Tag Archives: smallholder farmers

Smallholder rice farmers in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda are still faced with a number of challenges including relying on rain-fed farming, use of farmer-saved seeds for subsequent production, lack of machinery to support commercialisation of rice production, and low use of fertilisers, a survey reveals. Rice farming The study further shows that with climate change, there are many rice farms ...

One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to “End hunger, achieve food security and adequate nutrition for all, and promote sustainable agriculture.” Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa number around 33 million, representing 80% of all farms in the region, thereby contributing up to 90% of food production in some sub-Saharan African countries. These facts state the importance of this group of farmers in ...

The heavy rain in recent time is resulting in flooded farmlands and smallholder vegetable farmers in Ojo area of Lagos have been counting their losses and expressing reservations over the impact of the peculiar weather condition on their source of livelihood, Kayode Aboyeji writes Night is approaching and Lagos housewife, Blessing Aina, prepares dinner for the family. Dinner is vegetable ...

Norfund, the UK aid department, and Capricorn are funding the British company Agrica’s industrial rice plantation in Mngeta, Tanzania, which is destroying the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, driving them into debt and impacting the local environment, according to new research by The Oakland Institute released on Wednesday June 17, 2015 in collaboration with Greenpeace Africa and Global Justice Now. Agrica’s ...

The Kaduna State Government has commenced disbursement of loans to farmers in the state under a partnership with the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) with a total sum of N1 billion ready for access by the farmers. The state governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, disclosed this at a flag-off ceremony and distribution of cheques to benefiting farmer cooperative groups and individual farmers in the ...

Farmers in Uganda evicted by oil palm plantations last Thursday presented a lawsuit against a joint venture co-owned by oil palm giant Wilmar International. They are claiming restitution for their grabbed land and fair compensation for damages, three years after their land was taken for plantation development. Friends of the Earth International is backing the communities’ land grab case, filed ...

The Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) and Oxfam are making efforts to improve small scale farmer’s resilience to climate change food security. Tagged: Farmers Field School (FFS), the initiative is aimed at preparing farmers to adapt to and cope with the negative effects of climate change. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the initiative in Omo J4 Forest Reserve, NCF’s Chief ...

It is late afternoon and the September heat is taking its toll on some portions of Moroson Hakakwale’s vegetable garden. Hakakwale, who is village headman at Hajunza in Pemba district of Southern Zambia, engages in gardening especially during summer when it is off-field activity season in this Southern African nation. “Off season gardening has become critical to our survival as ...

Smallholder farmers throughout the world play a key role in maintaining natural resources through the use of sustainable practices, and can significantly contribute the conservation of biodiversity, the Convention on Biological Diversity stressed on Thursday, in a joint press conference with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), held in the margins of COP 12 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, on the ...

Basil Oru, a migrant farmer in Igbe, Ikorodu in Lagos, frowns at the rising temperatures, along with the irregular rainfall pattern he claims is affecting farm yield and threatening his source of livelihood. He complains that, just as it has been the trend in recent years, the rain is late in coming and thus delaying the planting of certain crops ...