Agriculture is an essential component of food security, sustainable livelihoods, and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Smallholder farmers, however, are restricted in the number of crops they can grow due to small plot sizes. Agriculture inputs, such as fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides, and improved seed varieties, could prove to be useful resources to improve yield. Despite the potential of these agriculture technologies, input use throughout much of SSA remains low.
The Newsletter of the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) provides regular updates on global activities by TAP and its partners, on the CDAIS projects and on upcoming related events. This issue specifically refers to the period from April 2020 to June 2020, including also some activities of July 2020.
With support from The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), through a call for proposal, Hello Tractor an agriculture technology social enterprise has been selected to implement ICT-enabled smallholder mechanisation services with the objective to create jobs for youth across Nigeria and Kenya over a one-year period. Hello Tractor has a bold vision to create sustainable value for tractor owners and to radically transform how the smallholder agricultural ecosystem interacts with and derives value from technology.
Les travaux portant sur l’inclusion des petits exploitants dans l’agriculture contractuelle dans le monde dressent des constats contradictoires. En Algérie, l’État a engagé en 2009 un programme d’appui à l’intégration des filières lait et tomate industrielle, en accordant des primes aux entreprises et aux agriculteurs qui s’engagent ensemble dans des contrats de commercialisation.
Mobile phone use is increasing in Sub-Saharan Africa, spurring a growing focus on mobile phones as tools to increase agricultural yields and incomes on smallholder farms. However, the research to date on this topic is mixed, with studies finding both positive and neutral associations between phones and yields. In this paper we examine perceptions about the impacts of mobile phones on agricultural productivity, and the relationships between mobile phone use and agricultural yield.
This webinar on Precision Agriculture for Smallholders was organized in 2020 by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) in collaboration with the partners Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA, West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF) and financial support of the European Union and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
Outlines of the presentation:
This document collects a series of fact sheets realized under the EU-funded SALSA project, which is aimed to understand how small farms and food businesses contribute to sustainable food and nutrition security (FNS).
The research findings in the fact sheets concern 30 reference regions from countries in Europe and Africa. For each region, we present:
● The regional indicators on the concentration and spatial distribution of small farms (SF), obtained also with support of the Sentinel-2 satellite data
In the context of the SALSA project, the overall aim of WP6 is to identify, develop and disseminate policy tools and other support mechanisms that are most appropriate for maintaining and enhancing the contribution of small farms to sustainable FNS in the European and African context (SALSA Objective 4).
The current deliverable (D6.1) is divided into two parts, each corresponding to one of its two main audiences, namely:
The current deliverable (D6.2) is divided into two parts each corresponding to one of its two main audiences, namely:
Part 1 – Scientific Methodology
SALSA Deliverable 6.3 is described in the project Description of Action (DoA) as a single Policy Brief but has been delivered as a set of five documents. These consist of: