A man runs through a desert locust swarm in Kitui County, Kenya.
DAI KUROKAWA/EPA
Changing weather modifies insect traits and can have an impact on their food, natural enemies and predators.
Hard work and poor prospects for smallholder farming households in Africa.
Swathi Sridharan (formerly ICRISAT, Bulawayo)
Smallholder farming might not be able to generate enough value on its own, but farmers still need support.
shutterstock.
Over the past two decades digitisation has steadily transformed African farming.
A Kenyan women removes maize from husks.
EPA/Stephen Morrison
Understanding the political economy around maize production puts into context debates on key interventions in the value chain.
Digitisation includes the delivery of agronomic advice and information via text messaging and interactive voice response.
www.cta.int/
There have been some positive strides made in getting smallholders involved in digital agriculture in Africa
Teff sorting in Ethiopia.
Ryan Kilpatrick/Shutterstock
Ethiopia’s teff plant is gluten-free and demand is growing. The country needs to upgrade its harvesting to reap the rewards.
Medium-scale African farmers are relatively wealthy and influential.
BOULENGER Xavier/Shutterstock
Medium-scale farms are an important driver of agricultural and rural transformation in much of Africa.
When subsistence farmers become climate refugees, who will help them pay the cost of relocation?
gregorioa/Shutterstock.com
The $4 billion that foundations are pledging to spend within five years amounts to less than 1 percent of what businesses and governments spend on global warming every year.
It’s critical to ensure that smallholder farming groups are run democratically.
Flickr/Solidarity Center
South Africa’s smallholder farmers face major obstacles but being in groups can help them.
Farmers need support, investment and knowledge to thrive.
Giulio Napolitano/Shutterstock
Africa’s declaration to boost agriculture on the continent has seem some progress but a lot still needs to be done.
More than 70% of Rwanda’s population are subsistence farmers.
Shutterstock/Sarine Arslanian
December 13, 2017
Margot Leegwater , Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) ; An Ansoms , Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) ; Aymar Nyenyezi Bisoka , Université de Mons ; Chris Huggins , L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa ; Giuseppe Cioffo , Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) ; Johanna Treidl , University of Cologne ; Jude Murison , University of Antwerp ; Julie Van Damme , Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) ; Neil Dawson , University of East Anglia , and Sam Desiere , KU Leuven
Findings from several scientific studies show the real impact of Rwanda’s agricultural policies and the challenges it faces.
In Benin, women plant things which can be eaten while men planted things that earned them immediate income.
Shutterstock
In Benin the differences between male and female farmers are their specific gender productive and reproductive roles, norms and identity.
Smallholder soybean farmer in Malawi.
Mitchell Maher/Flickr
There are questionable methods being used which distort our understanding of the number of smallholder farmers that embrace new technologies.
Drought tolerant beans in Malawi. Africa needs improved agricultural practices to be implemented by smallholder farmers.
Neil Palmer/CGIAR Research Program/ Flickr
The development community has overlooked the ethical dilemmas associated with raising one individual above others through farmer-to-farmer systems.
Droughts in South Africa has led to coordinated joint planning and partnerships to combat the problem.
Stephanie Midgley
Drought is a problem in South Africa and it affects farmers. As a result, farmers and government are working together to develop strategies.
Ntombithini Ndwandwe, an agroecology farmer displaying her diversity of traditional seeds in Zimele, KwaZulu-Natal.
Rachel Wynberg
Since 2000, the growth of the commercial seed market has almost tripled. More than 63% of the world’s commercial seed is now owned by six corporations.
Women from a local cocoa farmers’ association spread cocoa beans to dry in Djangobo, Niable in eastern Ivory Coast.
Reuters/Thierry Gouegnon/
There’s been uneven progress, but African agriculture has shown remarkable improvement compared to 15 years ago