Interview with Editrudith Lukanga, Environmental Management and Economic Development Organization (EMEDO), Tanzania. In Tanzania, I founded an organization called Environmental Management and Economic Development Organization (EMEDO). As part of implementing the SSF guidelines, under an FAO-supported project titled “Implementation of the Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines for gender equitable and climate resilient food...

Tanzania has a goat population of about 24.8 million most of which belong to the Small East African breed distributed in almost all agro-ecological zones. The different goat populations and the production system in which they are raised are not well characterized depriving animal breeders useful information in designing and...

Thanks to the MJUMITA network, small-scale producers (such as beekeepers and charcoal producers) are expanding their businesses through capacity building and better market access. Communities benefit from natural resources while managing them sustainably.

Hundreds of smallholder farmers gathered in the city of Morogoro on November 17 and 18 for the 27th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the National Network of Small-Scale Farmers Groups in Tanzania (MVIWATA). MVIWATA has organized farmers stretching from groups at the grassroots all the way to a national network as the...

These three study reports help establish a roadmap for changing seed policies and laws toward instruments supporting farmer-based seed systems in Africa. Throughout the world, farmers play a significant role in producing, selecting, managing, and conserving plant resources. In Africa, where smallholder farmers are still the overwhelming majority, women on smallholder...

How to engage farmers that have limited formal education is at the foundation of environmentally sound and equitable agricultural development.  This study describes the process of development of an innovative curriculum, which integrates agroecology, nutrition, climate change, gender, and other dimensions of social equity across 2 weeks of training explicitly for...

Remembering Paul Onyango, researcher of small-scale fisheries in Lake Victoria, who passed away on 10 April 2022. I first met Paul Onyango at the MARE Conference in Amsterdam in 2001. He later enrolled in my university’s International Fisheries Management Master Program, where he graduated as scheduled after two years. He became...

Honeybees (Apis mellifera), wild bees, and other pollinators can be adversely affected by pesticides as well as other stressors, with potentially large economic and ecological consequences. Legislation is one possible tool which can be used to support actions to protect pollinators from pesticides. Several documents have been published at the...

When it comes to learning how to nurture seedlings to grow into trees, improving your surroundings and restoring the land around you, you’re never too young to make a start. That’s the thinking behind a project in Tanzania, supported by FAO and its partners, setting up more than 30 clubs...

Millions of people rely on nature-rich farming systems for their subsistence and income. The contributions of nature to these systems are varied and key to their sustainability in the long term. Yet, agricultural stakeholders are often unaware or undervalue the relevance of those contributions, which can affect decisions concerning land...

Water access is the cornerstone of livelihoods for most rural communities in Tanzania. Yet limited capacity for effective planning, management and governance of water sources is deepening vulnerability to the increasing and often unpredictable impacts of climate change. This paper assesses Tanzania’s recently centralised approach to rural water planning through...

The Greater Mahale Ecosystem (GME) with its stunning views and fascinating wildlife along the shores of Lake Tanganyika – the world's longest freshwater lake – must be an exciting region to visit in western Tanzania.

This publication presents a collection of case studies by Mountain Partnership (MP) members from around the world, highlighting experiences of agroecological mountain farming systems. It aims to increase attention toward agroecological principles and approaches and showcase their potential. The MP, the only United Nations global voluntary alliance dedicated to sustainable...

The 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit was designed to create a path towards transforming the global food system so that it feeds the world sustainably, equitably, and inclusively. Small-scale farmers and other rural people must play an essential role in doing that. They are the backbone of the global...

An agroecology project from Tanzania found significant improvements in the diversity of children’s diets and food security for households after farmers learned about sustainable crop-growing methods, gender equity, nutrition and climate change from peer mentors. The investigator of the project said, “We found that this intervention approach of combining agroecology...

FISH4ACP is an initiative of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) aimed at making fisheries and aquaculture value chains in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific more sustainable. FISH4ACP is implemented by FAO and partners with funding from the European Union (EU) and the German Federal Ministry...

The availability of feed resources is, in many areas, a major limiting factor to smallholder milk production. Storage and transport of conserved fodder is an integral component of solutions to this constraint. Using farmer-evaluated strategies, a low-cost, practical and economical method for transporting animal feed material was developed. The technique,...

Without access to reliable information to enable farmers to make better use of their natural resources, a majority of artisanal fishing communities are unable to halt trends towards reduced fish catches. Stock assessments are an important component for managing fisheries. These assist in the provision of advice on recommended exploitation...

Armyworm larvae (Spodoptera Exempta) cause devastating but highly localized damage to cereal crops and grassland. Poor monitoring and forecasting constrain efficient control operations in many parts of East Africa. Forecasting of armyworm employs information from rain gauges and moth raps. Therefore, a simple community-based forecasting system, by collecting data on...

Cooking in refugee camps is complex. To feed their families, women and girls must often collect firewood outside the camps, exposing them to the risk of gender-based violence (GBV). Interventions that seek to reduce this risk, such as cleaner cooking solutions, can also create opportunities for participation in other activities,...