About the Better Farming Series

The FAO Better Farming Series is a run of forty-six booklets published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, between 1976 and 1995, each also numbered in the FAO Economic and Social Development Series as No. 3/nn.

Booklets 1–26 (1976–77) were adapted from the Cours d’apprentissage agricole of the Institut africain pour le développement économique et social (INADES) in Abidjan, and cover the plant, the soil, crop farming, animal husbandry, individual crops and the farm as a business. Booklets 27–46 (1979–95) were written and illustrated at FAO, largely by Tom Laughlin with the technical divisions concerned, and cover fish farming, water, biogas, snails, rabbits, ducks and animal feeding.

The full series

  1. The plant: the living plant; the root
  2. The plant: the stem; the buds; the leaves
  3. The plant: the flower
  4. The soil: how the soil is made up
  5. The soil: how to conserve the soil
  6. The soil: how to improve the soil
  7. Crop farming
  8. Animal husbandry: feeding and care of animals
  9. Animal husbandry: animal diseases; how animals reproduce
  10. The farm business survey
  11. Cattle breeding
  12. Sheep and goat breeding
  13. Keeping chickens
  14. Farming with animal power
  15. Cereals
  16. Roots and tubers
  17. Groundnuts
  18. Bananas
  19. Market gardening
  20. Upland rice
  21. Wet paddy or swamp rice
  22. Cocoa
  23. Coffee
  24. The oil palm
  25. The rubber tree
  26. The modern farm business
  27. Freshwater fish farming: how to begin
  28. Water: where water comes from
  29. Better freshwater fish farming: the pond
  30. Better freshwater fish farming: the fish
  31. Biogas: what it is; how it is made; how to use it
  32. Biogas 2: building a better biogas unit
  33. Farming snails 1
  34. Farming snails 2
  35. Better freshwater fish farming: further improvement
  36. Raising rabbits 1
  37. Raising rabbits 2
  38. Better freshwater fish farming: raising fish in pens and cages
  39. Raising ducks 1: how to begin
  40. Raising ducks 2: further improvement; a larger flock
  41. Raising ducks 3
  42. Using fodder from trees and shrubs to feed livestock in the tropics
  43. Feeding animals on straw
  44. Processing of cassava and sweet potatoes for animal feeding
  45. Multinutrient block handbook
  46. Use of cassava and sweet potatoes in animal feeding

We are reissuing the series a set at a time, starting with the booklets FAO has scanned. Thirteen of the forty-six were never scanned by FAO and survive only as retyped text; we are looking for original printed copies of those. If you have one, please get in touch.

Rights

The original texts and drawings are © FAO (and, for Nos. 1–26, © INADES for the French originals). They are reproduced under licence from FAO. These editions were not created by FAO; FAO is not responsible for their content or accuracy and does not endorse Better Farming or any product or service. The FAO emblem does not appear in these editions.