Changing lives and landscapes
By Mike McGahuey The question is not, “should farmers use inorganic or organic fertilizer?” but rather, “How can farmers increase soil organic matter in a cost-effective way in order to recycle nutrients, increase fertilizer-use efficiency and establish the foundation for building and sustaining soil productivity in Africa?” Many agricultural developmental agencies either support the idea [...]
Many sustainable agricultural practices can complement land regeneration techniques such as FMNR. This was the conclusion by experts at a parallel discussion session that was held during the Beating Famine conference. I had the pleasure of attending a group whose theme was carbon sequestration, water and energy for land regeneration. Chairing the discussion was Stephen [...]
I first visited the Talensi-Nabdam district in Ghana in July 2009. I was there to run a workshop with community leaders on Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), the reforestation method that I had stumbled upon while living in Niger back in 1983.
A learning event at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day held in association with United Nations climate change talks in Durban, South Africa discussed how to raise awareness of the potential for Evergreen Agriculture as an approach to improve livelihoods, adaptation and mitigation in the tropics, and its successful expansion in Africa.
Is boosting soils sustainably – through legumes, intercropping, agroforestry, cover crops, mulching and other soil improving techniques – the solution to meeting Africa’s food production needs? Asia had the green revolution in the late 20th century. The development of improved seed varieties together with the expansion of irrigation infrastructure, the modernization of management techniques and [...]
Websites and blogs that feature quality information about indigenous fruit trees are few. As organisations such as the World Agroforestry Centre continue to increase their research output regarding indigenous fruit trees, communication of information about indigenous tree species as an aid to crop productivity, land health and livelihoods needs to continue. Therefore it is terrific [...]
A consortium of international partners, known as the African Orphan Crops consortium, plans to identify at least two dozen African food crops and tree species that have been neglected by science because they are not economically important on the global market. The idea is to genetically sequence and breed some of the continent’s most important, [...]
The question of just what constitutes so-called climate-smart agriculture has been puzzling me as I’ve heard the term pop up on numerous occasions recently.
