Farmers in northern Nigeria are changing the way they intercrop their sorghum and millet with cowpea. By planting both crops at higher densities and in separate rows, and by applying some organic fertilizer, they harvest more and reduce damage by the parasitic weed striga. It is one of the strategies...

The parasitic weed striga causes more damage to cereal crops in poor soils, so both problems have to be tackled together. In this video we will learn why it is important to combine at least three control methods to reduce striga and obtain a good yield of sorghum, millet, maize...

Intercropping or rotating cereal crops with legume crops are two of the strategies of integrated striga and soil fertility management. But keeping quality legume seed has two major challenges. First, the seed easily loses its ability to germinate. And second, we are not the only ones who love legumes. Let’s...

One of the major parasites is striga, a weed that sucks the juice and nutrients from cereal crops such as millet, sorghum and maize and causes great yield losses. A single striga plant can produce hundreds of thousands of seeds. The seeds are so tiny that most farmers do not...

Farmers face great difficulties with drying their seeds because seed absorbs moisture from the soil. As a result, seed quality deteriorates, and no-one can expect good yields by using poor quality seed. In this video you can see how farmers of Maria village solved this problem. Now they are no...

In the coastal savanna of West Africa, farmers explain how a mucuna cover crop helped to revive their highly degraded soil, and suppress the noxious weeds Striga and Imperata. They show how to grow it to benefit your maize and cassava, and why discussing land tenure in your community really...

In the semi-arid savannas where rainfall is limited and highly unpredictable, retaining more water in the soil can make the difference between a poor and a good harvest. You can slow down the runoff water by establishing contour bunds. Contour bunds are permanent ridges of earth that follow positions located...

Fanya juu means "throw the soil up" in Kiswahili. The terraces formed are ideal for fodder grasses and help prevent soil erosion. Cultivation becomes easier as the terraces spread out to make the land more level and when combined with manure/fertilizer yields increase.

One fruit fly can lay a few hundred eggs during her life. Fruit flies puncture the skin of fruit to lay their eggs, which cause the fruit to drop prematurely and rot. The worms that hatch from these eggs leave the spoilt fruit after one week and crawl into the...

It takes a few minutes for a fruit fly to find a suitable spot on the mango and inject her eggs under the skin of the fruit. But even in that short time, the weaver ants will have either chased her away or have captured her. Their scent also helps....

Cash-for-work interventions implemented by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization are providing an income lifeline to communities affected by the ongoing drought in northern Somalia. While putting much needed cash in people’s pockets to buy food, the work is empowering communities to rebuild vital infrastructure with their own hands. ...

Success stories from the FAO Food Security through Commercialization of Agriculture (FSCA) Programme funded by the Italian Development Cooperation in Eastern Africa. Supporting market oriented production and value addition. Facilitating business linkages and access to fair markets. Promoting efficiency and professionalization of value chain actors.

76% of the world's poorest people live in rural areas of developing countries. Many, like Boru Gudo, depend on agriculture - and irregular rainfall - to survive. Boru explains how regular access to water has change his life.

This film examines a cooperative of the Brazilian Landless Movement (MST) in the South of Brazil, which struggled for access to land and then transitioned to ecological agriculture, or agroecology. This MST cooperative is demonstrating the possibility of an alternative model of flourishing rural life, which provides thriving livelihoods for...