Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

WEBINAR: Sustainable Farming: Transforming Africa Landscapes and Livelihoods

17 July 2021. WEBINAR: Sustainable Farming: Transforming Africa Landscapes and Livelihoods.

The African agricultural performance is dramatically hurt by increased pressures on land and water resources, extreme climate events and exploitative market dynamics that block any serious prospects of agricultural transformation. It calls for an integrated approach for achieving multiple goals of improving productivity and profitability of small-scale farmers, managing climate and market risks while enhancing soil health, and ecological services of landscapes and livelihoods. The objectives of this webinar series is to share experiences on sustainable farming methods and approaches among global thought leaders and debate on the African narrative that would satisfy the multiple objectives of small scale farmers.

The conventional approaches of agriculture, with industrial systems of production, specialization in few commodities, mechanization and economies of scale, may not necessarily work for Africa due to its unique settings and contexts. Experts in African agriculture recently got together to re-examine this approach, considering the broader challenges of the environment, food security and socio-economics in Africa, in a webinar organized by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The objective of this webinar was to share experiences on sustainable farming methods and approaches and debate on the African narrative that would satisfy the multiple objectives of small-scale farmers, namely productivity, profitability and resilience.

Dr Ramadjita Tabo, Regional Director, West and Central Africa, ICRISAT mentioned ICRISAT’s Smart Food campaign as a good approach to promote the use of sorghum and millet that have low carbon footprints and are high in iron, zinc, calcium and protein. “The year 2023 being declared the International Year of Millets by the United Nations will hopefully attract more funding to further improve productivity of millets,” he said.

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