All Articles

Kenya, like most countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, has continued to be overwhelmed by high and volatile food prices. In an effort to mitigate this problem, the government has implemented various trade and marketing policy instruments. The aim of this study is to examine whether the policies implemented have achieved their desired effects.

This paper examines rice trade flows within and across regions in Madagascar, based on data of unique rice sales collected in 22 major markets in Madagascar in 2012 and 2013.

While a large body of literature documents the existence of informal arrangements to share risk across and within households, there has been little research on the various coping strategies through which risk sharing takes place, and how these strategies function.

This study investigates the relationships between financial inclusion, gender and household welfare. We used baseline data collected from a randomised control trial survey of maize farmers in Nigeria and computed multidimensional indices for financial inclusion and farmers’ household welfare.

One of the debates around sustainability and the scaling up of micro-financial services is the commercialisation of micro-finance institutions (MFIs). This paper examines the contribution of the commercialisation of MFIs to ensuring the sustainability of MFIs and in scaling up their commitment to serve their primary target groups: poor and marginalised people.

Variability in climate and debility in soil fertility affect agrarian production, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and thus threaten food security. This has prompted the seed sector to introduce various varieties of climate-smart maize in Kenya and release them in the market. In contrast, there is little experiential insight into how the adoption of these varieties by small-scale farmers affects their household income.

This paper analyses the impact of adaptation to climate change on bean productivity on a micro-scale using instrumental variable techniques in a two-stage econometric model, using data collected from farming households in northern and central Uganda.

Climate change and heat stress are expected to worsen the issue of water scarcity that is affecting the agricultural sector, among others through increased crop prices and costs, in addition to changes in yields.

This study characterises the nature of the vegetable production shortfall throughout Ghana for remedial action to be taken. By applying the meta-stochastic frontier analysis to a sample of okra, pepper and tomato farmers, the results show that the ranking of production inputs in production is in the order land, hired labour, fertiliser, pesticide and family labour.

Empirical studies on the effects of governance structures on incentives have still received little attention in the wheat value chain research of developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of governance structures on actors’ incentives in different functional nodes of the wheat value chain.

We measured the producer price impacts of food and cash transfer programmes in Ethiopia using monthly panel data from 37 zones in four major regions over the period January 2007 to December 2010.

This study examines the impact of privatisation on the productivity of smallholder sugarcane out-growers in Malawi using a case study of Dwangwa Cane Growers Limited (DCGL).

The study provides evidence for how risk preferences determine fishing location choices by artisanal fishers on the south-west coast of the island of Mauritius. Risk preference is modelled using a random linear utility framework defined over mean-standard deviation space.

Although organic farming is increasingly perceived as a viable alternative to conventional agriculture in the face of deteriorating environmental ecosystems, little is known about consumers’ preferences for organic products in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper bridges this gap in research and investigates the extent to which consumers value organic food in Dakar, Senegal.

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 paper evaluates the extent to which changes in international wheat prices are transmitted to domestic markets in Kenya using an error correction model (ECM) that employs monthly producer price data for the period 2002 to 2020. Domestic wheat markets in Kenya were found to be strongly integrated while, international wheat markets were cointegrated with domestic prices at the port of Mombasa.

Poultry waste management and the energy demand have generated environmental and climate change concerns. Experts have suggested converting poultry waste to biogas energy through recycling to reduce these concerns.

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.

In this study, we investigate whether land tenure security is a pull factor for household income diversification.

In sub-Saharan Africa, identifying estimates of consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for safe food continues to receive attention in the literature. Using experimental data from Nigeria, we examined the source of heterogeneities in preference and WTP for organically produced food.

Soybean is one of the key legume crops that provides several financial benefits for farming households in Malawi. However, Malawi's persisting efforts to improve smallholder productivity and diversification have only translated into moderate improvements in food security outcomes.

Understanding rice farmers’ responses to market prices is essential for policy makers to design effective policies to better manage input demand and rice supply. This paper applies duality theory to derive the elasticities of input demand and output supply for Vietnamese rice production using a translog profit function approach.

Livestock, particularly cattle, are an integral part of livelihoods in rural sub-Saharan Africa. However, diseases such as African animal trypanosomosis (AAT) have limited the potential of this important sector in the rural household economy.

This paper analyses the extent to which an increase in food crop yield strengthens the relationship between agricultural commercialisation and rural poverty reduction in Burkina Faso.