Grants for agricultural innovation are common but grant funds specifically targeted to smallholder farmers remain relatively rare. Nevertheless, they are receiving increasing recognition as a promising venue for agricultural innovation. They stimulate smallholders to experiment with improved practices, to become proactive and to engage with research and extension providers. The systematic review covered three modalities of disbursing these grants to smallholder farmers and their organisations: vouchers, competitive grants and farmer-led innovation support funds.
This brief puts the focus on the postharvest (PH) losses in Mozambique. According to the authors the glaring lack of data loss for major food commodities in Mozambique should move the government, development agencies, donors and research institutions to invest more on rigorous and systematic field-based studies to assess losses, and to identify matching loss mitigation innovations. The authors also assert that building local capacity and strengthening policy on PH will be of essence.
West Africa’s smallholders are dynamic and innovative and, if given the opportunity, could easily and sustainably double or treble their productivity. This would have a huge impact on the region’s food security and economic growth. The Convergence of Sciences programme has spent the past decade exploring new pathways for agricultural innovation that focus on enabling smallholders to capture opportunity.
Hacia el fin de la primera década del siglo xxi se han producido en el mundo alimentos más que suficientes para alimentar a una población mundial de cerca de siete mil millones de habitantes. Sin embargo, en los países en desarrollo alrededor de una de cada seis personas todavía padece hambre crónica, lo cual plantea una situación tan terrible, que de ninguna manera puede aceptarse.
This paper reviews Pakistan's agriculture performance and analyzes its agriculture and water policies. It discusses the nature of rural poverty and emphasizes the reasons why agricultural growth is a critical component to any pro-poor growth strategy for Pakistan. It supports these arguments by summarizing key results from recent empirical analysis where the relative benefits of agricultural versus non-agricultural led growth are examined. The results also provide an illustration of farm and non-farm linkages.
Urban agriculture contributes to local economic development, poverty alleviation, the social inclusion of the urban poor and women, as well as to the greening of the city and the productive reuse of urban wastes. Urban agriculture encompasses a wide variety of production systems in both urban as well as peri-urban areas. This study examines the contribution of urban agriculture to livelihoods, food security, health, and the urban environment through an assessment of existing urban agriculture activities among poor households in four selected cities.
This report details the results of the Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) of the Sustainable Nutrition and Agriculture Promotion (SNAP) program in Sierra Leone. This is a five-year USAID Food for Peace (FFP) Multi-Year Assistance Program. The overall goal of SNAP is to reduce food insecurity and increase resiliency among the most food insecure and vulnerable rural populations.
This white paper is intended to summarize the key insights gleaned from prior work applying information and communication technologies (ICTs) in support of agriculture and food systems, identifying approaches and opportunities that hold promise for enhancing global food security, and to identify important knowledge gaps that remain, offering guidance for new work that investigates how to apply information and communication technologies in agriculture.
The Africa Leadership Training and Capacity Building Program (Africa Lead), aims to support the capacity building program of the US Government’s Feed the Future Initiative, which aligns U.S. Government development assistance with Africa-owned agriculture development plans that are, in turn, aligned with the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program
Africa Lead, the Africa Leadership Training and Capacity Building Program, provides leadership training, capacity assessments, logistical support for training and innovative short courses and internships/twinning arrangements prioritized in consultation with missions and partner countries and institutions, and a database of training offerings on the continent that can be matched to the leadership training and capacity building needs.