Most rural Africans now live and farm in liberalised markets, which most African and international policy forums assume to be the best basis for economic activities. But there is considerable debate about these developments, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Agriculture in Africa plays an important role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing...

Soil erosion and degradation is an important agro-ecological challenge in the highlands of Ethiopia. Conservation agriculture (CA) has a long time been identified as one of the key interventions that could abate the current trend of physical and chemical erosion of soil. This study analyzed adoption of the different components...

Les gousses de l’arbre fourrager de Piliostigma reticulatum sont très utilisées au Burkina Faso. Comme peu de données existent sur cette activité, une enquête a été conduite en zone nord-soudanienne auprès de 90 personnes. Les résultats montrent que la collecte et la transformation des gousses sont menées par des femmes...

Cities are emerging as major players in forging equitable, resilient and sustainable food systems. Increasingly, city governments around the globe are using their powers to address pressing foodrelated problems, such as food and nutrition insecurity and obesity. Moreover, through integrated, cross-departmental action, they are using food to help resolve wider...

Though still associated with bucolic imagery, farmers confront a steep challenge: produce 60% more food for an additional 2.3 billion people by 2050 while using scarce natural resources more efficiently and adapting to climate change. Luckily  ICT is here to help: sensor-based, data-intensive ‘smart’ farming will potentially add $10b per...

High Nature Value (HNV) farming is a relatively new concept that has been developed since the early 1990s as a policy tool to describe those farming systems in Europe which are of greatest biodiversity value. Instead of focusing only upon the maintenance of rare or endangered species and habitats on...

Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, signed financing agreements with Kenya, together with Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta. The support provided will focus, amongst others, on supporting smallholder agriculture through access to finance, training or market integration.

An exploratory survey was undertaken in Doyogena district of Southern Nation Nationalities Peoples region of Ethiopia to understand the sheep production system, the breeding practices, selection criteria and sheep production constraints in order to develop a sheep breeding strategy. Data were collected from 107 households using semi-structured questionnaire and group...

The monthly value of EU agri-food exports in June 2016 reached EUR 10.9 billion and, thus, slightly exceeded the export values in June of previous years. EU agri-food imports went down from EUR 9.8 billion in June 2015 to EUR 9.5 billion in June 2016; thus the net trade surplus...

El Niño is the warming of sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific, which occurs roughly every 2 to 7 years, lasting from 6 to 24 months. While the main threat to food production is reduced rainfall and drought in some regions, El Niño can also cause heavy rains and...

Conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen are the prime culprit behind the doubling of undernourished people in the Near East, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today as he visited Beirut, where FAO is opening a new sub-regional office.Lebanon and 14 other countries in the Near East and North...

This assessment targets agricultural water extension agents and technical experts, providing them with clear indications on how to improve water harvesting (WH) capacity for agricultural production in the three case study countries, as well as how to select feasible and suited WH techniques for different geographical areas. It is an...

65 is the average age of farmers, and there are not enough young farmers to replace them. How did we get here?

Du 19 au 22 avril  2016 se tient un « atelier international sur la bactérie «  Xylella fastidiosa » et  «  Olive Quick Decline Syndrome (OQDS) : Syndrome du déclin rapide des oliviers’. Cet atelier est organisé par la FAO et la Convention internationale de la Protection des Végétaux (CIPV / IPPC)  et le...

In recent decades, the Swedish agricultural sector has been reshaped by economic change and the restructuring of the labour market, but it is still dominated by family farms dependent on the labour and time of family members. To date, the concept of temporality and time has attracted limited attention within...

In the last century, industrial oil palm plantations expanded around the world, first in Asia, then in Latin America. The development of high-yielding oil palms and new processing techniques—which transformed the traditionally viscous red liquid into a colourless, odourless oil suitable for global markets—made oil palm plantations a lucrative investment....

The EU Common Agricultural Policy after 2020 should mobilise both direct payments and rural development pillars, in order to pave the way for the introduction of much-needed digital technologies in the farming sector, experts in precision agriculture told. The rising demand for agricultural products, combined with the need to protect the...

En Tunisie centrale, l’élevage ovin reste très présent, malgré les nombreuses perturbations auxquelles il fait face depuis les années 1970 : aléas climatiques, évolutions socio-économiques et culturelles, développement des cultures. Ces évolutions entraînent une diminution des ressources issues des parcours. Il s’agit de comprendre comment des familles maintiennent une activité d’élevage...

El Programa Mundial de Alimentos en Ecuador, el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente (MAE), en coordinación con el Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería, Acuicultura y Pesca (MAGAP), trabajan junto a los gobiernos locales desde el 2011 para mejorar la resiliencia de las comunidades frente a los efectos adversos del cambio climático para...

Supporting small and family-owned farms is among goals of the Common Agricultural Policy for the period 2014-2020. Poland stands as one of the primary beneficiaries of this focus. Poland has one of the highest shares of small farms in its agricultural sector, yet the number of working poor smallholders is high. 73%...