Curated Content

The Better Life Book will bring hope by giving answers to our food and income needs. The book will help us as a community and as families to: Ÿ increase crop harvests without expensive inputs (like fertilizers and other chemicals), Ÿ protect and benefit from the natural resources such as wildlife, Ÿ build a foundation for community leaders to solve problems, Ÿ secure a better future for our families, and Ÿ leave fertile, productive land for our children's future.

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.

Southern Africa suffers widespread food and nutrition insecurity. This year, in the ten SADC Member States that submitted data, an estimated 47.6 million people are food insecure, which is a 5.5% increase from last year and 34.3% above the 5-year average.

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

The presentation fives the H4H overview • GIZ Tasks • Task Feedback.

This book documents a decade of research, methodological innovation, and lessons learned in an eco-regional research-for-development program operating in the eastern African highlands, the African Highlands Initiative (AHI). It does this through reflections of the protagonists themselves—AHI site teams and partners applying action research to develop innovation as a means to enhance the impact of their research. This book summarizes the experiences of farmers, research and development workers, policy and decision-makers who have interacted within an innovation system with the common goal of implementing an integrated approach to natural resource management (NRM) in the humid highlands. This book demonstrates the crucial importance of “approach” in shaping the outcomes of research and development and distils lessons learned on what works, where and why. It is enriched with examples and case studies from five benchmark sites in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, whose variability provides the reader with an in-depth knowledge of the complexities of integrated NRM in agro-ecosystems that play an important role in the rural economy of the region. It is shown that the struggle to achieve sustainable agricultural development in challenging environments is a complex one, and can only be effectively achieved through combined efforts and commitment of individuals and institutions with complementary roles.
 

Critical farming and household decisions depend upon the weather, for example, the amount of rain that falls, the length and start date of the rainfall season, the timing of dry spells, and the timing of temperature extremes. Such aspects of the weather vary considerably from year-to-year. PICSA is an approach that aims to help farmers address this challenge and has been used in more than 20 countries across three continents.

PICSA places farmers at the centre of its approach, and helps them to address the above challenges through integrating:

1. Communication of historical climate information, as well as seasonal and short term forecasts, in a way that is relevant and useful for farmers.
2. Exploring crop, livestock and livelihood options available to farmers that may help them deal with climate and weather-related challenges.
3. Using participatory decision-making tools that assist farmers to make informed decisions when planning their activities.

The ELD Initiative; Problem dimension – Land degradation vs. sustainable land management; Natural capital and ecosystem services valuation – the rationale behind; Steps of an ELD study; Communication, outreach and policy impact; Identification and selection of ecosystem services; Evaluation of ecosystem services; Cost-benefit analysis

The Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative aims to create awareness about the costs of land degradation and the benefits of sustainable land management (SLM).

ELD Campus provides high-level training and capacity improvement for policymakers, scientists and academics who want to contribute to the prevention of land degradation across the world. It is available in French and English.

There are 9 thematic modules that cover the following topics:

1. The ELD Initiative
2. Problem dimension – Land degradation vs. sustainable land management
3. Natural capital and ecosystem services valuation – the rationale behind
4. Steps of an ELD study
5. Communication, outreach and policy impact
6. Identification and selection of ecosystem services
7. Evaluation of ecosystem services
8. Cost-benefit analysis

Besides lectures, scripts and exercises, there are also quizzes to test your knowledge afterwards. Moreover the modules include helpful links and further reading materials.

Guide to Good Agriculture Practices in MalawiiFOREWORDThe government of Malawi recognizes the importance of using well researched and vetted Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) in promoting sustainable agricultural production in the country to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. The Sustainable Agricultural Production Programme (SAPP), one of the initiatives that Government of Malawi (GoM) has putin place to address some of the problems that smallholder farmers face in their production activitiesis contributing to poverty reduction and improved food security among rural populations through achieving a viable and sustainable smallholder agricultural sector employing good agricultural practices (GAPs) in Malawi. The program is being implemented in 6 districts of Chitipa, Nkhotakota, Lilongwe, Balaka, Chiradzulu and Blantyre. The government of Malawi, through SAPP noted the shortfalls in the implementation of the GAPs and commissioned a synthesis of the research findings in Malawi and the region to inform on the GAPs which are ready to go and where best fit to advise the extension and technical person and their applicability. The exercise developed user friendly tools which can be used by the extension personnel in advising the most befitting GAPs in their areas of operations. TheMinistry of Agriculture,Water and Irrigation Developmentis committed to support all the stakeholders supporting agricultural production in the country to adoptthe application of the tools developed.