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.
The Sourcebook is the outcome of joint planning, continued interest in gender and agriculture, and concerted efforts by the World Bank, FAO, and IFAD. The purpose of the Sourcebook is to act as a guide for practitioners and technical staff inaddressing gender issues and integrating gender-responsive actions in the design and implementation of agricultural projects and programs. It speaks not with gender specialists on how to improve their skills but rather reaches out to technical experts to guide them in thinking through how to integrate gender dimensions into their operations.
According to the authors of this paper, actual methods of scaling are rather empirical and based on the premise of ‘find out what works in one place and do more of the same, in another place’. These methods thus would not sufficiently take into account complex realities beyond the concepts of innovation transfer, dissemination, diffusion and adoption. As a consequence, scaling initiatives often do not produce the desired effect.
The farmer field school (FFS) concept has been widely adopted, and such schools have the reputation of strengthening farmers’ capacity to innovate. Although their impact has been studied widely, what is involved in their scaling and in their becoming an integral part of agricultural innovation systems has been studied much less. In the case of the Sustainable Tree Crops Programme in Cameroon, we investigate how a public–private partnership (PPP) did not lead to satisfactory widespread scaling in the cocoa innovation system.
The Tugi Silvo-pastoral Project (TUSIP) is a South-South Cooperation between the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Centre (CATIE) and the Akwi Memorial Foundation (AMF) based in the North West Region of Cameroon. The main goal of TUSIP was to assess the environmental benefits of a set of silvo-pastoral practices and to empower traditional livestock farmers in Tugi Village by enhancing their capability to manage available crop-animal systems and natural resources in a sustainable manner.
This study, competitiveness of the value chain of the agricultural sector in Cameroon, aims to help the Government achieve its objectives for the rural sector. The main objective of this study was to provide information on the potentials, investment and growth policies of commercial agriculture in Cameroon. It gives an overview of the constraints and analyzes the national, regional or international competitiveness of six value chains of the agricultural sector. This paper examines family and large agro-industrial farms from different regions of Cameroon.
Les mutations du secteur agricole bamiléké (Ouest-Cameroun) ont été très importantes depuis le milieu des années 80, marqué par la chute des prix du café, alors principale production du pays Bamiléké, et par la crise économique au Cameroun. Dans cette thèse, le concept de dispositif (Foucault, Moisdon, Maugeri, RIDT-INRA) est l'outil principal d'analyse de ce secteur agricole.
L’objectif de ce travail est de proposer un plan de formation des différents catégories d'acteurs (à identifier) dans le but d'apporter une contribution significative au renforcement de capacité dans chaque pays et dans la sous-région. Des actions précises visant à permettre aux acteurs de lever les éventuels blocages institutionnels devront accompagner ce processus de renforcement des capacités, notamment en ce qui concerne la négociation, le lobbying, la mise en réseau etc.
Les résultats attendus de ce travail sont :
Grants for agricultural innovation are common but grant funds specifically targeted to smallholder farmers remain relatively rare. Nevertheless, they are receiving increasing recognition as a promising venue for agricultural innovation. They stimulate smallholders to experiment with improved practices, to become proactive and to engage with research and extension providers. The systematic review covered three modalities of disbursing these grants to smallholder farmers and their organisations: vouchers, competitive grants and farmer-led innovation support funds.
More than 25 years after the first implementation of Farmer Field Schools (FFS), there is a rich corpus of evidence that participation in FFS improves farmers’ knowledge, skills, and competencies. On the other hand, several studies converge to show that FFS, by strengthening group action, have the potential to build-up social capital among participants and, thereafter, within local communities.