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.
The purpose of this paper is to map some elements that can contribute to an IFAD strategy to stimulate and support pro-poor innovations. It is an initial or exploratory document that hopefully will add to an ongoing and necessary debate, and is not intended as a final position paper. The document is organized as follows.
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.
This report provides a synthesis of all findings and information generated through a “stocktaking” process that involved a desk study of Prolinnova documents and evaluation reports, a questionnaire to 40 staff members of international organizations in agricultural research and development (ARD), self-assessment by the Country Platforms (CPs) and backstopping visits to five CPs. In 2014, the Prolinnova network saw a need to re-strategise in a changing context, and started this process by reviewing the activities it had undertaken and assessing its own functioning.
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.
Commercial Villages Stores (CVS) Programme has been developed and is being implemented by Farm Concern International (FCI) with financial support from USAID/COMPETE (the Competitiveness and Trade Expansion Program) in Kenya and Uganda. The programme, which commenced in September 2009, is aimed at graduating smallholder farmers from subsistent farming to market-oriented production as active and reliable agri-commodity value chain players.
The USAID COMPETE (the Competitiveness and Trade Expansion Program) funded Commercial Village Stores (CVS) project implemented in Kenya, Meru region in Eastern Province and Eastern Uganda (Jinja) has continued to educate the target communities on post harvest solutions at the village level. Quarter 4 (July-Sept 2010) activities sought to build on strengthening the Meru sites collective action in post harvest handling and storage at the village level with an outreach to more than 10000 farmers in Igoji, Tigania East, Tigania West and Tharaka Districts.
The Commercial Village Stores (CVS) project funded by USAID COMPETE (the Competitiveness and Trade Expansion Program) implemented in Kenya, Meru region in Eastern Province and Western Uganda Bushenyi district has continued to benefit under the project.
Cette publication offre de nombreux exemples concrets détaillant différentes manières de réengager les jeunes dans le secteur agricole. Elle montre à quel point des programmes éducationnels sur mesure peuvent offrir aux jeunes les compétences et la perspicacité nécessaires pour se lancer en agriculture et adopter des méthodes de production respectueuses de l’environnement. Beaucoup des approches ou des initiatives décrites dans cette publication sont issues des jeunes eux-mêmes.
This paper comparatively analyzes the structure of agricultural policy development networks that connect organizations working on agricultural development, climate change and food security in fourteen smallholder farming communities across East Africa, West Africa and South Asia.