Partner Collections Content

Rainfall defines livelihood patterns among agrarian communities of the climate-change vulnerable semi-arid SubSaharan Africa. However, it remains inadequately studied, resulting in ineffective water management policies and weak agricultural growth in the region. Monthly rainfall data collected between 1987 and 2018 at four stations along a 1200 km climatic gradient in northern Namibia were analyzed for annual, seasonal, and monthly trends and variability. Descriptive measures and the Mann-Kendall test were used for rainfall characterization and trend detection, respectively. Results showed an annually increasing rainfall trend, but with a downward trend in the dry season decreasing by -0.14 mm year–1 and an upward trend in the rainy season increasing by 7.74 mm year–1 across the study area. The rainy-season mean monthly rainfall showed predominantly increasing trends, while the dry-season ones exhibited insignificant decreasing trends. The study detected a decreasing rainfall gradient from the northeast towards the northwest with a range of 156.8 mm and concomitant increasing spatial-temporal variability. The upward rainfall trend has implications for rainy season floods, whereas the downward trend suggests dry season drought intensification in the area. These results could be useful for rainwater management planning in the study area and other dryland regions.

In this Fourth Edition of the Sustainable Agriculture Production Program (SAPP) Success Stories, we present achievements of Smallholder Farmers who have adopted various Sustainable Good Agriculture Practices with the support from SAPP.
 

A news article on the review of agricultural science based programmes at the University of Zambia (UNZA) with support from MUSIKA, an institution which supports investments  in agricultural market, with a particular focus on smaller holder and emerging farmers. 

The Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2020–2030 draws impetus from the organisation’s Vision 2050, which envisages “a peaceful, inclusive, competitive, middle- to high-income industrialised region, where all citizens enjoy sustainable economic well-being, justice, and freedom”.

Agricultural Productivity Program for Southern Africa (APPSA) held information sharing meeting with District Agricultural Officers (DAOs) and District Extension Officers (DEOs) as overseers of all agricultural research activities within Lesotho districts.

A video on Maize production in Malawi.

This Video provides step-by-step information on Bean Production to Malawian Farmers interested in Bean Production. Ms. Virginia Chisale, a bean breeder working at Chitedze Agricultural Research Station give details on bean varieties that are approved for production in Malawi. She also provide key agronomic recommendations to be followed by farmers to successfully grow their bean crop.

The Agronomy section and the Socio-Economics & Extension Division of the Department of Agricultural Research are collaboratively implementing the Lesotho Adaptation of Small-Scale Agricultural Production project (LASAP) activities with farmers in five districts of Lesotho.

The Department of Agricultural Research through soils section is undertaking research studies on maize and beans varieties. The studies started in 2018 summer planting season. In order to fully involve farmers on these on-going studies, on-farm approach is used. The overall objective the studies is to evaluate two bean cultivars for biological nitrogen fixation and two maize cultivars for nitrogen use efficiency. This is done to restore the fertility of selected soils and crop productivity in an effort to help the farming community realize increased yields.

The Agricultural Productivity Programme for Southern Africa (APPSA)- is a project supported by the World Bank which seeks to promote a regional approach to agricultural technology generation and dissemination by supporting, strengthening and scaling up of regional centers of Regional Leadership on commodities of regional importance. APPSA is structured around four components of which one of them is technology generation and dissemination hence the reason for sub-projects that address this component.