Concentrates on the black smallholder farming sector. Policy objectives should include:Resource Conserving Technologies: re-orientation away from large scale farmers, consideration of goals other than high input/output (risk management, labour input, gender). More participatory methods in areas such as soil conservationSustaining local institutions: capacity building for farmers associations; partnership links between smallholder farmers and service providersCreating […]

Report recommends agriculture-sector poliy objective of risk reduction, production stability, and the diversification of agricultural and non-agricultural economic opportunities in the rural areas. The most fundamental problem remains, seven years after independence, the lack of a clear policy, administrative structures and legislation dealing with land allocation, tenure and management. Policies required for: Resource conserving technologies […]

Malawi’ s smallholder agriculture is facing a crisis, particularly in the more populated south. There is an insidious combination of land shortage, continuous cultivation of maize, declining soil fertility, low yields, deforestation, poverty and high population growth rate. Smallholder farmers are doing what they can to maintain household livelihoods under these difficult circumstances, however many […]

Paper concentrates on services and policies needed to support sustainable family sector agriculture in the east of Botswana where the majority of the population and the largest number of resource poor people are concentrated. It does not attempt to look in detail at the needs of the ‘Remote Area Dwellers’ although they experience extreme poverty, […]

Planning and education are needed on options for numbers of animals. land use in Chad to ensure that development considers the proper use, maintenance, and enhancement of its remaining natural resources, and especially the needs of fish and wildlife populations and their habitats. Chadians traditionally have harvested wildlife and their very rich fisheries to supplement […]

Credit Management Services Limited (CMS) was established in 1992 as a subsidiary of Molver and Company, a Zambian accounting company. It provides lending services through four schemes: the Mpongwe Smallholder Marketing Fund, the Mpongwe “Women’s Bank,” the Kabwe Smallholder Development Project Agricultural Marketing Revolving Fund, and the Luapula Province Livelihood and Food Security Revolving Credit […]

Summarizes an appraisal of input utilization and marketing in Mozambique, focusing on the following research questions: What are current smallholder yields for major commodities, and what is the potential for increasing yields through the use of improved technologies? To what extent are improved technologies already being used by smallholders, and is the use of improved […]

Attempts to provide a background guide to those involved in the development of indicators of sustainable systems with a particular focus on natural resource management. It originated from the need to develop and measure indicators of successful and failing farming systems as part of a research project funded by the UK Department for International Development […]

Looks at changes in living standards over time using the comparable Demographic Health Surveys. Focuses on the evolution of child nutrition, mortality, education, and an index of household wealth constructed based on assets using factor analysis.Countries covered are: Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe Part of a series of papers looking at […]

Reviews the the dynamics of fertilizer use in Africa, specifically with regards to the trends in fertilizer consumption at the continental, regional and country level and the factors associated with changes in fertilizer use.Finds that:On trends in fertilizer useAggregate figures for fertilizer consumption in SSA show a steady increase, measured in terms of both absolute […]