All Articles

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.

Zimbabwe has set poverty reduction targets in a changing climate, yet the implications of climate variability for poverty remain under-explored.

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.

This study investigates the effect of temperature and precipitation on the economic value of agricultural output from farm households in six Sub-Saharan African countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.

This study investigates the impacts of climate-smart agricultural (CSA) services on farmers’ resilience in the Gubalafto district of Ethiopia.

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.

Descriptive statistics show that women with land rights were more empowered, younger, more educated and owned more land than those without land rights.

Smallholder farmers face considerable risk and uncertainty, particularly when markets are incomplete or missing. We consider household crop diversity and crop choice in Zimbabwe, where output markets are largely absent and price signals are inaccurate.

This study investigates risk perceptions and management strategies among maize growers in the equatorial region of South Sudan. A cross-sectional study design included a survey questionnaire that was used to analyse data from 510 respondents.

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.

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.

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.

In this paper, we explore the role of wildlife in climate change adaptation, especially in areas used predominantly for livestock production in South Africa. Using a sample of 3 449 wildlife and livestock ranches, we estimate a multinomial choice model of various ranching options in these areas. The results indicate that mixed wildlife-livestock ranches are less vulnerable to climate change when compared to ranches with only wildlife or only livestock.

Women’s time allocation is a dimension of women’s empowerment in agriculture, and is recognised as a pathway through which agriculture can affect child nutritional status in developing countries. Longer hours of farm work can potentially increase women’s time constraints, reducing the time allocated to child-caring responsibilities and raising the risk of poor child nutritional status.

The adverse effects of weather extremes produce widespread damage and cause severe alterations in the normal functioning of household agricultural production in Zambia. Extreme weather events such as floods and drought are expected to increase in intensity and frequency due to climate change.

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.

L’objectif de cette étude est d’identifier les segments de marchés appropriés pouvant permettre aux coopératives rizicoles de commercialiser efficacement leurs productions. Ainsi, des enchères expérimentales ont été menées en 2015 pour collecter les données auprès de 291 consommateurs urbains.

The objective of this research was to assess the effects of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) on food consumption expenditure by agricultural households in the southwestern region of Burkina Faso.

The use of novel feed ingredients from aquaculture is growing globally. However, their contributions to scalable and sustainable aquafeed solutions are unclear. New ingredients for feeds are desired in the framework of sustainability and a circular economy; thus, initiatives for implementing such novel ingredients are of interest to agricultural practitioners.

A partial equilibrium model was used to estimate the impact of a free trade agreement within ECOWAS on imports by Nigeria, based on trade data prior to implementation in 2015.

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.

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.

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.

This study examined the effect of sustainable intensification (SI) technologies, specifically the use of improved maize seed varieties, of improved bean seed varieties (Nua45), crop rotation, maize-legume intercropping and doubled-up legume systems on farm income in Dedza district, Malawi.