What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Roadmap for Strengthening Forest and Farm Producer Organizations, FAO

Six innovations revolutionising farming, The Guardian

Could insects feed the hungry world of tomorrow?, BBC

Beating the heat, Nature Biotechnology

Crop yields and global food security, Australian Government (GRDC)

Acres of genetically modified corn nearly doubled in a decade, Harvest Public Media

What’s the best way to measure empowerment?, Duncan Green, Oxfam

Majority of African Farm Workers Struggle to Afford Food, Gallup

Wild about Agricultural Innovation in Botswana, Global Food for Thought

Pesticide blamed for bee deaths now linked to bird declines, Los Angeles Times

Food Security and WTO Domestic Support Disciplines post-Bali, ICTSD

Why does Europe hate genetically modified food?, Rappler

Can Africa create a new green generation of food producers?, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Higher Food Prices Can Help to End Hunger, Malnutrition and Food Waste, IPS

Helping Smallholder Farmers Succeed

Author: TechnoServe

Photo credit: Nile Sprague/TechnoServe

A new UN report stresses the need to recognize diversity among smallholder farmers and adopt more targeted approaches for linking farmers to markets.

Small-scale farmers like Janise Gitonga, shown here tending a passion fruit vine on her farm in Kenya, are crucial to global food security. After all, smallholder agriculture is the main source of both food and income for millions of families in the developing world. A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) calls for better integration of smallholder farmers into markets in order to alleviate hunger and poverty.

The report emphasizes the need for more nuanced strategies and policy-making to boost smallholder farm output. “Smallholders and small family farms are not homogeneous and face different sets of constraints to participation in markets,” the report states. Therefore, approaches for enhancing farmers’ integration and participation in markets should reflect this diversity.

TechnoServe has been working to help smallholder farmers participate in markets and improve their livelihoods for more than four decades. Programs like Project Nurture — a partnership with The Coca-Cola Company and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that aims to help more than 50,000 small-scale fruit farmers in East Africa double their incomes — utilize key strategies identified by the FAO, including supporting inclusive market development, strengthening farmer organizations and fostering private-sector investment. We understand that confronting the challenge of rural poverty requires thoughtful, market-based solutions.

Read the full FAO report.

For more information about TechnoServe’s work connecting smallholder farmers to markets download “8 Views for the G8: Business Solutions for African Smallholder farmers to Address Food Security and Nutrition”, a joint publication with Agriculture for Impact.