Gender Marker 2

Maize and groundnut are important crops for both commercial and smallholder farming in Zambia, whose production is being threatened by their susceptibility to aflatoxin contamination. Despite this threat, there is limited knowledge of household growers’ behaviour and applications related to suitable agricultural management practices, as well as growers’ perception and knowledge of aflatoxins and their effects. This limited knowledge has major implications for acute human health effects such as liver cirrhosis and death, cancer, stunting in children, immune system suppression, impaired food conversion, and reduced livestock productivity and/or increased livestock mortality. This cross-sectional survey of smallholder household growers in Zambia was conducted to identify the gaps in the knowledge and application of aflatoxin-associated agricultural management practices. A sample of 3865 maize- and groundnut-producing smallholder farm households were selected in 27 priority districts implementing the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN)/First 1000 Most Critical Days Programme (MCDP) Phase II. Among the five pre-harvest management practices for maize and groundnuts – namely, controlling weeds, timely planting, controlling pests, and applying basal and top-dressing fertilisers – few households (8%) reported practising all of them. Among the recommended techniques for harvesting and handling maize and groundnuts, the most common harvest-management practices under maize production were drying (95.2% of households) and sorting at harvest (72%). In contrast, very few households (2%) practised at least three of four maize harvest management practices. Similarly, very few households (10%) practised at least 4 of the 6 groundnut harvest-management measures. Comparatively, post-harvest and storage management practices were more commonly practised, although most households did not practise all six post-harvest and storage management measures. Overall, very few households (1% for maize and 4% for groundnuts) were observed to be practising at least 12 of the 14 recommended management practices, implying that there are considerable gaps in the implementation of aflatoxin-related management practices along all stages of maize and groundnut production, consequently posing a significant threat to health and contributing to malnutrition levels in Zambia. As such, there is a need to develop tailored interventions and trainings for farming households, extension officers, and frontline health workers to prevent and manage aflatoxin contamination at different stages of crop production. Furthermore, the elimination of policy constraints, practical barriers of affordability and consumer awareness, and the value attached to the commercial product of Aflasafe, noted to reduce aflatoxin contamination by 80–100%, are of utmost urgency.

Status of Agricultural Research Investment in the SADC Region

The articles discusses the Malabo interventions in Malawi, especially focusing on the Nutrition component under the Sustainable Agriculture Production Programme.

This document is a survey of competences of CCARDESA stakeholders in virtual platforms .

The article was published after a Training of Trainers (ToT) for the Smallholder Empowerment Programs (SHEP) at Bunda College with support from the SAFE initiative. SHEP originally emerged through trial and error in the process of technical cooperation between Kenya and Japan for improving Kenya’s agricultural extension services. The cooperation started in 2006 and the SHEP Approach was developed as an innovative
method of agricultural extension services backed by the disciplines of economics and psychology. SHEP is an approach in agricultural extension that facilitates small-scale farmers to conduct market-oriented agriculture. The above-mentioned agricultural extension project in Kenya that utilized this method doubled the farming income of 2,500 targeted farmers in just two years. In the opening speech of the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African  Development in 2013, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his desire to change African Agriculture from “Grow and Sell” to “Grow to Sell”. Building off of this, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been working with the Kenyan government to spread the knowledge of SHEP to agricultural extension officials and extension staff in other African countries. Currently, over twenty African countries are implementing the SHEP Approach.

In this Fourth Edition of the Sustainable Agriculture Production Program (SAPP) Success Stories, we present achievements of Smallholder Farmers who have adopted various Sustainable Good Agriculture Practices with the support from SAPP.
 

Este Papel de Opções concentra-se em algumas de Melhores Opções de práticas e tecnologias Climaticamente Inteligentes para a produção de arroz na região da Comunidade de Desenvolvimento da África Austral (SADC).

Este Papel de Opções concentra-se em algumas das Melhores Opções de Agricultura Climaticamente Inteligentes para a produção de milho na região da Comunidade de Desenvolvimento da África Austral (SADC).

O ponto de partida para qualquer intervenção de ACI deve ser uma avaliação sistemática e a definição de prioridades dos potenciais pontos de entrada e acções. As Mais Adequadas intervenções listadas nesta revisão são subjectivas e foram escolhidas como exemplos com base na sua ampla aplicabilidade em toda a região da SADC.

Newpaper article on APPSA, Malawi. Release of Pro-Vitamin A, Maize varieties.