World Refugee Day: Building Resilience Through Farming in Kenya
Allan Ochieng Odera, Resilience Coordinator for Danish Refugee Council (DRC), discusses a farming initiative in Kakuma camp, Kenya.
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Moving with the Times: Pastoralists Share Lessons in Sustainability
Pastoralists, who face the toughest of challenges from climate change, are well-placed to offer lessons in how to adapt to new weather conditions.
Yaouza’s Story: How Forest Conservation Can Boost Incomes in Niger
In Niger, the encroaching Sahel is a daily constraint for farmers. Find out how Yaouza Harouna employed farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) to beat the arid conditions.
How Young Women Can Find Opportunities in African Agriculture
Jennifer, a young Ugandan mother, faced bleak prospects after her husband passed away, but STRYDE has helped open up her agricultural opportunities.
Farmers Need Long-Term and Short-Term Solutions to Combat Fall Armyworm in Kenya
Fall Armyworm has arrived in Kenya to stay, but while the government develops a long-term strategy, farmers need ready and accessible solutions now. From a distance, Wycliffe Ngoda’s two acres of shiny green maize crops look healthy and lush. But the tell-tale holes in the leaves and debris on the stems give away an increasingly dangerous secret hidden in more and more maize fields across Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa. The rampant Fall Armyworm caterpillar is once again threatening harvests across the continent for a second year. The pest, which arrived in Africa from the Americas in 2016, affected around 50,000 hectares of maize in Kenya alone last year, costing 25 per cent of the crop, according to government officials. This year, the losses could be as high as 50 per cent, threatening Kenya’s food security and farmers’ economic security in a country where the average annual consumption of maize surpasses 100kg per person. …
Fishing for Market Opportunities in Nigeria
Fish farming is a huge industry in Nigeria, but smallholder farmers face several obstacles. Elisa Burrows, Partnership Manager at Fintrac, writes how offering financing for them can open up a world of opportunities. In the Kano and Sagamu regions of Nigeria, suitable water resources and high market demand mean that aquaculture presents a profitable opportunity for smallholder farmers to expand their farming activities. Yet few farmers take advantage of this opportunity because they lack the technical knowledge fish farming requires and because there are few hatcheries that supply fish to small-scale farmers. To help change this, Chi Farms, a Nigeria-based livestock and aquaculture business, is working with smallholder farmers – primarily women – to develop this business opportunity. The market opportunity for fish farming in Nigeria is huge. Nigerians consume nearly 2 million tons of fish per year, and the country’s growing population ensures demand will continue to boom. Demand far outweighs current national production, making it necessary to import fish from all over the world. However, in recent years the price of imported fish has increased significantly because of the devaluation of the Nigerian naira. Even though fish is a key ingredient in many Nigerian dishes and an important and efficiently produced source of protein (for every kilogram of fish feed, a kilogram of fish is produced), only half the fish consumed by Nigerians is sourced locally. To increase local production, Chi Farms is partnering with Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation, a Fintrac-implemented USAID program that invests in private sector partnerships to commercialize agricultural innovations in smallholder markets, to increase Chi Farms’ capacity to supply fish to farmers and build teams of aquaculture specialists to provide extension services. …