AKF Annual Report - Aga Khan Development Network

MADAGASCAR
Since 2005, AKF has been working in Madagascar with the aim of
reducing poverty by improving rice productivity.
Madagascar has one of the world’s highest levels of per capita rice
consumption. Rice provides over 50 percent of calories consumed in
the country and the poor rely heavily on it. Rice production is the
single most important economic activity, involving 80 percent of all rural
households and contributing 12 percent to the national economy.
The “sarcleuse” is a low-cost but efficient
tool for rice cultivation. When groups of
farmers are assigned APRA-GIR test plots,
their starter toolkits include, among other
things, new seeds and a sarcleuse.
However, while rice farming represents over 40 percent of agricultural
production, 10 percent of consumption is actually imported. In Madagascar,
where 80 percent of the poor live in rural areas, most rice farmers live
below the subsistence level and purchase rice at international market
price to supplement their needs.
In 2006, experimental plots in the Sofia region which benefited from
alternative farming methods proposed by AKF more than doubled their
average yield in tons per hectare.
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