The past decade has seen a strong growth in the number of new seed enterprises emerging in Africa, Asia and Latin America. If successful, they will contribute tremendously to the economic growth of their countries, regions ...

Maize is the primary source of calories in the diet of many resource-poor farm families in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). International agricultural research centers, in collaboration with national ...

Designed to address the issues that limit the access of small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to quality, affordable seed of the crops on which they depend for food security and livelihoods, this collection of articles ...

This case study of technical change in maize production in Malawi seeks to answer the question of whether the diffusion of improved maize seed and fertilizer among Malawian smallholder farmers will create the sharp yield ...

Given a choice, most people would not wish to confront the challenges that govern the lives of small-scale farmers in southern Africa. In this region, which has the most erratic growing conditions on earth, crop failures ...

Maize is widely grown throughout eastern and southern Africa. However, growing conditions differ for rainfall, temperature, the length of the growing season and the occurrence of diseases and pests. As a consequence, ...

This paper examines the implications of declining soil fertility for the maize-based cropping systems in southern and eastern Africa. A review of the importance of maize in the region is followed by a description of the ...

Soil fertility is an important limiting factor for smallholder agriculture in southern Africa. In 1999-2002 research was undertaken to identify and evaluate legume technology options for soil fertility improvement within ...

The publication describes outcomes of a study conducted in 2007/08 to analyze the bottlenecks affecting the production and deployment of maize seed in eastern and southern Africa. The objectives of the study were to provide ...

The AusAID/ACIAR/CIMMYT Risk Management Project develops resource-conserving farming methods in collaboration with smallholder farmers, combining use of crop simulation modeling and farmer participatory research (FPR). In ...