Photo credit: FAO

A worker adjusts a plough attachment in Djibo, Burkina Faso. Spare parts must be available for tractors to be useful.

Sustainable mechanization has much to offer in sub-Saharan Africa

Feeding the burgeoning world population will require significant improvements in agricultural productivity, above all in Africa, and mechanization and appropriate mechanization strategies have a large role to play, according to a new report from FAO.

The opportunity must be guided in a way that meets smallholder farmers’ needs and that does not require a Green-Revolution type of approach with high levels of agrochemical inputs and destructive ploughing operations that threaten soil health and fertility, according to FAO’s new report.

(see also: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i6167e.pdf)

Agricultural mechanization: A key input for sub-Saharan African smallholders underlines that agricultural mechanization in the twenty-first century should be environmentally compatible, economically viable, affordable, adapted to local conditions and, in view of current developments in…