This document provides an introduction to the Smallholder Farmer Market Segmentation Toolkit produced by the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) and the Southern Africa Food Lab (SAFL) during 2014 and 2015.

This paper is a systematic review of published literature pertaining to organic agriculture in South Africa. The review gives an overview of the status of the organic sector in South Africa, in terms of both agriculture and market trends. The specific focus is on issues surrounding the development of smallholder farmers within the organic sector. The document includes three case studies of organic smallholder farming projects from around South Africa: the Heiveld Cooperative (Northern Cape), Ezemvelo Farmers’ Organisation (KwaZulu-Natal) and Siyavuna (KwaZulu-Natal).

This research report contains an overview of two innovations that form part of a project called Supporting Smallholder Agriculture (SSA) conducted by the Southern Africa Food Lab (SAFL). The two innovations documented in this report simultaneously investigated market segmentation and standards - related challenges among smallholder farmers in two parts of the country.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the Southern Africa Food Lab (SAFL) and Reos Partners organised a learning exchange aimed to deepening the understanding on the linkages between agriculture and social protection, focusing on lessons and experiences from southern Africa. The purpose of this learning exchange was to facilitate sharing and compiling of lessons learned in the design, implementation and institutional arrangements of linkages between social protection, food security and agricultural-based livelihoods, including good practice

The nature and significance of China's engagements with African agriculture continues to be hotly debated in the media, academia and policy circles around the world. Although China has been engaged in Uganda’s agriculture for more than 40 years, the recent jostle for agricultural land by private Chinese investors is dystifying and justifies the need to conduct a scientific study to provide clear evidence before the issue gets bundled into the messy anecdotal media inquiry.

Investidores agrícolas estrangeiros estão em conflitos com camponeses locais em Moçambique, num confronto sobre modelos agrícolas e desenvolvimento. Investidores estrangeiros de olho em terra aparentemente vaga, prometem lucros elevados (muitas vezes inflacionados) a investidores e parceiros locais. Alguns esperam capitalizar com créditos de carbono ou produzir biocombustíveis e alegam ser investimentos “verdes” (ecológicos). Todos prometem empregos, escolas e desenvolvimento local.

Foreign agricultural investors are clashing with local peasants in Mozambique, in a  confrontation over agricultural and development models. Foreign investors looking a apparently vacant land promise high (often inflated) profits to investors and local partners. Some hope to capitalise on carbon credits or produce biofuels, and claim to be green investments. All promise jobs, schools, and local development. Local backers support the outside investors and their plantations with terms like "progress" and "modernisation".

Date : 2017

Source : Foncier & Développement

Par : Perrine Burnod, Heriniaina Rakotomalala, Beby Seheno Andriamanalina, Hadrien Di Roberto

Mozambique is one of the countries in Africa receiving significant amounts of development assistance. It owes this privileged position to many factors. First of all, after a protracted civil war which lasted from the late seventies to the early nineties, Mozambique’s then Marxist oriented government and the “right-wing” Renamo rebels signed a peace agreement which has since held.

The main aim of this study was to assess, within the context of the Malonda Programme
in Niassa Province, the implementation of community consultations and negotiations as
well as the delimitation and demarcation of community land. These activities had been
carried out within the context of requests from several investors concerning the Right to
Use and Exploit Land (Portuguese acronym DUAT, Direito de Uso e Aproveitamento
de Terra), in order to create extensive commercial forest plantations in Niassa. The

The North Eastern Region (NER) in India is endowed with rich energy resources but faces significant bottlenecks in electricity access and availability levels. The per capita power consumption in NER is one-third of the national average. The region has a shortfall of about 500MW installed capacity against peak demand of about 1950 MW. No significant generation capacity has been added in the recent past. Therefore, inadequate power supply continues a critical constraint to sustainable growth and economic development in the NER.

Women make essential contributions to agriculture in developing countries, where they constitute approximately 43 percent of the agricultural labor force. However, female farmers typically have lower output per unit of land and are much less likely to be active in commercial farming than their male counterparts. These gender differences in land productivity and participation between male and female farmers are due to gender differences in access to inputs, resources, and services. In this paper, the authors review the evidence on productivity differences and access to resources.