Composting in the Tropics

Organic matter is often piled up in the compound but left unmanaged. This will produce compost but the materials will take a long time to decompose and nutrients will be lost.

Rainwater Harvesting

This technology is used in places where conventional water supply systems are not provided, are too expensive, or fail to meet people's needs.

The Kebkabiya Plough

This plough has been used with great success in Kebkabiya, Sudan. Here is a highly visual guide to its use.

Contested Lands in Southern and Eastern Africa

Robin Palmer

Questions of land tenure and land reform and their impact on poor and vulnerable communities are of vital importance throughout Southern and Eastern Africa. From the vast literature on the subject, Robin Palmer has selected and summarised more than 300 recent books, articles, academic theses and rep...

Farmer-led Extension

Vanessa Scarborough

This is the first book to focus on farmer-led extension, drawing on the experiences of over 70 farmers, community workers, NGO staff, researchers and policy makers from throughout the world. A range of approaches to extension are discussed which include the campesino-a-campesino movement in South Ea...

Farmers' Research in Practice

Laurens Veldhuizen

Having established the central concepts of farmers' research, this book examines farmers' innovation through 17 wide-ranging case studies from around the world. It concludes by revisiting the major themes in relation to the lessons learned, and sets out the future issues and challenges for governmen...

Hungry for Hope

Carmen Hess

This book deals with indigenous people and the problems that plague agricultural production in the high mountains of Ecuador. The author argues that when indigenous knowledge systems and participatory rural appraisal approaches are placed in the context of communicative action theory, they will gain...

Intercropping and the Scientific Basis of Traditional Agriculture

Donald Innis

This book is a pioneering, comparative study of the practice of intercropping (growing two or more crops at once in the same field). Innis's meticulous analysis of the scientific base of different traditional forms of agriculture in Jamaica, Nepal and India, is at the forefront of the search for int...

The Market Panacea

Max Spoor

This book compares the experiences of structural adjustment in developing countries and the transition from centrally planned to market economies in the former socialist countries. It aims to query whether the market-led approach which has characterized both Structural Adjustment Programmes in devel...

New Seed and Old Laws

Robert Tripp

This book argues that the development and diversification of national seed systems, which is currently taking place, requires a thorough re-examination of public regulatory responsibilities. Featuring case studies from a wide range of countries, it presents both a summary of current experience and a...