purchase from Africans for Africa programme (PAA...

Cereal production has exhibited unprecedented growth in Ethiopia, leading to important welfare improvements in the country. However, it is not well understood what the drivers have been of this growth and how it can be sustained. In particular, there is a lack of evidence on the contribution of improvements in...

Climate change is undermining the ability of African nations to feed themselves. Women smallholder producers are on the front line of dealing with the impacts, but are not first in line for international climate finance. Wealthy countries have committed to helping countries in Africa to adapt to climate change, but...

The countries of East and Southern Africa have made major commitments to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, and they are starting to pay off. A number of countries have achieved substantial progress towards gender parity in primary school enrolment. Nearly all countries have adopted quota systems requiring women’s participation...

Maize is one of the major five staple cereal crops in Ethiopia. High productivity and efficacy in its production is critical to improve food security, reduce the level of poverty and achieve or maintain agricultural growth. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 385 household heads and interviewed using...

While scholars agree on the importance of land rental markets for structural transformation in rural areas, evidence on the extent and nature of their operation, including potential obstacles to their improved functioning, remains limited. This study uses household-level data from six countries to start filling this gap and derive substantive...

El Niño is a periodic climate phenomenon defined by anomalously warm sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean which affect local weather worldwide and generally leads to increased drought risk at global level. In 2015, since July a strong El Niño is being observed with increasing...

The newsletter opens with several articles that address issues that are key to improving nutrition. In Chad, FAO is working with administrative and traditional authorities to implement an innovative approach aimed at increasing women’s access to fertile land, a winning formula for improving the livelihoods of rural households. Another initiative...

Hassan Adile connaît bien la sécheresse. À l’instar des 12 millions de pasteurs que compte l’Éthiopie, il parcourt de grandes distances pour trouver des pâturages et de l’eau pour son bétail. Aujourd’hui, il a une nouvelle responsabilité. Il a suivi récemment une formation pour apprendre à déceler les signes avant-coureurs...

We study the dynamics of the supply response of smallholder grain producers to changes in crop prices and costs of production in Ethiopia. We develop an intertemporal acreage demand allocation model of a representative household under a rational expectations hypothesis. An estimable acreage demand equation is derived and estimated for...

Conceptually, the benefits of irrigation are realized through improvements in agricultural productivity. At household level, the agricultural production increases could be followed by improvements in income generation and food consumption patterns. The goal of this research was to examine the relationship between irrigation, income generation and household consumption patterns for...