The title of this book is intended to communicate hope, which is the spiritual diet of farmers, and for none so much as those who live in the drylands. Smallholders are themselves like roots in the soil. They shoot in good times, but when times are hard, they search deeper (or wider) for the moisture and the nutrients they need to sustain themselves. They die back to the basics, and surprise us with their resilience when the rain returns. Small farmers and livestock producers are the roots of African economies, and the basis for their development.

For too long it has been the convention either to dismiss smallholders as anachronistic survivors, certain to disappear in the rush to modernisation, or as quite malignant in their treatment of the African environment. This condescension, as is now recognised, was more a product of ignorance than any rational understanding. Only now, when so many foreign transplants have wilted or died in the hard earth of Africa, is the value of indigenous resources openly acknowledged. Given an enabling policy environment and unobstructed access to new ideas or markets, the resources of dryland communities can be mobilised in sustainable systems for managing natural resources.

The evidence for these assertions is found in a heterogeneous corpus of fieldbased studies whose published reports are widely distributed.