All Articles

Sustainable food systems are necessary not only as a channel for addressing the food security needs of the world’s growing population, but are also crucial in ensuring that the needs of future generations are not compromised.

This study applied stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) to examine the technical efficiency of maize production in northern Ghana using cross-sectional data from 360 maize farmers for the 2011/2012 cropping season.

We look at the prioritisation of agricultural value chains (VCs) for the allocation of R&D resources that maximise development outcomes (poverty, growth, jobs and diets) in Senegal.

This study investigates the driving factors that influence farmers’ decisions to adopt modern agricultural inputs (MAI) and how this affects farm household welfare in rural Rwanda. To account for heterogeneity in the MAI adoption decision and unobservable farm and household attributes, we estimate an endogenous switching regression (ESR) model.

Insect pollination improves the yield of most crop species and contributes to one-third of global crop production. The importance of this ecosystem service in improving agricultural production has largely been overlooked, however, in favour of practices that improve soil conditions such as fertiliser use and supplementary irrigation.

Evaluating the impact of agricultural practices helps policymakers and farmers in their decision-making. In Zambia, most households depend on agricultural activities, in particular maize production.

The inverse farm size and productivity relationship (IR) is a recurring theme in the literature. However, most previous studies were undertaken within a setting of mixed cropping systems. In this article, we investigate the effect of farm size on productivity within the context of a perennial mono-cropping system, acute competition for farmland, frequent subdivision of farms and declining yields.

Recognising potential selection bias due to non-randomness of the data, this study used propensity score matching on data from a nationally representative fifth Integrated Household Survey (IHS5) to investigate the effect of agriculture extension services on the technical efficiency of maize farmers in Malawi.

Despite the crucial role played by Nile perch in the income of fishers around Lake Victoria, Tanzania, fishing pressure has increased in recent years and has led to overfishing and, consequently, a risk to the lake’s future sustainability and the fishers’ livelihoods. This study used data collected in 2018 from 268 randomly selected sample fishers at 10 landing sites across Lake Victoria.

One of the three components of Rwanda’s flagship anti-poverty programme, Vision 2020 Umurenge (VUP), is the provision of credit to relatively poor households, nearly all of them farmers. In this paper we estimate the impact of the programme using high-quality household survey data from 2013/2014 and 2016/2017.

Cowpea, which is produced primarily in West Africa, is valued locally for its agronomic benefits in dryland farming, nutritional content, and contribution to the livelihoods of farming families. Many feel that more investment in cowpea research and development is needed for the crop to achieve its economic potential.

African animal trypanosomiasis (AAT) and its vectors, mainly tsetse, are a major constraint to livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Control efforts have been ongoing for decades, but finding a sustainable solution remains a major concern.

The underutilisation of coconut and its by-products imply poor livelihoods and, ultimately food insecurity for farmers growing coconut. Sustainable practices like a circular economy (CE) need to be promoted for uptake by the farmers to achieve sustainable development through better utilisation of coconuts and their by-products.

This study examines the effects of rising food prices on rural household living standards, with a particular focus on the moderating role of non-farm diversification.

This study investigated the food security effect of the adoption of improved maize varieties among farming households in Uganda using four waves of the Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS) spanning the period 2013 to 2020.

With increasing recognition holding the promise of overcoming the outstanding problems faced by African agriculture, IAR4D faces the danger of being ‘blurred’ by past approaches and falling short of its potential to deliver the desired impacts in diverse multi-stakeholder, biophysical, socioAfJARE economic, cultural, technological and market contexts unless its actualisation and working is clearly understood.

Integrated pest management (IPM) has been promoted globally as an alternative approach to the widespread broad-spectrum chemical insecticidal application for the control of pests and diseases in agricultural production to minimise the harmful effects of the chemicals on humans and the environment.

This article examines the current state of food safety preparedness and response in three representative countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): Kenya, Senegal and South Africa. We focus on foodborne diseases associated with the microbial contamination of animal-sourced foods.

Farm efficiency analysis provides significant insights into farms’ potential to enhance agricultural productivity. This article reports on an investigation of technology adoption and technical efficiency (TE) in the Ethiopian maize sector.

Zambia has been implementing agricultural input subsidy programmes to stimulate crop production and productivity among smallholder farmers with the goal of increasing national food security.

La production du riz sous contrat a pour avantage de répondre aux exigences de la qualité de la production du riz et de satisfaire la demande intérieure du riz pour le pays. Cette étude a pour objectif d’analyser les critères d’insolvabilité des contrats des riziculteurs au Burkina Faso.

The hazards and impacts of climate change are exacerbating. They threaten crop productivity, farmers’ resilience and the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Understanding climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and applying it is crucial.

Fair trade is an important ethical concern in the food value chains of developed countries. However, there is a dearth of empirical insights into consumer preferences for this critical aspect in the domestic markets of developing countries.

This paper argues and provides empirical evidence that trade-offs and/or complementarities are inherent in technological options that shape the adoption of and land-use decisions in production systems involving multiple crops in Ethiopia.