This paper reviews the impact of the Rockefeller Funded Forum for Natural Resources Management Program in East and Southem Africa since the early 1990s. Since the early 1990s, the Rockefeller Foundation has been funding Masters-level training through grants to principal investigators in universities in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and other nations of East and Southern Africa. Several principal investigators, mainly from agricultural colleges in these countries, have benefited from these grants through a competitive grant scheme.|The major theme of the research work carried out by these students, together with their principal investigators and collaborators in both East and Southern African, has been household food security.|The major cause of household food insecurity in sub- Saharan Africa has been declining soil fertility. Following the effects of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which have among other things involved removal of fertilizer subsidies, the majority of smallholder farmers are failing to manage the declining soil fertility through increased use of inorganic fertilizers. In other words, the adoption of a 'Green Revolution' package has been impossible for the majority of smallholder farmers. This has led to a parallel decline in the productivity of the maize- based farming systems, the major staple for the majority of these countries. The Rockefeller Foundation has therefore funded research in these countries that has tried to develop alternative technologies for managing soil fertility.

English

0310|AGRIS 0301|AL-Economics Program|R01PROCE

Juan Carlos Mendieta

CIMMYT Publications Collection