Fairtrade certification has recently gained in importance for various export crops produced in developing countries. One of Fairtrade's main objectives is to improve the social conditions of smallholder farmers. Previous research showed that Fairtrade has positive effects on farmers' sales prices and incomes in many situations. However, more detailed analysis of the effects on food security and other dimensions of household living standard is rare.
This publication provides a collection of papers, commentaries, expert opinions and reflections on state-of-the-art innovation systems thinking and approaches in agriculture. It is the direct output of a CTA and WUR/CoS-SIS collaboration which had its genesis in an expert consultation on ‘Innovation Systems: Towards Effective Strategies in support of Smallholder Farmers’.
La lutte contre la malnutrition constitue un enjeu majeur de développement, longtemps négligé. C’est pourquoi la France, aux côtés de nombreux autres bailleurs, a pris des engagements internationaux pour lutter contre la malnutrition. La sous-nutrition ne concerne pas seulement les situations d’urgence et la malnutrition relève d’un ensemble de facteurs multisectoriels, très liés à un territoire donné. Il paraissait donc nécessaire à l’Agence Française de Développement de bien ancrer la lutte contre la malnutrition dans la réalité opérationnelle.
Farm workers in developing countries often belong to the poorest of the poor. They typically face low wages, informal working arrangements, and inadequate social protection. Written employment contracts with clearly defined rights and obligations could possibly help, but it is not clear how such contracts could be introduced and promoted in traditional peasant environments. To address this question, we develop and implement a randomized controlled trial with farmers in Côte d’Ivoire.
The findings of a Nigerian case study discussed in this paper indicate that the notion of wives of leisure is really not applicable to most women in Nigeria, as women have always worked. Even those in purdah engage in income generating activities within the confines of the compound. It is therefore wasteful to continue to by-pass or displace women in development. Selective mechanisation of difficult processes in agriculture could become a useful method of integrating women into, and enhancing their contributions to, development.
Postharvest loss exacerbates the food insecurity and welfare loss of farming households in developing countries. This paper analyses the effect of improved storage, a climate-smart crop management technology, on household food and nutrition security, market participation and welfare using nationally representative data from Ethiopia. Endogenous switching regression models are employed to control for selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity.
This report describes issues presented and discussed at a workshop held in Rwanda from 6 - 8 September 2012, focused on strengthening capacity in agricultural innovation in post-conflict and protracted crisis (2PC) countries. It was the first workshop of its kind that attempted to bring participants from 2PC countries around the globe to rally around a common cause.
Starting with background information, the report presents a summary of the plenary presentations of the workshop, which includes a brief on the post-conflict and protracted crisis environment in the 15 participating countries (Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Ethiopia, Uganda, Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan). Some countries like Afghanistan qualified all in one as conflict, post-conflict and protracted crisis country.
Thw IFAD-funded Programme d'Appui au Développement Rural dans le Guéra (PADER-G) project was implemented with the main objective of supporting poor rural households and smallholder farmers in Guéra, Chad to improve their food security and livelihoods. One specific aim of PADER-G, designed to manage risks of food shortage, was to improve cereal storage among smallholder farmers through the construction of community cereal banks (banque de céréales).
Ce catalogue décrit une série de solutions agricoles pour les zones arides du Sahel et de la Corne de l'Afrique, utiles pour l'adaptation au changement climatique et l'atténuation de ses effets. Il est basé sur les interventions du programme Technologies pour la transformation de l'Agriculture en Afrique (TAAT). Ce programme, dirigé par l'Institut International d'Agriculture Tropicale (IITA), est à l'origine de nouvelles approches pour le déploiement de technologies éprouvées auprès des agriculteurs africains.