Consultative Meeting on Mechanization Strategy: New Models for Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization in sub-Saharan Africa

Consultative Meeting on Mechanization Strategy: New Models for Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization in sub-Saharan Africa

Year of publication 2017

Pages 50 p.

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Document

Edition 1

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) Sustainable agricultural mechanization (SAM) is an essential input for the development of the smallholder farm sector in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The benefits of SAM range from drudgery reduction to improved timeliness of agricultural operations, increased input use efficiency, facilitating sustainable production intensification, ensuring environmental protection, and contributing to make agriculture more ‘climate-smart’. SAM is also important at other levels of the food supply system, for exam ple in post-harvest operations, processing, marketing and transportation. Previously in SSA, mechanization efforts were largely been driven by the public sector. Today there is a need, with appropriate social and natural environmental considerations, to adopt a more holistic view of what mechanization is and learn from the errors made in the past. A cornerstone of SAM is the importance of involving the private sector (especially machinery manufacturers, suppliers and service providers). It needs to be brought to the forefront in SAM development and provision, but without neglecting the important role that the public sector and its institutions can also play. The Consultative Meeting provided a platform to discuss SAM in general, SAM strategies and implementation options, experiences and recommended concrete lines of future action for SSA. Lessons learned from Asia and past experiences in SSA were presented, as well as various models for SAM collaboration and diffusion in SSA. This plat form allowed to better understand appropriate policies that may be required to support and promote the implementation of SAM at regional and national level within SSA. A special focus was placed on three key areas which were the subject of debate and discussion in three working groups. These were: (i) new collaborative models of public-private partnerships; (ii) modalities and approaches for establishing a global SAM knowledge exchange platform and; (iii) the establishment of regional centres or networks for SAM in SSA. The Meeting also received feedback on the on-going FAO-African Union Commission technical cooperation project that is seeking to develop a SAM strategy framework for SSA.

Language English

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet

Adoption of farm inputs, mechanization, irrigation and gender gaps in sub-Saharan Africa: insights from the Rural Livelihoods Information System (RuLIS)
RuLIS brief
2021

Also available in:

No results found.

RuLIS is a tool to support policies for reducing rural poverty, jointly developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Statistics Division, the World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). RuLIS brings together harmonized indicators and comparable data across countries and over time on rural incomes, livelihoods and rural development. Using the RuLIS data, this brief focuses on the observations made in the adoption of agricultural inputs, along with improved technology such as irrigation, and mechanised tools among crop farm households in sub-Saharan Africa.
Book (stand-alone)

Developing sustainable agro-input market systems for farmers in sub-Saharan Africa: upgrading through innovation
Practitioner handbooks
2022

Also available in:

No results found.

Sustainable impacts at scale require the adoption of upgraded practices by large numbers of market actors and their continued usage of these practices in the long term. This behavioural change, in turn, is driven by actors’ capacities and incentives to adopt and sustain upgrades. A systems approach can help us understand the constraints that prevent market actors from changing their behaviour and thus improving their performance and the sustainability of the system in which they operate. Applying a systems approach to sustainable agro-input market systems development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this handbook provides an analytical framework to uncover what hinders farmers’ optimal adoption of agro inputs in crop production and a toolbox of innovative solutions to these constraints. The analytical framework presents a two-step analysis using a sequence of six yes/no questions followed by a root-cause analysis to identify why farmers do not adopt agro-inputs in an optimal way. Based on this, the toolbox provides six groups of solutions to address the problems that prevent farmers’ behavioural change (to adopt agro-inputs optimally). The analytical framework and solutions build on 70 empirical cases on improving agro-input market systems in SSA. All cases are either driven by or have a strong involvement of privatesector agro-input actors. Additionally, the cases demonstrate proven or potential positive impacts on the adoption of agro-inputs by farmers. These positive impacts are assessed in terms of the economic, social, and environmental sustainability, and the resilience over time of the solutions included in the cases.
Book (series)

Final evaluation of the project “Partnership for sustainable rice systems development in sub-Saharan Africa”
Project code: GCP/RAF/489/VEN
2020

Also available in:

No results found.

Rice consumption in Africa has increased dramatically over recent decades, growing faster than consumption of any other major staple on the continent. However, apart from Egypt, no African country is currently self-sufficient in terms of rice consumption. FAO implemented the project from May 2014 to December 2019, with the ten ministries of agriculture from the beneficiary countries. The project goal was to develop sustainable and productive rice systems in Africa to increase food security and enhance sustainable development of the rice food chain among smallholder farmers. South-South Cooperation was demonstrated to be an excellent mechanism for pooling resources and efforts in innovation and development processes. Sharing knowledge with decision makers and political consultation at the highest level was useful to reaffirm and update policies strategies and intervention priorities, and to mobilize partners from a large number of countries. Several producers, producer groups and communities successfully moved from subsistence farming to commercial farming by increasing production, reducing post-harvest losses and improving quality of rice through the use of appropriate post-harvest management technologies and equipment.