In 2011, ICRISAT and Agro-Insight made 10 farmer-to-farmer videos on the control of striga, a parasitic weed endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. As the weed can destroy entire cereal crops, particularly on poor soils, both striga and soil fertility management need to be tackled together, hence the need to develop this comprehensive “Fighting Striga” series. The videos have been translated into 21 languages and over 50,000 copies of the “Fighting Striga” DVD have been printed, with all 10 videos on it. In 2012 about 10,000 DVDs were distributed to over 300 organisations in Mali, with audio tracks in French, English and the major languages of Mali.
Since 2012, hundreds of organisations across West Africa have shown a series of ten videos on Fighting striga and improving soil fertility to farmer groups and rural communities. This paper asks if a village would change its social structure just...
This report sets out the synthesis of work carried out within the framework of the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) Secretariat Initiative on “The family economy and agricultural innovation: towards new partnerships”. The initiative aimed to stimulate analyses, collect...
This Economic and Sector Work paper, “Enhancing Agricultural Innovation: How to Go Beyond the Strengthening of Research Systems,” was initiated as a result of the international workshop, “Development of Research Systems to Support the Changing Agricultural Sector,” organized by the...
In-depth analysis of the role and capacity development needs of farmers organization in innovation processes, using the evidence from a number of case studies from contemporary SSA agriculture. Experiences indicate that Farmers’organizations (FOs) can play an important role in sharing...
This paper discusses issues related to support for capacity strengthening for agricultural research for development (ARD) by member countries of the European Initiative for Agricultural Research for Development. It summarises the findings of an analysis of the policies, programmes and...