Appropriate Technologies for Farmers in Semi-Arid West Africa

摘要

Technologies appropriate for use by West African farmers and new avenues of research in this area were the focus of a workshop conducted in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in April 1985 by the Farming Systems Unit of the Semi-Arid Food Grains Research and Development Project. Seven papers discuss soil and water management and soil fertility (e.g., soil tillage and preparation, testing for fertilizer use, water conservation, and alternative phosphate fertilizer sources). Ten papers cover plant improvement and crop associations, including the development of sorghum varieties and production technology, sorghum and millet improvement, small-scale mixed maize-cotton production technology, mixed cropping technologies, association cropping, and cereals-cowpea and other crop associations. Also included are papers on livestock in Sahelian agropastoral systems and on animal traction profitability, as well as on future research strategy, new systems of agricultural production, and food consumption analysis.