An ingenious combination of plant breeding, contract farming and processing has enabled smallholder tomato growers to tap new markets in Tanzania’s Arusha Region. Two improved tomato cultivars released from AVRDC lines are at the centre of this success story.

The Government extension services in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are weak. There is a general lack of money and staff, and the country has a poor infrastructure. Above all small-scale farmers in remote areas are left out of developments. This applies in particular to women farmers, despite their providing 85 per cent of the rural workforce.

In the Karnataka state of India, the First Agro farm has more than 40 varieties of vegetables on sale, all of them free of chemical residues. Both hotels and restaurants as well as more and more retailers are appreciating the range of certified products from this young enterprise.

Today, it would be difficult to imagine agricultural extension without modern information and communication technologies. What they can do, where they fit in, and where they reach their limits is shown in the following examples.

Innovation takes place not only in laboratories, and disseminating knowledge need not depend on classrooms. The Cambodian GIZ project “Best Farmer 2012” is an example of how achievements of small-scale farmers can be appreciated and their co-farmers can simultaneously benefit from new insights.

“There is plenty of innovation. The trick is to get it to the farmers,” it is often said when technology transfer to farmers, and smallholders in particular, is referred to. In addition to the financial resources, they often lack the knowledge needed to be able to benefit from the new technologies. The ‘whole value chain approach’ of the Africa Harvest organisation shows how technology transfer can work.

Supporting smallholder farmers is one of the best ways to fight poverty and ensure food security. Such support involving the active participation of smallholder farmers in Zambia has demonstrated a significant increase in farmers’ engagement in general and an improvement in milk production, resulting in nutritional food security both at household and national level and income for the poor farmers.

Throughout the world, demands on finite soil resources are ever increasing, and can lead to irreversible soil degradation, as the soil is used beyond its “bio-capacity”. A quarter of the inhabitated land area has already been affected by human-induced soil degradation. Against this background, soil remediaton is becoming more and more important. Focusing on the rehabilitation of oil-contaminated soil in Kuwait, the following article shows how it works, and where the problems lie

In the early 1980s, Germany’s KfW Development Bank financed the first irrigation project around Mount Kenya. A reliable supply of water was expected to enable farmers to achieve stable yields. In this way, they could not only safeguard their own food supply but also supply new markets and earn themselves an income. The following article takes stock of progress and benefits.

A focus edition on family farming would hardly be credible without giving the family farmers themselves an opportunity to speak. We talked to Moses Munyi, the owner of a six-hectare farm in Embu, Kenya, about his everyday life and about his views of the prospects for farming in the future.

Not only rabbits and guinea-pigs but sheep, goats, cattle and pigs also play a crucial role in the food and income situation of countless city-dwellers world-wide. However, when people and animals live in such close proximity, health risks are inevitable. But instead of banning urban animal husbandry, as was, for example, considered in the course of the swine influenza epidemic, framework conditions ought to be created that enable people to make use of this business branch to earn a profit without running risks.

How can the private sector contribute to the fight against hunger, poverty and malnutrition in the remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa? This article looks at a model that has been applied in Kenya and Tanzania, addressing the right tools, skills and knowledge to make smallholder production a success.