While smallholder farmers are the primary food producers in Southern Africa, contributing to 90 percent of food production in some countries, often systems in the region do not support profitability for them. WFP is working across Southern Africa to address bottlenecks in food systems to enhance the resilience of smallholder farmers. This factsheet gives an overview of WFP’s approach to smallholder farmers.
Scaling is a ubiquitous concept in agricultural research in the global south as donors require their research grantees to prove that their results can be scaled to impact upon the livelihoods of a large number of beneficiaries. Recent studies on scaling have brought critical perspectives to the rather technocratic tendencies in the agricultural innovations scaling literature.
This publication is one of four CABI briefings on climate change. The key messages in this briefing are:
• Farmers need timely, accurate, and clear advice on how to manage pest risks
• Digitally-enabled early warning systems can help farmers adapt and minimize losses
• The complex interactions between pests, plants, and the environment under future climate change scenarios need further research to determine best practices
• Scaling digital climate information services will require a sharp focus on equity and inclusion
The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI) and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) jointly commissioned a gap study to determine how far away innovation investment is from helping agri-food systems achieve zero hunger goals and the Paris Agreement while reducing impacts on water resources in the Global South. The results show that the world can come much closer with some well-placed investments.
Considering the new opportunities that ICT innovations bring to improve performance of financial and extension services, this study looks at the potential contribution of financial and extension services to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The approach used extends the standard Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to include longer-term management goals and find a solution that balances the efficient use of innovation investments and the achievement of policy goals, making this approach well suited for the analysis of the SDGs.
- Lack of automated data capture systems affects timely feedback and accuracy of information for breeding decisions.
- CGIAR researchers and national research partners have adopted a digital genetic database, Dtreo, that is enhancing genetic improvement by providing timely and accurate animal ranking information to communities.
- Dtreo is a digital genetic database that is flexible and easy to use, that allows users to capture and save data offline. Data is uploaded to the database once an internet connection has been established.
IFAD’s technical assistance programme INSURED (Insurance for rural resilience and economic development) has been building knowledge about how to strengthen women producers’ access to climate risk insurance. Working with partners, INSURED supported research, and fieldwork in Ethiopia including group discussions with smallholders about insurance options. A checklist was drawn up for insurance designers and implementers to help them reach out to women every step of the way.
This report describes the findings of the country study carried out for the design of IFAD project on Restoration of Landscapes and Livelihoods (ROLL P) in Lesotho. Following an IFAD designed project to develop an integrated approach for designing climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive investments, support was provided to undertake a thorough situation analysis for climate, nutrition and their interlinkages and to identify potential pathways and interventions to achieve both climate action and nutrition outcomes.
This report describes the findings of the country study carried out for the design of IFAD Smallholder Agriculture Cluster Project (SACP) in Zimbabwe. Following an IFAD designed project to develop an integrated approach for designing climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive investments, support was provided to undertake a thorough situation analysis for climate, nutrition and their interlinkages and to identify potential pathways and interventions to achieve both climate action and nutrition outcomes.
Dans le cadre du Projet de développement agropastoral et des filières associées dans le Gouvernorat de Médenine (PRODEFIL) en Tunisie, par exemple, plus de 140 kilomètres de route ont été construits. Il aurait fallu deux jours sur place pour passer en revue ces routes sur toute leur longueur. Google Earth a permis de le faire en quelques heures seulement. D’autres installations ayant fait l’objet d’investissements dans le cadre du projet, tels que des barrages et des serres, sont également visibles par satellite.