All Articles

There is a significant soybean yield gap in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Sustainable intensification of the agricultural sector to reduce such a yield gap is important. Increasing soybean productivity can meet the growing demand for food and feed when complemented with higher soy meal demand by the local livestock industry.

Achieving state market policies depends partly on the extent to which changes in commodity prices are transmitted along supply chains. This paper examines the effect of the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) on price transmission between white maize wholesale and retail markets in Kumasi, Ghana.

The syndication of loans is an innovative financing model that has emerged in the financial landscape to help lenders spread risk and share opportunities. This study examines the relationship between syndicated loans and cocoa production in Ghana, using annual time-series data spanning from 1993 to 2020, as well as the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL).

This study uses an online laboratory experiment and a post-experimental survey to test whether the Mastercard Foundation (MCF) scholarship programme causally influences the creation of cognitive social capital among University of Pretoria recipients.

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.

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.

Cet article analyse le rôle du crédit et de l’éducation dans les différences de productivité du maïs entre femmes et hommes au Burkina Faso.

This study ascertained the influence of farmers’ perceptions of climate change effects and their household characteristics on the choice of adaptation technologies they adopt. The survey relied mainly on institutional and primary data for its analysis.

The world is facing unprecedented challenges from COVID-19, which is disrupting lives and livelihoods. The pandemic could profoundly affect the African continent and wipe out hard-won development gains, as sub-Saharan Africa heads into its first recession in 25 years.

Goat keeping is a common practice among rural farmers due to the adaptability of goats to harsh environments, their efficient forage conversion and rapid growth, and their multiple benefits, including the production of manure and high-quality milk.

This study seeks to identify the internal and external factors determining Ethiopia’s bilateral exports and total trade flows. It uses panel data covering 21 major trading partners of Ethiopia from 2000 to 2017 and estimates an augmented fixed effects gravity model.

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.

The literature on what drives crop failure and crop abandonment is scant. This paper explores the interplay between risk factors and crop abandonment. We examine the role of risk sources and risk management strategies in crop abandonment by smallholder maize farmers in Zambia.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is viewed as a potentially effective intervention to address low agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), while strengthening farmers’ capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change.

Climate variability threatens farmers’ livelihoods. Efforts to address climate stress recognise climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as a promising approach to minimising the damage caused by increasing weather variability.

Consumers are increasingly becoming very concerned about food safety, with many giving preference to organic food products over conventional food products, which make use of agrochemicals with potential implications for health.

There is an emerging body of studies assessing the influence of resilience on household food security in developing countries. Yet no study has systematically analysed this theme in Zimbabwe, an area that we address.

Limited access to timely and adequate information has been identified as a major hindrance to smallholder agriculture in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa. This has negatively affected the socio-economic welfare of smallholder farmers, resulting in high numbers of food insecure households.

L’Afrique Subsaharienne n'a pas assez bénéficié des grandes révolutions connues du monde agricole qui ont permis d’accroitre les productivités. Malgré l’existence des nouvelles technologies, les niveaux des productivités agricoles demeurent faibles et inférieurs à ceux d’autres régions en développement.

This paper evaluates output supply and input factor demands for livestock products in the Southern rangelands of Kenya. A flexible translog profit function that permits the application of the primal approach to the output supply and factor demand analysis was estimated using household-level data.

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.

Using a non-experimental cross-sectional dataset of 471 households, we evaluate the impacts of satellite collection points (SCPs) under the Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative implemented by the World Food Programme (WFP) on storage decisions and crop income from maize sales among smallholder farmers in Uganda.

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.

The influence of food aid and remittances on West African food import demand is evaluated using a Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) model. Our results show that imports of oilseeds and the rest of the agricultural products category are highly price elastic, and that fruit and vegetables and dairy products are least responsive to price changes.