Food Crop Production By Smallholder Farmers In Southern Africa: Challenges And Opportunities For Improvement Paperback

Ambayeba Muimba-Kankolongo

Food Crops Production by Smallholder Farmers in Southern Africa: Challenges and Opportunities for Improvement evaluates traditional cultivation practices used by smallholder farmers and provides a critical synthesis of the latest research data on increasing crops' yield through adoption of research innovations. Traditional farming techniques often produce negative impacts on the environment and ecosystem resulting in outbreaks of diseases and pests. In addition to the region's recurrent droughts, these outbreaks of numerous diseases and pests, weeds, and other invasive plants put thousands at risk of poverty and hunger, as well as malnutrition. Food Crop Production by Smallholder Farmers in Southern Africa catalogs smallholder cultivation practices and recommends innovative strategies for improving the agriculture sector including management practices that reduce net carbon emissions associated with traditional agriculture, technologies which improve soil structures and conserve the natural resources base, means of empowering female resources along the value chains, and active commitment by governments to adopt policies that would enhance agriculture productivity by encouraging farmers to use sound cultivation technologies which preserve the environment. This book presents enhanced agricultural production technologies for ensuring adequate food production, safety, and nutritional quality for the population of Southern Africa and forms the basis for an increased SADC regional effort in food production through which financial and trade institutions can improve stakeholder capacities, encourage micro-enterprise development, and enhance employment and regional trade.

0128143835

English

Elsevier Science Publishing Co

February 20, 2018

Dr. Ambayeba Muimba-Kankolongo, Lecturer at Carleton Uiniversity in Ottowa, Canada, has worked for more than 30 years assisting National Agricultural Research Services (NARS) and small-scale farmers in Central and Southern Africa. His career began as a researcher in Plant Pathology for a USAID-funded project National Cassava Program (PRONAM) of the Ministry of Agriculture in DR Congo. He is an Agricultural Engineer with MS and PhD degrees in Agriculture, and majored in Plant Pathology with minors in Plant Breeding and International Agriculture at Cornell University.