Knowledge Portal

This paper argues that closing the living income gap for small-scale farmer requires tackling the underlying imbalance in risk and market power that many of them face when engaging in global food value chains. The underlying imbalance is not accidental, but reinforced by structural barriers at the level of individual supply chains, commodity sectors, and public policy agendas. »

This brief summarizes the results of a literature review on equity, empowerment and gender relations for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) programming. A wider and more equitable gender sensitivity is now seen amongst policy makers and local government, with a corresponding enhanced and out-scaled uptake on CSA. »

This publication evaluates a soil scanner in Kenya, to identify success factors, possible bottlenecks and the added value of innovative soil testing services for farmers. Farmers indicated positive experiences with the scan, but it takes at least six months of investing to get these results. A critical success factor for the implementation of soil scanner services, are the management and board of a cooperative »

This study examined how crop-specific agricultural research investments can be prioritised to anticipate climate change impact on crops and to enable the production of more nutritious food. The analysis shows that current research investments are mostly associated with the current energy output of crops. Other things equal, investment levels tend to be slightly lower for crops better adapted to future climates and tend to decrease as crop nutrient richness increases. »

This paper reviews the evidence available on the provision of financing for African smallholder farmers to purchase irrigation equipment such as pumps, pipes and drip irrigation systems. Based on both case studies and several systematic reviews of the literature, it finds that the outcomes and impacts on poverty, gender equity and broader economic development are mixed at best. »

Impact at scale is needed to address critical global issues like water availability, sanitation, food security, access to clean energy and environmental concerns. But at the same time we all seem to wonder what scaling actually means in practice: how can our policy or project activities contribute to reach impact at scale? The PPPLab, studied to what it realistically takes to scale, and developed a practical tool that helps projects to identify strengths and weaknesses of their scaling strategies.  »