Sustainable Product-Service Systems: A different approach to secure smallholder production?

Smallholder farming is the cornerstone of the agricultural sector in the Global South. It produces 80% of the food in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, though it accounts for barely 12% of the global farmland. Its sustainable intensification is therefore paramount in the accomplishment of Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger. In this respect,...

Q methodology in low-resource settings: Challenges and best practices

Reduction of poverty is a main goal in the global development agenda. The most extreme forms of poverty are mainly rooted in the Global South, and even more engrained in its rurality. Such poverty is not only characterized by infimum incomes, but also by the lack of access to many resources and services: health, sanitation, drinking water,...

The Barsha Pump: One Way to (Cleanly) Lift Water, Many Ways to Deliver Smallholder Irrigation

Q methodology among smallholders: Challenges and best practices of a participatory approach

Smallholder farming is a backbone of millions of livelihoods in the Global South. It provides up to 80% of the food demanded in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia while scarcely occupying 12% of the global farmland. About 1.5 billion deeply poor households—especially those located in rural areas—depend directly on smallholder agriculture. Stimulating...

Smallholder: an inconvenient label in the adoption of water pumping technologies?

Use of water pumping technologies (WPTs) to drive pressurized systems in smallholder irrigation schemes is one of the key interventions to secure water, hence to increase yields and to potentially alleviate poverty, as well as to foster local and global good security. Whichever the chosen WPT, smallholders face many decision-making variables...

DARE-TU Project: Co-creation of Affordable and Clean Pumped Irrigation for Smallholders

Co-creation of affordable irrigation technology: The DARE-TU project

Global food production needs to increase. Such an increase can come from intensified irrigated agriculture. Many current irrigation technologies are energy- and cost-intensive. Providing irrigation services instead of selling hardware addresses the (financial) reality of smallholder farmers and builds a sustainable business model rather than...