Africa has an immense variety of farming systems. An improved knowledge of these complex systems, set in their socio-economic and environmental context, is an essential ingredient to developing effective strategies for improving food and nutrition security. This book systematically and comprehensively describes and classifies the characteristics, trends, drivers of change and strategic priorities for each of thirteen African farming systems and their main subsystems.

It shows how a farming systems perspective can be used to identify pathways to household food security, poverty reduction and strategic interventions and how these differ from one farming system to another. Emphasis in the analysis is placed on understanding systems dynamics, determinants of change and strategic priorities for science and policy.

Highly illustrated with full colour maps and photographs throughout, the volume provides an essential follow-up to and application of the seminal work Farming Systems and Poverty by Dixon and colleagues for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and World Bank, published in 2001.