Agriculture is the cornerstone of most developing countries' economies, approximately 2.5 billion people make their living from agricultural production and 1.5 billion of these are small-scale farmers, labourers, fisherfolk and pastoralists. 500,000 smallholder farms play an integral role in global agriculture and help to put food on the plates of two billion people. However, smallholder farmers have not been given the support they need to flourish. Improving the livelihoods of small scale producers has the potential to make a huge impact on poverty reduction, if women smallholder famers alone had the same access as men, they could increase their yields by 30%, reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17%. (FAO,2011).

Practical Action’s work demonstrates that small investments in technology training and capacity building can have large impacts for vulnerable and food insecure communities. Our experience over the past 40 years has highlighted this potential to change lives which in turn enables people in fragile areas to be the drivers of change, not victims of circumstance.

Agricultural extension reviews

For community based extension reviews, please see our key documents.