A few years ago environmental specialist Ray Gama began working with small farmers in Swaziland's Lubombo region, an area known for flat-topped mountains and vast fields of sugar estates.

It was in the village of Siphofaneni that Gama found a community besieged by drought and struggling to get anything to grow.

"Farmers were being hard hit by drought which resulted in crop failure on an almost annual basis. The rains were erratic, and crops would die off before maturity," says Gama, the Environment Manager for the Lower Usuthu Smallholder Irrigation Project (LUSIP-GEF).

The IFAD-supported initiative, with funds from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), aims to reduce land degradation, preserve biodiversity and mitigate the impact of climate change through the application of sustainable land management practices.

This week Gama was in Rome to share his lessons learnt at Land & Water Days, a three-day event jointly organized by IFAD, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

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