Africa

This article in the Agricultural Systems journal test the impact of climate change on mixed crop-livestock systems. It presents a study that test the impacts of different interventions in two contrasting mixed farms in Northern Burkina Faso against the background of plausible current and future climate scenarios. Smallholder crop–livestock farming systems have an important role to play for food security in Sub-Saharan Africa, but they have to cope with the effects of climate variability and change. »

This book makes the “business case” for the role of biotechnology innovations for sustainable development in emerging and developing economies. It seeks to support the factual debate on biosciences and technology for developing and emerging economies. »

This article in the Global Food Security journal discusses the effectiveness of agronomic biofortification – the application of mineral micronutrient fertilizers to soils or plant leaves to increase micronutrient contents in edible parts of crops – and it’s potential to fight hidden hunger. There is evidence that agronomic biofortification can increase yields and the nutritional quality of staple crops, but there is a lack of direct evidence that this leads to improved human health. »

This article demonstrates that showing agricultural extension videos significantly increased farmers’ knowledge of recommended practices on seed selection, storage and handling. The video messages were delivered through Android tablets to a sample of potato farmers in southwestern Uganda. This research suggests that videos should be crop and context specific, featuring model farmers to maximize the potential of videos to leverage knowledge farmers already possess but may not be confident enough to use. »

This report elaborates on the impact of agricultural taxes and subsidies on crop yields in Africa. The key finding presented is that both taxes and subsidies wield a negative influence on crop yields. Clearly, levying taxes and subsidies have their merit, for raising public finances and providing rural income support respectively, but neither leads to a more intensified agriculture. »

This report by FAO presents a gender assessment of the dairy value chain in selected sites in Ethiopia: North Shoa Shewa (Degem woreda), East Gojam (Dejen woreda) and Gamu Gofa Arba Minch (Arba Minch Zuria woreda). The findings confirm that women’s empowerment is vital for sustainable dairy value chain development and that projects supporting dairy production need to increase their efforts to be gender inclusive. »