Developments

Pastoral visions: changing perceptions of pastoral lives

A special touring photographic exhibition in Africa sets out to challenge perceptions, particularly at policy level, of the lives of pastoralists. The pictures, which were taken by amateur photographers, offer an interesting insight into the highs and lows experienced by pastoralists in their daily life...

Land reform - keeping the promise

For the people of Witbank, an isolated community in South Africa's Northern Cape, the move to commercial agriculture gives hope for financial independence, prosperity even. In the context of land reform in South Africa, their success is bucking a trend...

A trio of instruments for tsetse control

The challenge with tsetse control is to provide tools for the individual farmer so he can deal with the problem of tsetse and trypanosomiasis in his own way and in his own time. A workshop in Nairobi last October (2003) discussed three such initiatives which could fit the bill...

Taking the tricks out of the trade

Fertiliser use in sub-Saharan Africa averages 9kg per hectare. The global average is 100kg per hectare. Perhaps this is to be expected because an African farmer pays, on average, six times more for a bag of fertiliser than do farmers elsewhere in the world. There are many reasons but among them are the poor road and rail networks on the continent...