East Africa

This policy report provides insights into the current and projected dynamics of urbanisation and food systems in West and East Africa and assesses the potential impacts on rural livelihoods. The increasing urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa is an important driver of change in the production, trade, processing and consumption of food. Urbanisation also affects rural livelihoods in several ways. »

This study applied a means-end chain analysis to understand farmers’ perceptions of formal and informal sources of banana planting material. Farmers associated formal sources mainly with improved cultivars, tissue culture plantlets and low levels of diversity. Informal seed sources were mostly associated with traditional cultivars, suckers and high levels of diversity. »

This article analyzed the cost structure of improved groundnut seed production to assess viability, using primary data collected from Tanzania and Uganda. Groundnut seed could be provided to farmers in remote communities at an affordable price while still keeping seed producers profitably in business. »

This research evaluated land access dynamics (availability, acquisition, and use changes) on the introduction of passion fruits in East Africa (Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda). aAdoption of high-value horticultural crops is supported for the increased income of rural farmers in East Africa, however, constraints on land access may limit the achievement of optimum income from the cultivation of these crops. »

This article argues that farming systems approaches are essential to understand the multiple roles and impacts of forages in smallholder livelihoods. The article shows that improved forages in East Africa are at a crossroads: if adopted by farmers at scale, they can be a cornerstone of pathways toward intensified sustainable livestock systems in East Africa »

This paper documents the importance of indigenous foods and food systems in Uganda in order to inform policies, programmes at the local and national level. There is limited awareness of the potential of indigenous foods to address food and nutrition security, climate change and environmental challenges due to lack of investment to improve yields and markets,  and the perceptions of  it being a poor man’s food. »