Mexico

This report by IFAD shows how IFAD-supported projects are working with smallholder farmers to protect biodiversity in five countries. Poor rural people depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, relying on a range of natural assets from their ecosystems and biodiversity for food, fuel and much else. Productive and sustainable agricultural systems need clean water, healthy soil, and a variety of genetic resources and ecological processes. »

This paper explores the learning mechanisms intended to develop new knowledge and capabilities that are expressed in the adoption of entrepreneurial behaviour by young farmers. It highlights public programs that promote the improvement of the technical and productive conditions of the agriculture sector in Mexico through organisations such as Produce Foundation Puebla (FUPPUE). »

These four reports by the KIT are analysis of four maize seed systems in Malawi, Zambia, Bihar in India and Chiapas in Mexico. The four documents describe the adoption and impact of improved maize germplasm at small scale farmer level in these four areas. The objective is to understand whether smallholder farmers have access to seed of improved maize varieties, and if so, how the seed sector supports this. »

This paper was published by the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) and is an analysis on how knowledge-sharing between Brazil and several sub-Saharan countries, in the fields of social protection and food and nutrition security policies and programmes have influenced the African policies and programmes. According to the research, experiences that were shared about programs like Bolsa Familia, Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar and the Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos were the inspiration for the creation of similar tools in African countries and had a positive impact. »

This book documents government-led school feeding programmes in low and middle income countries. It includes chapters about national programmes in 14 countries from sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. The sourcebook highlights the trade-offs associated with alternative school feeding models and analyses the overarching themes, trends and challenges which run across these programmes. »

In this column, Christian Timmermann and Georges Félix claim that we need to focus our attention on creating innovations that can be reproduces with spare local parts and as little external inputs as possible, to ensure that the innovations reach the neediest. The authors argue that to address the human right to adequate food in the upcoming years and decades, policy-makers have assigned the globalized knowledge economy the task to deliver the necessary technological solutions. However, this approach fails to include the inventive capacity and active involvement of smallholders. »