African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets.
El presente documento se elabora de conformidad a lo requerido en los términos de referencia de la Consultoría “Situación de la institucionalidad de apoyo a la innovación comercial de la agricultura familiar y de los procesos de gestión comercial de la agricultura familiar en Chile”, la cual hace parte del Proyecto IICA/FONCT “Innovaciones institucionales para el apoyo a la gestión de procesos comerciales de la agricultura familiar (AF) y su vinculación con los mercados”.
This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening innovative capacity, or the ability of individuals and organisations to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant, particularly with respect to smallholder farmers who represent the largest group of agricultural producers in the region.
Land and property rights, migration, and citizenship are complex issues that cut across all social, economic, and political spheres of West Africa. This paper provides an overarching scoping of the most pressing contemporary issues related to land, migration, and citizenship, including how they intersect in various contexts and locations in West Africa. The way issues are analytically framed captures structural challenges and sets them against the regional and global meta-trends of which policy makers and practitioners should be aware for conflict-sensitive planning.
This study focused on analysing the determinants of farmer participation in direct marketing channels using the case of the cassava sector in the Oyo State of Nigeria. The Bivariate Tobit model was applied in the empirical analysis, based on a primary dataset generated from 400 rural cassava farmers from the Oyo State of Nigeria. The main objective of this study was to analyse the effects of the determinants of farmer decision to either participate in the processor or middlemen marketing channels in the Oyo State of Nigeria.
This brief summarizes a report on the first large survey of maize traders in Nigeria in the past several decades. The sample of about 1400 traders covered one state in the South and four in the North, with traders in city wholesale markets in the North (Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina) and South (Ibadan) and regional markets in secondary cities in the North.
The cassava system in Nigeria is developing, with increasing attention to its potential positive outcomes. However, credit access is a major problem in expanding productive activities of the different actors across the value chains of cassava products. This study investigates the extent of access to credit by cassava actors with respect to the different financial institutions in the country using data obtained from a sample of 168 actors, including producers, processors, marketers, fabricators and end users
Public-private partnerships are a new way of carrying out research and development (R&D) in Latin America's agricultural sector. These partnerships spur innovation for agricultural development and have various advantages over other institutional arrangements fostering R&D. This report summarizes the experiences of a research project that analyzed 125 public-private research partnerships (PPPs) in 12 Latin American countries. The analysis indicates that several types of partnerships have emerged in response to the various needs of the different partners.
Los enfoques y prácticas de extensión se han transformado notablemente en las últimas décadas. A la vez, numerosos autores han señalado la persistencia de enfoques difusionistas tanto en las instituciones como en las prácticas de los extensionistas. En esta investigación se analizan las prácticas de extensión implementadas en el noreste argentino, se las compara con propuestas institucionales y académicas actuales y se extraen aprendizajes. Para esto se realizaron 40 entrevistas a extensionistas que trabajan en el ámbito público en las provincias de Chaco, Corrientes, Formosa y Misiones.
La agricultura familiar engloba un conjunto diversificado de situaciones de trabajo y de vida que exceden la producción de subsistencia y demandan políticas públicas integrales de desarrollo. En la última década ha comenzado a instalarse en la agenda pública, y también en la de gobierno, la necesidad de avanzar hacia un modelo de desarrollo rural que sea socialmente inclusivo y, por ende, política, económica y ambientalmente sustentable. Tal modelo debe partir del reconocimiento de los agricultores familiares como sujetos viables de desarrollo económico.