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This paper presents a typology of peri-urban farming households in the Tahoua region of Niger. These farms are managed by peri-urban households distributed according to the agroecological zones of this region. The results were obtained from surveys conducted in five villages with 21 heads of household per village, giving 105 heads of household located in the urban communes of the Tahoua region. The objective of this paper is to highlight, through the analysis of the results, the issues of urbanization of the rural sector, marital status, level of education, granary capacity, different food productions, labor force, and composition in the peri-urban areas of the emerging and agro-ecological UBT. The study will establish a diagnosis of these areas around the secondary cities of Tahoua. The tests of normality and equality of variances allowed us to establish an ANOVA between the agroecological and emergent peri-urban zones. A high percentage of household heads have been found to be illiterate. It stands for peri-urban agricultural, agro-pastoral, and pastoral areas at 55%, 45%, and 43% respectively. Finally, the demographic pressure of the peri-urban agropastoral zone causes a decrease in the average surface areas of the plots.

Agricultural development nearby protected areas is required to minimize negative impacts from uses of off-farm resources as well as improper activities on the ecosystem and ensure livelihood for local farming communities. This research aims at assessing agricultural management practices and outcomes toward agroecology of rice cultivation in the buffer zone of Xuan Thuy National Park. Data were gathered from ecosystem managers, communal authorities and 96 rice cultivators living in 14 villages adjacently to the park in 2017-2018. “Traffic light” approach developed by FAO was used as an analytical technique to evaluate and visualize the environmental sustainability of rice cultivation with three levels of desirable, acceptable and unsustainable. The assessment reveals that none of the environmental indicators achieved at sustainable including fertilizer management, soil fertility, pesticide management, biodiversity preservation, and water conservation. Therefore, agricultural development in this area is required to be scrutinized for improvements especially the overdependency on nitrogen fertilizers, improper application of pesticides, limited adoption of biodiversity-friendly practices as well as other environmentally-friendly practices. The research highlights the need of implementing agroecological approach and special regime for protected area buffer zone to strengthen environmental preservation.

This paper attempted to identify the determinant factors of innovative technologies preferences by small-scale farmers in the Volcanic Highlands in Rwanda. Data used were collected from a random sample of 401 small-scale crop producers using a structured questionnaire in the study area. A logit regression model was specified, whereby a binary maximum likelihood estimation method was used to identify the factors affecting of the adoption of chemical fertilizers, the determinants of the combined use of chemical and organic fertilizers, the determinants of the adoption of improved seeds, as well as the determinant factors of appropriate use of pesticides. The results showed that farmer’s education level, farming experience, membership to farm cooperative, the number of extension visits, and crop farming are the factors that affect positively the probability of adopting one or other of the four innovative farming techniques. From these results, we suggest the enhancement of extension services and other needed support to small-scale farmers (grants and subsidies, access to finance for example), the spread of professional trainings to farmers, and the increased farmers’ access to high-yielding seed varieties if farming professionalization and innovative farming techniques are still among the development goals.