Based on farmer and value chain actor interviews, this comparative study of five emerging dairy clusters elaborates on the upgrading of farming systems, value chains, and context shapes transformations from semi-subsistent to market-oriented dairy farming. The main results show unequal cluster upgrading along two intensification dimensions: dairy feeding system and cash cropping. Intensive dairy is competing with other high-value cash crop options that resource-endowed farmers specialize in, given conducive support service arrangements and context conditions.
Conventional approaches to agricultural extension based on top–down technology transfer and information dissemination models are inadequate to help smallholder farmers tackle increasingly complex agroclimatic adversities. Innovative service delivery alternatives, such as field schools, exist but are mostly implemented in isolationistic silos with little effort to integrate them for cost reduction and greater technical effectiveness.
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.
Learn about the Women’s Empowerment Farmer Business Schools (WE-FBS) implemented in Kenya through FAO’s Flexible Multi-Partner Mechanism (FMM). The approach prompts men and women to reflect critically on their roles, resources, and activities in farming, and to develop strategies that are needed to maximize their commercial potential.
Since 1979, IFAD has invested US$455.09 million in 20 programmes and projects in Kenya (at a total cost of US$980.31 million), in support of the Government’s efforts to reduce rural poverty. In Kenya, IFAD loans provide support to smallholders and value chain actors (such as agrodealers, private extension services, small traders and processors) in the dairy sector, aquaculture, livestock and cereal value chains. In addition, they strengthen the resilience of the natural resource base and improve access to rural financial services.
Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) and The Haller Foundation joined forces in 2016 when the UK based charity released version one of the Haller Farmers App.
This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening innovative capacity, or the ability of individuals and organisations to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant, particularly with respect to smallholder farmers who represent the largest group of agricultural producers in the region.
The authors surveyed small-scale farmers in the Kenyan Rift Valley province (Narok and Nakuru districts) to describe constraints to, and changes in, livestock production and to assess the extent to which farmers have adopted new technologies promoted by extension services. In the arid areas of southern Narok, farmer's main constraints were drought and disease. Farmers in Nakuru district, situated in the fertile highlands of the Rift Valley, were also affected by disease but also lacked markets and capital.
Le renforcement des capacités est maintenant d’une actualité brûlante en Afrique. Avec d’autres bailleurs de fonds, la banque recherche des moyens appropriés de collaborer avec les gouvernements africains pour les rendre mieux à même de mettre en oeuvre des programmes de développement sur tout le continent. Étant donné le caractère rural de la plupart des économies africaines et la concentration de pauvres dans les zones rurales, il est urgent de renforcer les capacités pour promouvoir le développement agricole.
La consommation de produits certifiés n’est plus l’apanage des pays développés. Au Kenya, les premiers marchés biologiques sont apparus à Nairobi en 2006. Ils sont approvisionnés par des maraîchers, confrontés à une diversité de défis : construire une certification biologique crédible, garantir la fraîcheur des produits et composer avec l’hétérogénéité des attentes des consommateurs. À partir de données d’enquête et du cadre analytique des coûts de transaction, nous analysons l’organisation des marchés de 2006 à 2013.