Smallholder irrigation is emerging as a development priority in Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on a survey of 1554 smallholders from nine countries, this paper compares rainfed farming with gravity-flow, manual-lift and motor-pump irrigation. Motor-pump-irrigation farmers reported the highest net value added per acre and per family worker, with gravity-flow and manual-irrigation farmers earning marginally more than rainfed-only farmers.

The aim of this paper is twofold. The first objective is to measure the technical efficiency of mixed crop-livestock (CL) smallholder producers operating under conservation agriculture systems in Tunisian rainfed areas. The second objective is to explore complementarities, synergies, and economies of diversification across the different production system components of these crop-livestock producers using the cross-partial derivative framework of output variables in the distance function.

Climate and weather shocks pose risks to livelihoods in Southern Africa. We assess the extent to which smallholders are exposed to climate shocks in Zambia and how behavioural choices influence the negative effects of these shocks on vulnerability and resilience. We use household data from the nationally representative Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Survey and employ an instrumental variable probit regression model to control for the endogeneity of key choice variables. There are four main findings.

Vietnamese food systems have experienced a transition process since the late 1980s Đổi mới reforms. This paper examines the historical and ongoing transitions of pork and vegetable networks, using the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), the Multi-Pattern Approach (MPA) and insights from food systems research. Our findings show that there was a shift from collective and self-subsistent farming to commercial small-scale farming in the late 1980s, and a rapid institutionalisation of smallholders and wet markets in the early 1990s.

Changes in frequency and intensity of climate and weather events are a key challenge to agricultural production among farmers in Zambia. Climate variability reduces farm productivity, which in turn contributes to household food insecurity, income variability, and reduced overall economic growth. Using improved technologies such as mechanization, improved seed varieties, irrigation, and fertilizer can improve climate resilience and farm production among smallholder farmers.

En América Latina, Uruguay se destaca por ser una sociedad igualitaria con un elevado ingreso per cápita, bajos niveles de desigualdad y pobreza y la ausencia casi universal de pobreza extrema. Sin embargo, y pese a la reducción de la pobreza a nivel nacional, algunos habitantes del medio rural continúan siendo pobres y viviendo en situación de aislamiento y vulnerabilidad. Un 47% de los habitantes de las zonas rurales tiene una, o más de una, necesidad básica insatisfecha (FIDA).

Following its outbreak in late 2019, the Coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) has been reported to have had devastating human health, health systems, and socioeconomic impacts across the globe.

This guide is intended to support smallholder farmers, and advocates working closely with them, in exercising more agency and living more independently according to their own priorities. It aims to assist smallholders in making free choices in relation to farm production, markets and trade. Farmers with agency can negotiate with, and challenge, the people and institutions that affect their lives.

Agricultural investment at the crossroads in Cambodia: Towards inclusion of smallholder farmers?

This learning guide provides civil society organizations (CSOs) with a methodology and a set of materials to undertake training on the VGGT and SSF Guidelines with civil society actors from the grassroots to the national level. Trainees will learn how to apply the VGGT to actual tenure governance challenges. They will also learn to use the SSF Guidelines, which reinforce the principles of the VGGT specifically in the context of small-scale fisheries.