The purpose of Working with Smallholders handbook is to enable the development of more sustainable, resilient and productive supply chains for agribusinesses and to illustrate the substantial development impact. Smallholder farmers are both an opportunity and a challenge for food and agribusiness companies. The predominance of smallholders in many frontier and emerging markets makes them an integral part of agribusiness supply chains. Many firms source from smallholders or are actively seeking to source from them. Calls for fairer, more inclusive supply chains will hasten this trend.
This report refers to the workshop which was held on October 21-25, 2013 at ILRI Campus in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop involved a variety of sessions which made use of presentations, card exercises, group work and discussions to facilitate the engagement of the participants in sharing, learning, discussing and planning around CapDev in CGIAR. This report provides an overview of the workshop sessions, focusing mainly on the key discussion topics, results and next steps.
The 2014 Annual workshop of the CGIAR Consortium CapDev Community of Practice was held from September 10–12, 2014 at CGIAR Consortium Headquarters, Montpellier, France.The workshop was planned by a CapDev Convening Committee comprised of Iddo Dror (ILRI), Diana Brandes (Livestock & Fish), Per Rudebjer (Bioversity), Simone Staiger (CIAT), Mehmood Hassan (ICRAF), Javier Ekboir (ILAC), Alain Vidal/Luis Solorzano (Consortium Office) and a facilitator Nadia Manning-Thomas.
Xanthomonas Wilt of Banana (BXW) is a complex problem in the African Great Lakes Region that is affecting the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers. Since the first disease reports from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2001, BXW has been studied widely. The majority of these studies focus on the technological or biophysical dimensions, while aspects and influence of socio-cultural, economic and institutional dimensions only recently started to gain attention.
The main goal of the study is to quantify the effects of a) change in nitrogen fertilization rate, b) adjustment of sowing date, c) implementation of new cultivars, and d) supplementary irrigation on maize cropping systems across six African countries including Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso. For this purpose, 30 years (1980-2010) of climate data are used as well as soil and management information obtained from global datasets at 0.5° x 0.5° spatial resolution.
As the world’s most youthful country, it sits on the cusp of being able to harness the youth dividend. Without a more broadly diversified economy, seizing the opportunities presented by Uganda’s youthful demographic will call for understanding both young people, and a focus on the aspects of agriculture that will need to grow and change to meet the challenge.
To successfully realize the African transformation agenda, governments will have to capitalize on the potential of Africa’s youth. Growing up in an increasingly free and fair continent, the young people of Africa are dynamic, forward-looking and best positioned to find innovative solutions to local chal-lenges through the use of science and technology. To do this, conditions have to be suitable and young people need an environment in which barriers to self-actualization are broken.
Providing economic opportunities for youth in agriculture is essential to securing the future of agriculture in Africa, addressing poverty, unemployment, and inequality. However, barriers limit youth participation in agriculture and the broader food system. This scoping review aimed to investigate the opportunities and challenges for youth in participating in agriculture and the food system in Africa. This review conducted a scoping review using the PRISMA guideline. Published studies were retrieved from online databases (Web of Science, Cab Direct, and Science Direct) for 2009 to 2019.
The focus of this research is youth-led innovation, whereby young people instigate potential solutions to a problem, often one that they have identified or defined themselves, and take responsibility for developing and implementing a solution. This report analyses the research to date on youth-led innovation and identifies evidence of impact. It highlights that opportunities to participate in innovation increase young people’s likelihood to innovate in the future and what helps or hinders youth-led innovation.
This report focuses on the potential and opportunities for smallholder commercialization in Zambia. The paper discusses the framework for Zambia's smallholder commercialization strategy, the current state of smallholder agriculture in Zambia, key issues, support from agribusiness to smallholders, and development of potential and opportunities for smallholder commercialization. The paper concludes with three strategy areas: how to strengthen existing market mechanisms, reform of sectoral policies, and investments in public infrastructure.