Read at :

http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=26404

Summary & Comment: Africa still struggles with cultural and social barriers that block women’s quest for success, but small strides are being made. It also makes sense that the leadership of Africa’s biggest agriculture organisation is now a woman. M. Makoni

Author: Busani Bafana, Bulawayo
Date Written: 11 May 2012
Primary Category: Food and Land
Document Origin: Inter Press Service
Secondary Category: Gender
Source URL: http://www.ips.org/africa/

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http://www.ips.org/africa/2012/05/q-and-a-women-farmers-are-key-to-a-food-secure-africa/

While women constitute the majority of food producers, processors and marketers in Africa, their role in the agricultural sector still remains a minor one because of cultural and social barriers. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), women are the majority of the world’s agricultural producers, supplying more than 50 percent of the food that is grown globally. And in sub-Saharan Africa the number is higher, as women grow 80 to 90 percent…

Read at :

http://www.eldis.org/go/display&type=Document&id=59402?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eldis-agriculture+%28Eldis+Agriculture%29

Innovative approaches to gender and food security: insights, issue 82

Food security and gender insights

Authors: S. Turrall (ed)
Publisher: Knowledge Services, IDS, 2012

This issue of insights shows how development policy and practice can potentially improve food security while supporting women’s  empowerment. They can focus on women’s critical role as food producers, consumers and family carers, while transforming gender norms and inequalities within households and communities. There is no one size fits all approach to achieving these outcomes, but it is vital to ensure that food security interventions:

• are informed by both women and men at the local level in their design and implementation
• are tailored to specific contexts, given the often vast disparities in experience, needs and gender roles within countries and regions
• take into account and respect women’s instrumental role in food production
• involve women and men equally in decision-making around food production…

Knowledge centre management and use training workshop in Dessie, Jun 14-15 2014 (photo credit: LIVES).

Training is one of the most widely used capacity development approaches to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes of individuals. Many organizations invest resources and train their employees to improve organizational performance. However, research shows that only about 10% of training programs by organizations transfer knowledge to improved performance in the workplace.

A number of factors affect transfer of knowledge and skills including trainee characteristics, training design, delivery methods and processes as well as work environment. To address these transfer problems, a number of strategies can be embedded in the design and delivery of training programs.

This story describes two knowledge transfer strategies ‘learning logs’ and ‘action planning’  which are being tested and used in the Livestock and Irrigation Value Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders (LIVES) project to facilitate application of knowledge and skills from training events to the work environment.

Learning…

By Stephanie Brittain

Food insecurity and malnutrition can be ended sustainably within a generation, it is said. However, with one in eight people in the world today still undernourished and approximately two billion suffering from micronutrient deficiencies, the challenge is immense.

Further, the world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 and at the current rate of development, the number of people at risk of hunger in the developing world will grow from 881 million in 2005 to more than a billion people by 2050.

78 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, and agriculture remains fundamental for their economic growth and for food security for our expanding global population. Further, agricultural development is found to be about two to four times more effective in raising incomes among the poorest than growth in other sectors.

Conflict impedes agricultural development

Credit: UN/Tobin Jones…

Typical mixed crop-livestock farming in western Kenya. Mixed crop-livestock farming systems currently produce most of the world’s meat, milk and staple crops (photo credit: ILRI/Pye-Smith).

The January 2013 issue of Animal Frontiers, the world’s premier review magazine in animal agriculture, features a series of articles on the contribution of animal agriculture to global food security.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has contributed to this series with a position paper that highlights the direct and indirect effects of livestock on food and nutrition security. The paper also considers the future prospects of mixed crop-livestock farming systems that produce most of the world’s milk, meat and staple crops.

The paper by ILRI director general Jimmy Smith and colleagues begins with a brief overview of the global challenge of food and nutrition security and the net impact of livestock on global food supply. This is followed by a review…

During my agricultural history class, we talked about the reason why agriculture is often seen as a “special” economic sector worthy of disproportionate governmental support (just ask the EU), and agreed that it was because it’s a matter of survival that your agricultural sector works properly – any society is literally dependent on the fact that enough food is produced for everybody to not starve, and even more so, any ruler is dependent on the fact that his people don’t go hungry enough to stage an uprising; as has happened repeatedly during history. Yet, the blanket statement “Nobody wants to rule a hungry people” irked me, since there have been several instances in history where famines were purposefully initiated to subdue a particular part of a society, or at least where nothing was done to ease the suffering though it would have been politically feasible. And with that, I present to…

Hey hey! Just checking in after my first day of work – it’s going to be an exciting time for sure! I am sure to learn loads about climate change and sustainable development policies, and share it all with you – as well as some of my thoughts on my last placement! For now, though, let me share something I watched over dinner:

This is a really brilliant take on World War II history, breaking it down over a war for resources – namely, the possibility of achieving food independence. It also takes on a long-ignored issue, namely that of starvation in the colonies (I already once mentioned this in my post on famines). And shines a thoughtful light onto the possibility of future conflict, especially as we are heading into a time of resource scarcity and calls for ‘food independence’ and ‘autarky’ are appearing again in the speeches…

I am most excited that my book Global Food Security Governance: Civil society engagement in the reformed Committee on World Food Security is now available for pre-order!

It is part of the  Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment. 

It is not exactly priced for accessibility so I encourage you to request your library to order it instead. That way you can access it for free!

You can do that at this using this link and click on “Recommend to Librarian”.

Some reviews:

“In Global Food Security Governance, Jessica Duncan provides a timely and thoughtful analysis of the recent reform of the Committee on World Food Security and its evolving role in international policy-making on issues of hunger and nutrition. Both empirically rich and theoretically grounded, the book highlights the central role of civil society in reshaping food security governance and assesses the challenges…

A book launched in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday has lots to say to nutritionists and policymakers and government officials in Africa inclined to view the continent’s many ‘informal’ food markets with dismay. They’re not going away anytime soon, and they’re safer than they look. And they can be made even safer with the right support, the book reports. 

‘Traditional markets sell more than 85 percent of the food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa, and rather than replacing them with Western-style supermarkets, governments should train local vendors to improve food safety, researchers say.

‘Contrary to popular conceptions, open-air local markets often have safer milk and meat than supermarkets in much of Africa, according to a book released on Tuesday by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

‘Local vendors offer fresher products to several hundred million low-income consumers, and many supermarkets still do not have well-regulated supply chains or stable refrigeration systems to…

In 2014, to mark four decades of international livestock research, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) held a series of events on the ways in which livestock research advances food and nutritional security, economic well-being and healthy lives.

At each event, we asked participants to comment on two questions: Looking to 2054, what are THE two most critical livestock-related challenges we must answer through research? What is THE most promising ‘best bet’ opportunity we should invest in to achieve better lives though livestock in 2054.

The powerpoint below gives a summary of the responses provided by participants:

The Biosciences eastern and central Africa-International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI) Hub capacity building program, which is also known as the Africa Biosciences Challenge Fund (ABCF), is seeking applications for short- to medium-term research projects that can be undertaken at the BecA-ILRI Hub in Nairobi, Kenya.

The ABCF operates in the critically important intersection between agricultural research and development (ARD), food security, and individual and institutional capacity building. The program is delivered through i) a visiting scientist program (the ABCF fellowship) targeting scientists and graduate students from African national agricultural research organizations and universities to undertake biosciences research-for-development projects at the BecA-ILRI Hub and ii) annual training workshops to support the acquisition of practical skills in molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics, laboratory management, laboratory safety, equipment maintenance and scientific writing.

The purpose of the ABCF fellowship program is to develop capacity for agricultural biosciences research in Africa, to support research projects…

By Katrin Glatzel

One of the recommendations of the new Montpellier Panel report ‘No Ordinary Matter: Conserving, restoring and enhancing Africa’s soils’ suggests that a Big Data Revolution is needed to fill the huge gaps in data availability, especially in Africa. Regularly updated data on soil types, locations, qualities and degradation ought to be significantly enhanced and the information made available in a timely manner to allow for the targeted and selective use of inputs. Getting this data, however, is not an easy task and would require scores of researchers and public sector funding – and time. The use of advanced remote-sensing systems, dense networks of local weather information and citizen science can help to provide this information.

Citizen science, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (2014) as the “scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists…

What is the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish doing to develop capacity to enhance smallholder agricultural value chains in Asia, Africa and Latin America?

Niko Pirosmani, Farmer with a Bull, 1916 (via Wikiart).

Take a look at this wonderfully animated 6-minute video to find out.

As you’ll learn from the video, the CGIAR Livestock and Fish Research Program is being implemented by four CGIAR centres:

1. International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the lead centre, is based in Kenya
2. WorldFish, in Malaysia
3. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), in Colombia
4. International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), formerly in Syria, now moved to Jordan and elsewhere due to the ongoing conflicts in Syria

The program is helping small-scale livestock and fish producers to intensify and commercialize their production, processing and marketing activities.

The Livestock and Fish program is working largely…

Happy New Year! I hope you had a great party and/or a relaxing night to celebrate the new year, whichever you prefer. Although it does seem like an arbitrary cut in time, the New Year always gives a great opportunity to reflect on the past and focus on the future. Without further ado, here is what I see on the 2015 food policy agenda so far. Please comment with additions if you know of more large-scale issues that will come up!

Bonus: Check out my 2014 edition to see what was true, what was missing, and what is still on the table 🙂

USA: The new political balance of power between Democrats and Republicans bodes ominous changes in American food and nutrition policy.

According to Politico, the new Republican congress is preparing a number of initiatives to undo the strides taken by the Obama administration in the past year…

All artwork on this page by Bill Traylor.

Maria Teresa Correa, an epidemiologist and public health professor at North Carolina State University, and Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food safety scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), have an interesting chapter on an interesting subject — Slum livestock agriculture — published in the Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems (2014).

Chapter abstract
‘Slums are unplanned squatter human settlements in peri-urban and urban areas where more than 800 million people live. These densely populated areas lack basic public services. Livestock raised in these conditions compete with humans for space and water, and pose a risk to human and animal health. Notwithstanding the risk of disease transmission, slum livestock agriculture plays an essential role in the livelihoods of people and deserves consideration in urban planning and policy making.’

Below are some of the arresting facts and figures authors Correa and…

The 2015 edition of the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture (GFIA 2015) will take place from 9 to 11 March 2015 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

GFIA 2015, will attract professionals from around the world across the entire value chain, represent an event of paramount importance for all stakeholders involved at any level in sustainable agriculture.

More specifically, the Forum will comprise six conferences:

• Global Climate-Smart Agriculture Summit (CSA) – The inaugural Global CSA Summit will be launched under the theme “Promoting sustainability & agricultural resilience” and it represent the core of GFIA 2015.
• Post harvest waste initiative: from prevention to valorisation – As the reduction of food waste must be part of a portfolio of solutions needed to feed the world more sustainably, GFIA 2015 will include a major focus on the important issues
• ICT for sustainable agriculture – This…

Gity Behrevan during the BecA-ILRI-Sweden partnership review in Nairobi, November 2013 (photo credit: BecA-ILRI Hub/Tim Hall).

‘Biosciences research could transform Africa’s agriculture and lead to food and nutrition security, but little is being done locally to support its funding, experts say.

‘Researchers and policymakers who attended a review meeting of the Biosciences eastern and central Africa-International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI)-Sweden partnership in Kenya last month (10-14 November) expressed concern that African governments are not investing enough in research that promotes biosciences despite its potential to improve agriculture.

‘“Our research programmes are mainly funded and supported by external donors,” says BecA-ILRI Hub director Appolinaire Djikeng. “This poses sustainability risks to our work if the donors withdraw. Djikeng urges African universities to be more involved in developing biosciences. . . .

‘The delegates commended the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for supporting the partnership which runs various research programmes aimed…

An Ethiopian ‘Livestock Master Plan’ is a big, and recent, example of cooperation between the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Government of Ethiopia. That plan aims to change the face of livestock research and development programs within Ethiopia — not a minor step forward for a country deemed the livestock giant of Africa (see maps on the Livestock Geo-Wiki).

Directly following the recent ‘summit of the systems‘, a meeting to develop better integrated activities between the international CGIAR research family and the Ethiopian Agricultural Research System (EARS), HE Gebregziabher Gebreyohannes, state minister for livestock resources development,  publicly presented Ethiopia’s Livestock Master Plan on the premises of ILRI Ethiopia.

A collaborative project spearheaded by ILRI’s Barry Shapiro, the Livestock Master Plan proposes strategic recommendations covering a 15-year period that will feed into a second-generation National Growth and Transformation Program (GTP). The team behind the plan had already presented a poster about this…

In the recent past, there has been an increase in calls for integration of gender in agricultural research and development (R&D) owing to the recognition that gender-blind interventions have ended up exploiting women in order to empower households. In response to the call, R&D actors are putting in place measures to guarantee that R&D projects are gender-integrated with a focus on increasing provision for women’s economic empowerment in order to increase the income under their control. Income under women’s control is often used as a proxy indicator for empowerment.

To measure the gendered impacts of economic development interventions, gender scientists are increasingly using assets over income because income is easy to underreport and fluctuates remarkably across the year for agricultural communities. Moreover, some scholars have reported that although earning an income can enhance women’s economic and social status, it would be naïve to assume that earning an income alone brings…

A boy returns home with his family herd at dusk in Lhate Village, Chokwe, Mozambique. Livestock farming offers unique features to support local livelihoods and economies in developing countries (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

The year 2014 was declared the International Year of Family Farming. As the year comes to a close, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) last month launched a book, Deep Roots, that shines the spotlight on the important role that family farming plays in sustainable food production and conservation of natural resources.

FAO was the implementing agency of the International Year of Family Farming. Over the course of the year, FAO championed intense policy dialogue on family farming involving governments, networks of family farmers, civil society organizations, research institutions, academia and the private sector.

Deep Roots reflects the momentum generated by these discussions and captures diverse experiences, perspectives and…

Writing in the November 2014 issue of Rural 21, Livestock and Fish researchers from CIAT argue that tropical forage grasses and legumes as key components of sustainable crop-livestock systems in Latin America and the Caribbean have major implications for improving food security, alleviating poverty, restoring degraded lands and mitigating climate change.

Climate-smart tropical forage crops can improve the livestock productivity of smallholder farming systems and break the cycle of poverty and resource degradation. Sustainable intensification of forage-based systems contributes to better human nutrition, increases farm incomes, raises soil carbon accumulation and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the full article

Well, the Warsaw summit on climate change has turned out to be a major disappointment, with many prominent NGOs walking out prematurely to signal their protest at governmental inaction and last-ditch agreements remaining vague and postponing real commitments to future meetings. Commentators especially deplored the lack of urgency that seemed to reign among the negotiators, all the more unwarranted since the summit came just at the heels of the disastrous typhoon in the Philippines, which many of the attendees’ speeches linked to the consequences of climate change. What would inaction mean in our field, concerning food policy? I found a couple of interesting graphs that might lend us some insights…

This is from a series called Post2015 by Farming First, which attempts to look ahead of the 2015 development agenda all the way to 2030 and showcase some potentials and challenges on the way.

On the website you can…

When working in international politics, you realize that efforts to improve (or, I daresay, save) the world revolve around buzzwords. Clearcut visions and concepts are required to form alliances, formulate action plans and (most importantly!) pledge political and financial support.

In agriculture, it seems we have passed ‘green’ (too reminiscent of the green revolution and its controversies) and ‘sustainable’ (too vague and multi-faceted) and arrived at ‘climate-smart agriculture’ (CSA). Climate-smart ag fits into global climate action, is quantifiable (via CO2-equivalent emission savings) and can encompass both mitigation and adaptation actions, making it a catch-all for a plethora of initiatives that can satisfy both the global North and South in their aims. So far, so good.

Thus, at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York on 23 September, 180 senior officials and stakeholders attended the inaugural meeting of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture. The Alliance aspires to be a “food security…

The Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR) and the CGIAR Consortium have launched a consultation to get feedback from key partners on the priorities for publicly funded international research on agriculture.

What should be the priorities for agricultural research and innovation? What should be the priorities for publicly funded international research on agriculture in a development context? What should be the priorities for the CGIAR and its partners in research, in development and the private sector? And how do these priorities link back to the Sustainable Development Goals?

The CGIAR is in the process of developing a new strategy that will set such priorities, and will provide a concrete results framework for its work, to enable focused investments that lead to transformative development outcomes.

Please contribute to a global consultation that will lead to the  3rd Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD3).

CONTRIBUTE your ideas

As part of the Brussels Briefings organized by CTA, the ACP Secretariat, the European Commission (DG DEVCO/DGAGRI) and Concord. The African Union Commission and BMZ/GIZ join us as partners. 

The Briefing will take place on Tuesday 25th November  2014 (9h00-13h00) at the ACP Secretariat, 451 Avenue Georges Henri, 1200 Brussels, room C.

You will find attached the programme (in French and English). Youneed to register online at http://brusselsbriefings.net  where all documents will be regularly posted.

There’s been a great deal of discussion in recent weeks about the recent spike in global food prices. Nearly all agricultural crops—from cotton to rice, from wheat to cocoa—are near 30 year highs. The respite from 2007-08 food crisis appears to have been short-lived, and most analysts are pointing to a protracted period of expensive food.

US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack last week published an op-ed in the Financial Times in which he outlines steps necessary to avoid a global food price crisis. His framing of the problem echoes the neo-Malthusian assumptions: too many people, too much demand from middle class consumers, and so on. His prescriptions are pretty much what you’d expect from someone in his position: more investment in agriculture, especially biotechnology, more free trade, conclusion of the Doha Round, and so on.

What’s perhaps most telling about Vilsack’s discussion is what’s missing. As I see it…

Speaking at the second Brussels Development Briefing on 17 October, Sir John Kaputin, Secretary General of the ACP Secretariat helped to set the stage, contextualising the initiative and the role of agriculture in ACP countries.

Reminding participants of the importance of agriculture for ACP countries, Sir Kaputin stressed that in Africa 80% of population still lives in rural areas and bases its income on small scale farming. These communities confronted with new challenges, such as climate change and a liberalised and competitive market environment, which lower productivity and heavily impact on the lives of people.

Looking at this picture, and pointing out that agriculture clearly is the way out of poverty in most countries, Sir Kaputin called for “sound policies” to support agricultural development at local, national, and regional levels.

The Communication on “Advancing African Agriculture” goes in the right direction as it addresses exactly these elements…

The next Brussels Development Briefing on “Global food systems, local impact: the role of agribusiness and development partnerships in advancing African agriculture” will take place Tuesday 25th November 2014 (9h-13h) at the ACP Secretariat (451 Avenue Georges Henri, 1200 Brussels, room C).

The transformation of the African agri-business sector is a key challenge to achieve food security and economic development. A differentiated approach to partnerships, based on the development of competitive local private sectors, is essential to boosting agricultural development in Africa.

In this context, the objective of this Brussels Briefing is to discuss strategies and approaches for harnessing the potential of development partnerships with the private sector to catalyse market development and productivity in African countries.

The outcome of this meeting should be a better understanding of the needs and constraints of the local agricultural sector and strengthen linkages between private sector and development cooperation. At the…