Despite the extensive use of small millet landraces as an important source of nutrition for people living in semi-arid regions, they are presently marginalized and their diversity and distribution are threatened at a global scale. Local farmers have developed ancient breeding programs entrenched in traditional knowledge (TK) that has sustained rural cultures for thousands of years. The conventi...

Orthodox tea is a major export oriented cash crop farming of eastern hilly districts of Nepal. Both tea estate garden and small farmers are involving in tea farming. This article is the outcome of both desk top and field study conducted between the months of June and August 2009. The study found that small farmers sell their green tea leaves mainly to locally established tea processing industri...

— Small-scale assemblers are both the most vilified and least understood actors in food value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on data from Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, this article explores how maize assemblers influence the market access conditions of small-scale farmers. Assembly markets for maize are found to be highly competitive in terms of the number of traders operating a...

in the U.S. Southwest, and with farmers on an irrigation project in northern Pakistan. He is currently beginning research with small-scale farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico, on the role of yield stabilThe World’s Crop ity in farmer management of maize varieties and household risk, with the goal of identifying ways for farmers to work with formal plant breeders in developing improved varieties. Genetic ...

South African agriculture is comprised of mainly two categories of farmers -the subsistence farmers in the former homeland areas and the large-scale commercial (mainly white) farmers. This is in contrast with the situation in many other countries in the world where one would find a whole range of farm sizes, ranging from the very small or subsistence farmer to the very large farmer/agribusiness...

Livestock have made major contribution to human societies by providing food, shelter, fuel, and services.  Sheep and goat are economically important livestock play an important socioeconomic role for small and large farmers in Libya.  Small ruminant animal meat is popular for Libyan customers, and demand is particularly high during religious and cultural festivals.  Small ruminants is valued fo...

The Smallholder Farmers’ Dataportrait is a comprehensive, systematic and standardized data set on the profile of smallholder farmers across the world. It can generate an image on how small family farmers in both emerging and developing countries live their lives. It is about putting in numbers, the constraints they face, and the choices they make so that policies can be informed by evidence to ...