From the report’s executive summary:

This report summarises the work in FOSRIN (Food Security through Ricebean Research in India and Nepal), funded by the 6th Framework Programme (FP6) of the European Commission from April 2006 to March 2010.

FOSRIN was a consortium of eight partners, universities, NGOs and government research organisations in Europe and South Asia, working to popularise the underutilised grain legume crop ricebean (Vigna umbellata) and promote its cultivation over a wider area of the environments to which it is suited than is currently the case. The work involved research on the supply chain and marketing of the crop, the diversity and adaptation of germplasm, farmers‟ preferred traits and indigenous knowledge of the crop, and its health and nutritional aspects. The work is showcased on the website of The Ricebean Network (www.ricebean.org).

Click here to read FOSRIN’s final Report

Farmers as entrepreneurs

Small-scale farmers and their support institutions are becoming more convinced that there is little future for them unless they become more entrepreneurial in their approach to farming. Which means that they produce increasingly for markets – local, regional as well as global, and with a profit motive. There’s nothing new about rural entrepreneurship. But the challenges faced by family farms in the South right now are unique in scope and scale. What options are there for small-scale farmers to become more entrepreneurial?

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The Global Agricultural Development Project aims to stimulate and inform the policy discussion around America’s role in alleviating poverty through global agricultural development. The project also seeks to identify opportunities for the United States to work with governments and other institutions to increase productivity, market access, and incomes of rural smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

www.thechicagocouncil.org/globalagdevelopment/