Strengthening farmers’ knowledge for better weed management in developing countries

Abstract

Of more than 3 billion people (nearly half of the world's population) who live in rural areas, around 2.5 billion derive their livelihoods from agriculture, which remains crucial to developing countries for meeting the demands of affordable food, feed, energy, and the security of their populations. Approximately, three quarters of the world's agricultural value is generated in developing countries and, in many of these, the agriculture sector contributes as much as 30 % to gross domestic product (GDP). GDP growth from agriculture benefits the incomes of poor people two to four times more than the GDP growth in other sectors of the economy. In this chapter, we made an attempt to: (1) put forward the importance of weeds and their management in enhancing the needed crop productivity to meet the demands of increasing population, (2) identify the weed management technologies that need special attention in upscaling them to larger numbers of farmers, and (3) list possible means and approaches for enhancing the farmers' knowledge for better weed management in agro-ecosystems of developing countries.