This article presents the results of a study conducted in Northeast Thailand on wild food plant gathering in anthropogenic areas and the implications for vulnerable households. A sub-sample of 40 farming households was visited every month to conduct seven-day recalls over a 12-month period on wild food plant acquisition events. Results show that these plants are an essential part of the diet, constituting a "rural safety net" particularly for vulnerable households.
This book examines how agricultural innovation arises in four African countries – Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda – through the lens of agribusiness, public policies, and specific value chains for food staples, high value products, and livestock. Determinants of innovation are not viewed individually but within the context of a complex agricultural innovation system involving many actors and interactions.
This paper discusses a range of approaches and benchmarks that can guide future design of value chain impact evaluations. Twenty studies were reviewed to understand the status and direction of value chain impact evaluations. A majority of the studies focus on evaluating the impact of only a few interventions, at several levels within the value chains. Few impact evaluations are based on well-constructed, well-conceived comparison groups. Most of them rely on use of propensity score matching to construct counterfactual groups and estimate treatment effects.
Written by practitioners, this publication is designed to make capacity development more professional and increasingly effective in achieving development goals. Practical illustrations draw on experiences from the civic, government and private sectors. A central theme is to understand capacity as more than something internal to organisations. This book shows how capacity also stems from connections between different types of actor and the levels in society at which they operate.
This report discusses general innovation issues and how they are affecting economic growth. It emphasizes how the advances in ICT, biotechnology and other fields of science are changing the innovation landscape and what are the implications for CD.
This document provides an overview of the Tropical Agriculture Platform and highlights its main goals and activities.
This briefing note highlights the major findings of the project 'Wealth creation through integrated development of potato production’, which has brought a wide range of positive livelihood changes for potato farmers in the highlands of Ethiopia. The project began in 2008 and was aimed at addressing constraints faced by potato producers in Ethiopia and improving the wealth and livelihoods of potato producers.
This book describes how the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has been trying to improve markets for staple foods in Africa through its Market Access Programme. It describes 13 projects from eight countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) that the programme has supported. The book does not attempt to describe the cases in detail. Rather, it focuses on particular aspects in order to derive lessons from which the project managers, AGRA and other development organizations can learn.
This Thematic Research Note reviews the evolution of collective action among smallholders. It assesses determinants of their success such as incentives, capacities, and social impediments. The Note also discusses lessons and options for future action. These include lessons from collective action for market participation by African smallholders, value chain penetration by developed country farmers, and natural resources management among pastoralist communities.
KIT and the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) published this joint publication in which farmers were put in the driver’s seat. Within the programme ‘farmer empowerment for innovation in smallholder agriculture’ (FEISA) farmers were provided tools and skills to enhance collaboration with private enterprises, as well as service providers, in multi stakeholder ‘innovation triangles’ within value chains for the benefit of smallholder farmers.