The creation of commercialization opportunities for smallholder farmers has taken primacy on the development agenda of many developing countries. Invariably, most of the smallholders are less productive than commercial farmers and continue to lag in commercialization. Apart from the various multifaceted challenges which smallholder farmers face, limited access to extension services stands as the underlying constraint to their sustainability. Across Africa and Asia, public extension is envisioned as a fundamental part of the process of transforming smallholder farmers because it is their major source of agricultural information. Extension continues to be deployed using different approaches which are evolving. For many decades, various authors have reported the importance of the approaches that effectively revitalize extension systems and have attempted to fit them into various typologies. However, there is a widespread concern over the inefficiency of these extension approaches in driving the sustainability of smallholder farming agenda. Further, most of the approaches that attempted to revolutionize extension have been developed and brought into the field in rapid succession, but with little or no impact at the farmer level. This paper explores the theory and application of agricultural extension approaches and argues the potential of transforming them using digital technologies. The adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as mobile phones and the internet which are envisaged to revolutionize existing extension systems and contribute towards the sustainability of smallholder farming systems is recommended.

Of the 345 million people in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), 30.6% are severely food insecure, 8% malnourished and 50% live with less than US $1 per day, respectively. Livelihood, food and nutrition security have, therefore, become key priorities for the SADC region in response to these complex challenges. Given that 70% of the SADC population directly rely on agriculture for food, nutrition and income, sustained agricultural productivity may play an important role in achieving livelihood, food and nutrition security in the region. Being an important part of the agri-food system of marginalised communities in the region, cattle have great potential to contribute to the goal of reducing food and nutrition insecurity. The region has a population size of about 64 million cattle of which 75% of the population is kept under the smallholder farming systems, and primarily composed of indigenous tropical breeds. Most indigenous cattle breeds are, however, either undergoing rapid genetic dilution or at risk of extinction. At the same time, their environments, production and marketing systems are experiencing high rates of change in time and space. More importantly, indigenous cattle breeds in the region are undervalued. This makes it uncertain that future systems will have the adapted cattle breeds required for optimal livelihoods, food and nutrition security. To this end, the promotion of sustainable use of indigenous cattle for livelihood, food and nutrition security in the SADC region is strongly recommended.

Importance of Irrigated Agriculture to the Ethiopian Economy: Capturing the direct net benefits of irrigation

Ninety-five farmers were involved in deriving a set of social, environmental, and economic sustainability indicators, which were used to assess sustainability of the smallholder cattle production system in Ncorha and Gxwalibomvu communities in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The derived indicators were scored on a 5-point Likert-type scale and aggregated to provide a net sustainability score. Net sustainability scores were grouped into three categories; non-sustainable (65%). Aggregate sustainability scores showed that the smallholder cattle production system in Ncorha and Gxwalibomvu, respectively, was socially (48.2% and 56.6%) and environmentally (54.2% and 57%) partially sustainable, but economically (15.7% and 10.8%) non-sustainable. Aggregate scores of the two communities (Ncorha, 37% and Gxwalibomvu, 41.0%) indicated that they were both partially sustainable. Holistic agroecological interventions and institutional support have the potential to improve the economic dimension of sustainability while simultaneously maintaining or improving the social and environmental dimensions. Adoption of agroecological interventions can be facilitated through farmer field schools.