Brazil has achieved impressive results in reducing poverty with “Fomento,” a set of large-scale, government-run social programs targeting smallholder farmers. Rural poverty in Brazil dropped dramatically from 51.4 percent in 2002 to 29.1 percent in 2011; during the same period, family farmers’ incomes also grew by 50 percent. When an...

While scholars agree on the importance of land rental markets for structural transformation in rural areas, evidence on the extent and nature of their operation, including potential obstacles to their improved functioning, remains limited. This study uses household-level data from six countries to start filling this gap and derive substantive...

El Niño is a periodic climate phenomenon defined by anomalously warm sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean which affect local weather worldwide and generally leads to increased drought risk at global level. In 2015, since July a strong El Niño is being observed with increasing...

The newsletter opens with several articles that address issues that are key to improving nutrition. In Chad, FAO is working with administrative and traditional authorities to implement an innovative approach aimed at increasing women’s access to fertile land, a winning formula for improving the livelihoods of rural households. Another initiative...

This paper tries to respond the question of how to make agriculture and food systems more nutrition-sensitive. Many of the undernourished people in Africa and Asia are small-scale subsistence farmers. Diversifying production on these farms is often perceived as a promising strategy to improve dietary quality and diversity. This hypothesis is...

Due to this underlying need, FAO, in collaboration with ICRISAT, ICARDA, and CIAT, organized an expert consultation workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in December 2013 on Community Seed Production. The workshop’s objective was to create a roadmap and develop strategies for enhancing effective uptake and implementation of CSP in developing...

Neglected crops like cowpea, finger millet and yam are important in mitigating climate change in Malawi. This is the message and the main topic of this video. Mr Mwendo Phiri. Team leader, for the Treaty’s Benefit-sharing Fund project PR 219 in Malawi, explains that this is a two-year project that...

In southern Africa, the predicted 2°C rise in temperature will destabilize farming systems. Coping mechanisms, livelihood strategies and the cost of adaptation options for smallholder farmers are not sufficiently understood in the region because the majority of research is focused on ecological assessment and identifying the vulnerability of households. In...

This One-Pager describes key findings of a four-year research project, From Protection to Production (PtoP), which analysed the impact of social cash transfer programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. The qualitative studies specifically explored impacts on household economic decision-making, the local economy and social networks. They also examined how the design and...

Seed can be an important entry point for promoting productivity, nutrition and resilience among smallholder farmers. While investments have primarily focused on strengthening the formal sector, this article documents the degree to which the informal sector remains the core for seed acquisition, especially in Africa. Conclusions drawn from a uniquely...

Smallholder agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Its importance for livelihoods cannot be overstated. 94 percent of rural residents and 38 percent of urban residents engage in agriculture to some extent (Jones, Shrinivas, and Bezner-Kerr 2014), the vast majority as smallholder farmers with landholdings of less than one hectare....

Smallholder agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Its importance for livelihoods cannot be overstated. 94 percent of rural residents and 38 percent of urban residents engage in agriculture to some extent (Jones, Shrinivas, and Bezner-Kerr 2014), the vast majority as smallholder farmers with landholdings of less than one hectare....

Efforts to enhance smallholder farmers’ involvement in agricultural markets under the World Food Programme (WFP) Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme have led to a variety of nutrition-sensitive activities. In many rural communities where P4P and partners work, these context- and country-specific efforts have begun to increase farming families’ access to nutritious...

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the effects of selected food and agricultural policies in Malawi over the period 2005-2013 and carefully examines: the effects of policies and market performance on price incentives for producers, consumers and other agents in six key agricultural value chains; the level and composition...

In December 2012, the programme on “Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume cropping systems for food security in Eastern and Southern Africa” (SIMLESA) commissioned a study to compile case studies of good practices in gender mainstreaming in the areas covered by the programme. This study was a result of an action point...

Women play a critical role in every link of the value chain in small-scale fisheries, although their best-known roles are in processing and marketing of fish and other fishery products. This perception of the highly gender-segregated division of labour (men fishing / women processing) has shaped the generalized approach in...

A large proportion of Malawian households are caught in a trap where poverty and food insecurity reinforce one another and where periods of food deficits and severe food crises are frequent occurrences. In recognition of this, the Malawian government has since 2005/06 implemented a large-scale Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP),...

Child labour is work that interferes with compulsory schooling or damages children’s health and personal development. Thanks to continuous efforts at the international and local level, recent global data,1 show that the number of children engaged in child labour worldwide has significantly declined from 215 to 168 million children (40 percent decline...

This paper has two objectives. Our first objective is to review the research evidence on the factors known to be affecting the efficiency with which Malawian farmers use nitrogen fertilizer on maize. It is our position that such factors, along with non-random aspects of most trials, might explain the large...

The future of food security in Africa lies in the hands of African farmers, yet not enough is known about them; data is scarce and their stories are only half told. This report puts smallholder farmers at the center of the dialog about farming and food security in Africa. Too...