South-Africa

This book scrutinizes the concept of inclusive business and investigates how inclusive businesses work and who benefits from them. The book focuses on the South African agricultural sectors and relates to three ongoing restructuring processes in South Africa. »

This article assesses whether or not conservation agriculture (CA) is climate-smart. For a cropping system to be labelled “climate-smart” it has to deliver three benefits: a) adapt to the effects of climate and be of increased resilience; b) mitigate climate effects by sequestering carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and c) sustainably increase productivity and income. »

This article by Oxpeckers explores the role of land reform in improving the food security situation in South Africa. The author argues that if reform is not well targeted it may threaten food security and benefit only the elites in rural areas. »

This webinar by Agriculture Finance Support Facility’s (AgriFin) looks at the role of digital infrastructures in driving efficiency and sustainability in the agricultural value chain. It dives into issues that surround emerging innovations, capacity strengthening, and the enabling environment of mobile service banking. »

This report published by Access to Seeds Foundation documents the farmers’ consultation of the Access to Seed Index 2016 with 35 farmers’ organizations from 26 countries. These four meetings marked the start of the development process towards the second Access to Seeds Index scheduled for Q1 2019. During this consultation farmers’ organizations gave more attention to the impact of climate change than during the previous farmers’ consultation in 2013. The meetings underlined the need to include farmer cooperatives, associations and community seed enterprises in the overall Index assessment. »

This factsheet describes two case studies of the community seedbank strategy in South Africa. The aim of this community seedbank strategy was to support smallholder communities to revive and improve their traditional seed-saving practices for the sake of food security and sustainable agriculture and conservation of the county’s agricultural biodiversity. It also emphasizes the importance of women farmers as active custodians of agricultural biodiversity, which can be seen in particular in the Gumbu case study, where women farmers show active interest and participation in the project. »