Knowledge Portal

This position paper highlights the importance and advantages of the water, engergy, food and ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus as an approach and methodology in EU development cooperation. The Nexus corroborates the need to not view water, energy, food and ecosystems as being separate entities, but rather as being complex and inextricably entwined. Managing the WEFE Nexus is a consultative process with key stakeholders contributing and agreeing to responses to the challenges being faced. »

This technical brief aims to examine the quality of farmer-produced seeds that smallholder farmers use for planting in Zimbabwe. Smallholder farmers in eastern Zimbabwe have the capacity to produce sorghum seed that matches formal seed certification standards. This emphasises the need for relevant stakeholders to recognise and promote the resilience of farmer-led seed systems »

The paper examines the role of land access in youth migration and employment decisions in Nigeria.The size of expected land inheritance is significantly and negatively associated with long distance migration and migration to urban areas. Rural-to-urban migration and the likelihood of youth involvement in the dual economy is more responsive to the size of the expected land inheritance for less educated youth. »

This publication aims to demystify the technology, provide some thoughts on the opportunities and challenges in implementing blockchain-based systems as well as document some case studies on the use of blockchain for agriculture. In the agriculture domain, self-executing smart contracts together with automated payments would be the game changer. An applications of the blockchain technology that is already in practice for agriculture is FARMS: financial and agricultural risk management for smallholders, that offers an easy entry to formal financial risk management while increasing farmers financial literacy. »

This study identified innovation opportunities that have the potential to increase access to safe and nutritious foods in emerging markets in the next five years. The 12 innovations are distinguished by 4 priorities: 1) Start with sustainable, nutritious foods; 2) Invest in proximale processing; 3) Tackle traceability for safety and transparency and; 4) Keep it cool (cold storage options). Together, they would promote increased access to safe, nutritious foods that are available to consumers for longer periods of time. »

This report helps identify gaps and opportunities to support and scale up green agriculture, smallholder agriculture and financial inclusion. Farmers agree that the financial sector could be a critical enabler of the shift to sustainable agriculture if provided credit that responded to the needs of farmers. The financial institutions were interested in using credit as a tool to incentivise sustainable agriculture. »