Empowering smallholder farmers in markets. Experiences with farmer-led research for advocacy
Understanding agricultural innovation processes and recognizing the potential for catalysing them is crucial for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), including Kenya. This is because the smallholder dominated agricultural sector remains critical to realizing economic growth and poverty reduction goals. There is a growing focus in agricultura...
In Kenya potato is an important food crop, second after maize. Potatoes are grown on 128,000 ha per year with average yields of about 8 tonnes per ha. The yield is far below its po-tential and should be improved to enhance food security. Of all potato growers in Kenya, 98% are characterised as small-scale farmers, producing less than 0.4 ha of pota...
To simplify the Common Agricultural Policy after 2013, adjustments are needed to the current legislative proposals. In particular, the complexity of the direct payments proposal needs to be tackled.
The expansion of modern hybrid varieties in maize (Zea mays L.) in China has caused the rapid loss of local varieties, including farmer maintained varieties and landraces. With growing international recognition of the importance of agro-biodiversity conservation and on-farm crop improvement, participatory plant breeding has been accepted as a compl...
This thesis describes the adaptation of smallholders to market changes shaped by neoliberal policy reforms in the Mexican maize sector. Contrary to expectations about smallholder responses to a liberalised maize market, in the study area maize still is the main source of income. Farmers did not leave the maize sector to produce more profitable crop...
The concepts of ‘relevant social groups’ and ‘technical code’ are used to investigate the social relations in cowpea variety development (technology studies) and also the relationship of small-scale farmers to the Ghana School Feeding Program (market access) against the background of food sovereignty. For the technology studies, empirical findings ...
The future of family farming is a matter of debate, especially because of the far-reaching economic and political changes that are occurring. One vision is that family farms will disappear because they are less efficient than large-scale industrial farming enterprises. Others foresee that they will survive, due to their ability to resist external f...
This book assesses the institutional, technical and market constraints as well as opportunities for smallholders, notably, emerging farmers in disadvantaged areas such as the former homelands of South Africa. Emerging farmers are previously disadvantaged black people who started or will start their business with the support of special government pr...
Soil infertility undermines the agriculture-based livelihoods in Malawi, where it is blamed for poor crop yields and the creation of cycles of poverty. Although technologies and management strategies have been developed to reverse the decline in soil fertility, they are under-used by smallholder farmers. This study was conducted to assess with farm...