Agroforestry World
Government agencies, the private sector, NGOs and universities want a new direction for increasing trees on farms to grow a green economy and strengthen the vulnerable archipelago It will take 206 years to restore to productivity...
A simple farming technique is proving effective in staving off food shortages in Kenya The female farmers of Makueni County in southeastern Kenya rarely expect to triumph over their parched, unpropitious soils. A pick, a spade and a...
Women are playing a leading role in coping with and adapting to climate change in the mountainous rural areas of China’s Yunnan province, where disruptions in weather patterns and increasingly extreme events are expected to impact agricultural livelihoods. But while they are assuming more responsibility than men, their voices are mostly excluded from the policy-making processes that affect their daily lives.
A new book offers insights and recommendations to support researchers targeting smallholder farmers with integrated agricultural systems innovations. Innovations for agricultural intensification—for instance adding fruit trees to farms and intercropping—can sustainably increase smallholder farmers’ production. But for greater...
Rubengera, Rwanda — Farmer Cecile Mukabutera , 32, looks approvingly at her small tree, one of ten she received from One Acre Fund. Its branches will eventually give her up to 30 poles per year. These 2-3 meter...
A new publication offers researchers guidelines on how best to engage with marginalized, ethnic-minority farming communities in the Greater Mekong region, so that research innovations reach and benefit their lives and livelihoods. Titled “Guidelines to engage with marginalized...
In Europe and the US, shea butter or oil is a famous skin cream. But shea is even more important as the main cooking oil for the band of 21 African countries that stretches West to East from...
A large, old Faidherbia albida tree with a metre-plus diameter stored the equivalent of the CO2 emitted by 8 cars over one year. These useful trees play an important role in carbon sequestration, a critical part of the...
The global land restoration movement launched in Bonn five years ago is gaining steam. It’s big and it’s ambitious. In Latin America and the Caribbean, where it is called Initiative 20X20, it aims to bring 20 million hectares...
The evidence is clear: For big gains in crop production, our landscapes must become more hospitable to some of the planet’s littlest creatures— its pollinators. Bees, birds, butterflies, moths and some small mammals transfer pollen from flower to...
Yaounde — Commercial agriculture has received a major boost and the impact of climate change minimised in Cameroon thanks to the adoption of agroforestry techniques by thousands of farmers. The World Agroforestry Centre introduced agroforestry methods to rural...
Leveraging their buying power and financial resources, companies are working to create the sustainable supply chains we need in a changing climate. Ones in which farmers and companies prosper together. Where farmers will produce more using ecologically sound...
Twenty-three farmers from My Loi village in Viet Nam were recently trained in vermiculture—raising worms on farms to produce fertilizer and improve soil. Vermicomposting will help the farmers improve one of their priority ‘climate-smart agriculture’ interventions—home gardens. Inspired...
Focussing only on the commercial value of crops leaves farmers and funders poorer. The services provided by integrated agro-ecosystems offer greater benefits to all. ‘The first challenge is to make smallholders aware that they can contribute to...