In the 90’s first steps were taken in Cuba to strengthen family farming. A participatory seeds breeding, multiplication and diffusion project started, a challenge to Cuban scientists, not used to involve farmers in the decision making process and recognizing them as equal partners. This project further evolved to become the Local Agricultural Innovation Programme, Spanish acronym PIAL (Programa de Innovación Agropecuaria Local).
A growing variety of public and private rural advisory services are available today, leading to increasingly “pluralistic service systems” (PSS), in which advisory services are provided by different actors and funded from different sources. However, these PSS and the way they operate are still poorly understood. In particular, how PSS can effectively respond to demands of heterogeneous farmers in contexts where small-scale agriculture increasingly needs to exploit value addition and adapt to market requirements.
When designing projects, it is important to engage local stakeholders as early as possible to ensure that capacity development (CD) activities are truly relevant to their needs. Multi-Stakeholder processes (MSPs) can also lead to greater ownership of project activities and outcomes. This case study gives an example from Sudan of successful MSPs for developing Food Security and Nutrition Information Systems (FSNIS) in four states.
For smallholder agriculture to prosper and transform itself, access to rural services is essential. Rural services that enable smallholders to overcome constraints to increase their productivity, manage their farms as a sustainable business, link to inputs and outputs markets and act collectively to improve their livelihoods are a first line of action to reduce rural poverty. Undoubtedly, improving rural services has long been on the development agenda.
Following their first formation in Indonesia over 25 years ago, Farmer Field Schools (FFS) have served as a “proof of concept” of how transformative learning can help governments, donors and development stakeholders achieve development objectives. The FFS approach, which has now been used in more than 90 countries by more than 12 million small farmers (FAO, 2016), not only creates a space in which the practical needs of smallholders to solve production-related issues can be addressed but also fosters personal and community-level transformation through empowerment.
As the COVID-19 pandemic turns into a global crisis, countries are taking measures to contain the pandemic. Supermarket shelves remain stocked for now. But a protracted pandemic crisis could quickly put a strain on the food supply chains, which is a complex web of interactions involving farmers, agricultural inputs, processing plants, shipping, retailers and more. The shipping industry is already reporting slowdowns because of port closures, and logistics hurdles could disrupt the supply chains in the coming weeks.
Agricultural research and extension systems are central to unlock the potential of agricultural innovation and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Public agricultural research, extension and advisory services are essential for increasing productivity and promoting sustainable agricultural growth and alleviating poverty.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will vary for different groups of rural population, with the highest impact expected to be on farmers and other vulnerable groups, especially women and youth. Targeted support is feasible only by activating a network of actors or organizations within agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and promoting customized technologies and practices suitable for location specific contexts.
The publication is a part of the FAO work to assist the member countries in reforming their national Extension and Advisory Services (EAS). It highlights the main elements and provide concrete guidelines for the policy makers to coordinate pluralism in extension and advisory services (EAS), i.e. ensuring that multiple EAS providers from public, private sector and NGOs/donors, provide quality services that contribute to national agricultural priorities and wellbeing of rural producers, collaborate and exchange information to maximise synergies and minimise gaps and duplications.
Human nutrition is vital for agriculture. Many smallholder farmers are food-insecure and suffer chronic or acute forms of malnutrition. This can permanently harm the physical and cognitive growth of children, while reducing productivity as household members are less able to carry out agricultural work.
Agriculture is vital for human nutrition. Nutrition has long been considered mostly a health issue. However, agriculture plays an essential role in ensuring nutritional wellbeing not only for rural populations, but also for society as a whole.