Keeping wetlands from becoming wastelands

Wetlands are useful in tourism, development, food security and biodiversity. In Seychelles, they provide economic and conservation benefits through fisheries and agricultural production, flood control, shoreline stabilization. But climate change is the major threat to wetlands and sensitive planning is required to balance benefits for both humans and nature. Read more here.

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Herders to get insurance

In northern Kenya herders will be able to purchase insurance policies for their livestock, based on a project launched by ILRI. The program will use satellite images of grass and other vegetation to assess the state of grazing land. The insurance is valuable even without the deaths of livestock because it can be used to [...]

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One Million Casualties of Land Reform

About a million farm workers have been evicted from farms in Zimbabwe since the land reform program started in the year 2000. The reform might work if the lands are handed to the government, and if the government distributes to landless people by promoting better smallholder agriculture. Read this story here.

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Protect food security with irrigation in Malawi

The green belt program seeks to make Malawi independent of rain-fed agriculture. The plan is to protect the gains in food security, reduce vulnerability to drought, diversify crops and to boost production by irrigation, using the Lake Malawi-Shire River stretch. The land holding is through the creation of ownership of the irrigations schemes by local [...]

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Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI)

The convergence of global crises in food, energy, finance and the environment has driven a dramatic revaluation of land ownership. LDPI focuses on a broad framework encompassing the economy, ecology and sociology of land deals centered on food, biofuels, minerals and conservation. Read this story here.

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Strengthening agricultural policy in Africa

AGRA launched an initiative to empower African governments to shape home-grown agricultural policies that provide comprehensive support to smallholder farmers. An initial focus is in five countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Tanzania). The aim is to strengthen African agricultural policy-making capacity through training agricultural policy analysts; bolstering policy think tanks; establishing data banks to [...]

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Farmer-to-Farmer (FTF) Program

FTF places emphasis on economic impact and measurable results, building institutions and transferring technology and management expertise that link small farmers with markets. Read this story here.

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Farm-in-a-backpack

The Backpack Farm Program contains all the necessary materials to get started in farming, including seeds of drought resistant and local crop varieties, a drip Irrigation Kit, a 500 litre collapsible water tank, plant nutrition, pesticides, and tools. The program aims to help Kenyans feed themselves through eco-friendly farming. Read the story here.

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Small farmers break into new markets

High commodity prices, growing demand for biofuels, booming consumer demand in the cities, and growing markets for organic and Fair-trade products could all work in favor of small farmers, who can break into these growing markets through organizing and upgrading their production. Read this story here.

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Fadama helps to market and deliver crops

In much of Nigeria the Fadama project, which is funded by the government and the World Bank, focuses on the marketing, delivering and selling of crops, and provides storage facilities and machinery. The project relies on the government and local communities to contribute either in cash, labor, or land. Read this story here.

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