Production of high-quality cashew nuts is dependent on the application of excellent and thorough harvest and post-harvest techniques and practices. This technology is used as part of the African Cashew Initiative’s extension material. It helps farmers to understand how to approach the period just before harvesting begins and what do...

The application of good practices is an essential foundation for the establishment of a new functional and thriving cashew farm. This flip-chart (picture bloc), with its very comprehensive pictures as well as a question and answer section, describes how to better prepare an area for the establishment of a thriving...

Growing mango is full of challenges and farmers should know about them to succeed in the mango production. The more farmers know, the better they will succeed. This guide and short film shows four farmers from the Eastern Region of Ghana sharing their experiences with fruit fly control in mango...

The main challenges for farmers in semi-arid and arid areas of the tropics and subtropics are poor food security, yield instability and risk of crop failure. These are associated with the biggest physical constraint to crop production in these areas:erratic and unreliable rainfall resulting in shortages of water. Under these...

Growing mango is full of challenges and farmers should know about them to succeed in the mango production. The more farmers know, the better they will succeed. This short film (and its description) deals with a disease called Bacterial Black Spot (BBS). In 2010 it was first identified in West...

Growing mango is full of challenges and farmers should know about them to succeed in the mango production. The more farmers know, the better they will succeed. This short film (and its description) deals with a disease called Anthracnose. It is a very wide spread disease in humid environments, like...

O secador solar de milho é uma estrutura, semelhante a uma estufa, que permite secar o milho recorrendo à energia solar. Em funcionamento, a secagem demora três dias para reduzir o teor de humidade do milho de 24 para 14%. A secagem do milho reduz o risco de desenvolvimento de...

Dry-season vegetable farmers in Ghana face increased dependency on chemical fertilizer and supplementary water inputs due to decreased soil productivity caused by prolonged cultivation that has mined the soil's previously high organic matter content. Farmers also complain of increased incidence of pests and diseases. These factors increase capital and labour...

Cette fiche technique présente différentes méthodes pour l'extraction du miel et de la cire d'abeille. Les méthodes traditionnelles sont revues de manière critique et contrastées avec d'autres méthodes facilement applicables et/ou des instruments comme le cérificateur solaire, la méthode du bain chaud (bain marie) et la méthode Ocloo (nommée après...

Planning and policy-making for the development of the post-harvest fisheries sector has been hampered by the lack of practical tools to understand post-harvest fish losses. The Questionnaire Loss Assessment Method (QLAM) is based on a formal questionnaire survey approach to post-harvest loss assessment. Enumerators interview a population sample using a...

Load Tracking is one of a suite of loss assessment tools, including the Informal Fish Loss Assessment Method (IFLAM) and the Questionnaire Loss Assessment Method (QLAM). Prior to the research which informed their development, with the exception of work by FAO and NRI, little effort had been made to develop...

Parboiled rice is rice that has been boiled in the husk. Parboiling makes rice easier to process by hand, improves the nutritional value of white rice, and changes its texture. Today, it is the preferred rice of many in the southern parts of the Indian subcontinent, and elsewhere. The quality...

Market liberalisation in Africa has resulted in more commodities being stored in small quantities in on-farm facilities. This has resulted in increased post-harvest losses, especially by storage pest insects of grain and legumes. The use of synthetic pesticides in food stores at the farm level can be considered costly by...

Cowpea is important to rural households in Ghana for its nutritional value and to supplement income. Poorer producers typically have to sell grain legumes soon after harvest, either to meet debts or because they cannot prevent storage losses (weight losses and value reduction) associated with insect damage. Market sellers are...

An FAO training has been a turning point in Rita’s shea business. Now she is an advocate and employer of other rural women, promoting sustainable livelihoods that can offset deforestation in her region. 

The commercialisation of traditional processed products from cassava, such as fufu, potentially offers new opportunities for income generation to rural households in Nigeria, Ghana and other parts of West Africa. Several options exist for the commercialisation of fufu, including the production of a shelf-stable product? This minimises the use of...

In the northern Republic of Ghana, a manually operated press for shea butter extraction is successful and popular among rural women. Shea butter production is an important income earning activity for women in rural areas and for many, it is their only source of income. Shea butter is used for...

With their ability to mobilise 1.5 billion smallholder producers, forest and farm producer organisations (FFPOs) can help drive a paradigm shift away from large-scale monocultural systems, which are vulnerable to climate change and highly inequitable. FFPO businesses embody greater diversity and equity, pursuing market opportunities for a diverse basket of...

This ETFRN News edition brings together 24 articles and interviews from around the world that reflect on the following questions: How do such actions and their impacts differ between different smallholder types and organizations? How do they differ between countries, regions and corporate contexts? What are the effects of various...

aWhere delivers agricultural intelligence to farmers, farm managers, crop consultants and researchers all over the world. The company aims at making agronomic and weather data available to farmers through intermediaries such as research centers, governments, information companies, mobile network operators and non profit organizations which can integrate the data into...