Tractors Revolutionise Agriculture in Chad

Chad has more than 400,000 square kilometres of arable land, but poor rainfall and a reliance on basic agricultural techniques have left the country with a grain deficit in the past two years. The government is turning to mechanisation in a bid to improve harvests.

Malian Farmers Want Their Land Back

A group of smallholder farmers in Mali have turned to the courts to try to recover land they say they have lost to big private investors. The legal action comes as foreign investors are losing interest in Mali due to political instability and an armed rebellion in the north.

Men and Women Farming Together Can Eradicate Hunger

Three years ago, the residents of the semi-arid Yatta district in Kenya’s Eastern Province lived on food aid due to dwindling crops of maize that could not thrive because of the decreased rainfall in the area. That was until a local bishop, trying to find ways to prevent mothers from forcing their teenage daughters into prostitution, changed everything.

Filling the Granaries in Burkina Faso

The seeds were sown, and the harvest is beginning to come in. Burkina Faso farmers are reaping the benefits of their government's programme to develop and popularise improved varieties of maize.

Q&A: Smallholder Farmers Driving New Trend Against Climate Change

Small-scale irrigation schemes can provide the biggest opportunity for boosting food security in Africa, according to Meredith Giordano, the research director at the International Water Management Institute.

“Operation No Back Way to Europe” Keeps Young Farmers at Home in Gambia

Mohamed Ceesay, a 20-year-old farmer from the Central River Region in the Gambia, is a high school dropout. But thanks to an initiative to discourage local youths from emigrating to Europe, he earns almost half the salary of a government minister from his rice harvest.

“The Truth is That All Problems Have Solutions” – Even Climate Change in Ethiopia

Eight years ago Kenbesh Mengesha earned an uncertain income collecting firewood from local government forests and selling them to her fellow slum-dwellers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She would earn on average about 50 cents a day, if she was lucky.

Getting a Grip on Food Security in DR Congo

The Association for Integrated Rural Development is one of a number of rural organisations on the periphery of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are strengthening the city's food security while demonstrating how to maximise sustainable use of agricultural land.

Food Security and the Failure of Mechanisation in DRC

Mechanisation was expected to transform agriculture in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central province of East Kasaï. But a project to offer tractors for ploughing land has fallen flat.

Mauritanian Women Turn to Poultry to Fight Poverty

The building is standing empty now, but Fatimetou Mint M'Barkenni is looking forward to when it is again filled with the soft cheeping of day-old chicks. Earlier in the year, she raised a first batch of broiler chickens as part of a pilot project, to boost rural incomes and food security here at Bourate, in rural Mauritania.

Plant Diseases Threaten Food Security in Kivu, DR Congo

Plant diseases affecting bananas and cassava are gaining ground in two provinces in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to South Kivu's provincial minister for agriculture, Gisèle Batembo.

From the Field to the Rubbish Heap

Agriculture provides a livelihood to the majority of the population in Papua New Guinea, a developing island nation of approximately seven million in the south west Pacific.  However, the loss and waste of an estimated half of all fresh produce between harvesting and marketing is threatening improvements to food security and local incomes.

DRC Farmers Reap Benefits of Soil Fertility

Just two years ago, rice farmers on the Ruzizi plain in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo were content to harvest 2.5 tonnes of rice per hectare. The adoption of new techniques has seen their output rise to between six and eight tonnes, with smallholder farmers also increasing their local market share.

Super Cereal For Mali’s Malnourished Children

Millet has become the basic ingredient for an enriched flour at the heart of an effort to establish a local, sustainable response to malnutrition in Mali.

Aquaculture Boosts Papua New Guinea’s Food Security

The vast Sirinumu Reservoir in Central Province which supplies water and electricity to Papua New Guinea (PNG)’s capital, is home to a co-operative of 60 fish farmers who are successfully employing aquaculture to improve local incomes and food security.