New research has found that smallholder farmers in Malawi can grow bigger maize crops if they plant maize with legumes in deep beds with natural ditches to catch water alongside.
Moving away from intensive farming practices comes with many benefits.
Nikada
Klara Fischer, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
The South African government has failed to reverse the decline in smallholder farming that began during apartheid. A different approach is needed to support smallholder livelihoods.
Biowatch’s 2023 Agroecology Farmer Fair where smallholder farmers promoted ancient grains, including millet and sorghum.
Courtesy Biowatch South Africa
African governments must acknowledge the universal right to diverse and nutritious food if they are to end malnutrition. Five projects show how this can be done.
Mechanisation can help eliminate the laborious tasks involved in smallholder rice farming.
Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images
Governments in southern Africa don’t invest enough in weather forecasting and fail to work together to prepare for natural disasters, leaving the most vulnerable exposed to successive droughts.
Almost 25% of all farmland previously owned by white landowners has been restored, redistributed to black South Africans, or moved away to state ownership.
A field of dying maize plants in southern Malawi during 2016’s severe drought caused by El Nino.
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Wetlands can prevent flooding, trap carbon and support livelihoods, as long as they are protected and managed.
The 2016 El Niño drought in Malawi dried out maize fields, leaving only weeds. It caused a famine that left over 60 million people in Southern Africa dependent on food aid.
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Joachim De Weerdt, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Channing Arndt, CGIAR System Organization; James Thurlow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Jan Duchoslav, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Joseph Glauber, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Liangzhi You, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) , and Weston Anderson, University of Maryland
Food security experts recommend that rural farmers in Malawi be given access to irrigation systems to free them from reliance on rain, and find ways outside farming to earn an income.
Malawian farmer Jelimoti Sikelo had successful harvests after he added groundnut and cowpea to the crops he farmed.
T. Samson/CIMMYT
Just three plant species – wheat, maize and rice – account for 60% of all food eaten globally. A crop science expert argues that many of Africa’s 30,000 edible plants must be revived.
A fresh produce market in the Seychelles.
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The African Food Systems Transformation Collective says COP28 must enable transition from fossil-fuelled food systems and leverage indigenous knowledge so that all can sustainably access good food.
Professor of Climate Change, Food Systems and Health in the Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine