Le rôle important que jouent les petites exploitations agricoles dans le soutien des moyens de subsistance ruraux, la conservation de la biodiversité et le maintien des paysages traditionnels, des traditions rurales et du patrimoine culturel est largement reconnu. Néanmoins, ils passent souvent sous le radar des mécanismes de politique agricole, qui ont tendance à se concentrer sur les très grandes exploitations et les chaînes alimentaires pilotées à l’échelle mondiale.
This policy note, Environmental Management for a Sustainable Economic Development Strategy for Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, investigates six environmental management topics which will affect the capacity of the province to develop the economy and need to be underpinned by strong environmental and natural resource management. The six topics cover: agriculture, forestry, fisheries, land and water, environmental law and regulations, and spatial planning.
The important role that small farms play in supporting rural livelihoods, conserving biodiversity and maintaining traditional landscapes, rural traditions and cultural heritage is widely accepted. Nevertheless, they are often under the radar of the agriculture policy mechanisms, which tend to focus on the very large farms and globally driven food chains.
The EU-funded SALSA project set out to examine a potentially very important role of small farms – their contribution to food security.
The main challenge for African food systems in the future will be to provide food for a rapidly growing population with changing diets and food preferences. Whilst the population of Europe is decreasing, with consumers demanding food that is produced in an environmentally and socially responsible way, Africa’s population will more than double between 2020 and 2050, with food demand increasing even more as a result of dietary changes.
Small farms in Northern Europe are found alongside some of the largest - and in some cases, most industrialised - farms in the whole of Europe.
SALSA is an EU Horizon 2020 project that set out to assess the current and future role of small farms and related small food businesses (suppliers, processors, distributors) in achieving sustainable Food and Nutrition Security (FNS). SALSA studied small farms in 30 reference regions in 20 countries - 25 regions (at the so-called NUTS3 administrative level) in Europe and 5 regions in Africa.
In recent years, much has been accomplished to develop the small livestock subsector in Rwanda. The Livestock Master Plan (LMP) 2017–2022 and the Fourth Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation (PSTA 4) 2018–2024 have proposed and attracted investments that have improved productivity of small livestock value chains including better piggery and poultry genetics, feeds and health services. However, this subsector still faces many problems related to policy and the enabling environment.
Rural Advisory Services (RAS) are increasingly recognised as critical to agricultural and rural development. They provide rural communities with wide range of skills and knowledge and facilitate their interactions among the different actors to help them access support and services required for improving their livelihoods. Family Farmers are one of the important clients of RAS as they are the most predominant type of farmers worldwide.