Inadequate feed and nutrition are major constraints to livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa. National and international research agencies, including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), have developed several feed production and utilisation technologies. However, adoption of these technologies has so far been low. Identification of the major socio-economic and policy factors influencing the adoption of improved feed technologies is required to help design policy and institutional interventions to improve adoption.
Bure district has a diverse ago-ecology, different soil types, a relatively long rainy season and a number of rivers and streams for irrigation. Therefore, it has suitable tract of land to grow temperate, subtropical and tropical fruit crops. In 2007, fruits were identified as a potential marketable commodity by the stakeholders participating in the IPMS project. They diagnosed that farmers had limited orchard management knowledge and skill and were growing locally available less productive and low quality fruit varieties.
This guide is the second in a series of documents designed to support agencies implementing participatory agroenterprise development program operating within defined geographical areas.
Self Help Africa was mandated under the project “Expanding Utilization of Roots, Tubers and Bananas and Reducing Their Postharvest Losses” to implement activities tailored at achieving output 4, “Skills in entrepreneurship, agribusiness and collective action developed for selected actors (men, women and youth) in specialized ware potato markets” among 4 target potato associations (PA) in Eastern Uganda.
Cross bred cow adoption is an important and potent policy variable precipitating subsistence household entry into emerging bulk markets. This paper focuses on the design of policies that create and sustain milk-market expansion among a sample of households in the Ethiopian highlands. In this context it is desirable to measure a household's `proximity' to market in terms of the level of deficiency of an essential input. This problem is compounded by four factors.
In times of market liberalization and structural adjustment, the agricultural sectors of developing countries face profound changes. To seize new market opportunities, farmers need to innovate. In order to innovate, farmers need new technologies and information on how to access and manage them, as well as better support services for the delivery of inputs and knowledge, and better infrastructure for delivering produce to the market.
Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) is the world’s first index-based insurance designed to protect vulnerable pastoralists in drought-stricken areas from losing their primary asset—livestock. This case study demonstrates the opportunities and challenges emerging from the IBLI project. It explains the need to establish the product in locations with large vulnerable pastoralist populations and encourages students to consider and develop an IBLI growth strategy.
There is an increasing interest among researchers, practitioners and donors in using agricultural innovation systems approaches to reach development outcomes. Limited practical experiences have been shared on the dynamics of these innovation processes and how project partners have dealt with that. The objective of this paper is therefore to share experiences from a smallholder livestock development project − the imGoats project in Mozambique – by reflecting on the dynamics of innovation processes in the project.
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) initiated a 5 year project in June 2004 with the financial assistance from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The project, entitled: “Improving productivity and market success” (IPMS) of Ethiopian farmers, aims at contributing to a reduction in poverty of the rural poor through market oriented agricultural development.
The module aimed to identify and examine the main features and characteristics of complex agricultural problems, explore innovative solutions to address complex agricultural problems, and examine the circumstances under which innovative solutions emerge.