All Articles

This study attempted to identify determinants of farmers’ maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for improved use of irrigation water.

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).

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.

Vitamin A deficiency is still a challenge in many African countries, including Tanzania. Survey data were gathered in Tanzania to determine consumers’ risk perceptions of vitamin A deficiency (VAD) and severe visual impairment.

Very few studies of the agricultural sector’s adaptation to climate change have been conducted in Benin. This paper focuses on farmers’ perceptions and adaptation decisions in relation to climate change.

Willingness-to-pay (WTP) studies for traditional food products are plausibly affected by unobserved decisions and strategic collusion between the experimenter and respondents. Similarly, WTP estimates in developing countries using a one-time survey might be inconsistent, as the acceptance of new products likely varies with exposure to product attributes.

This continent-wide review of studies on price transmission implemented for the global, regional cross-border, within-country urban and within-country rural market segments provides a broad overview of current conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa food markets and provides insights into how market development varies across regions and crops.

Food security remains a major challenge in Burkina Faso, despite national and international commitments to reverse it. This paper evaluates the effect of the combined diversification of cash crops and food crops on the food security of rural farming households in Burkina Faso.

The special issue focused on topics in environmental and resource economics that originated from the inaugural conference of the African Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AFAERE), held on 2-4 August 2021.

Many governments adopt agricultural policies that affect production incentives across commodities. In addition, severe market failures in the form of high marketing margins often lower the prices that farmers receive.

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.

The reintroduction of innovative forms of input subsidies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) following the food crisis of 2008 raises concerns about their effectiveness in the fight against poverty. In this context, this paper examines the effect of the targeted fertiliser subsidy implemented in Togo from 2017 to 2019.

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

This paper analyses the heterogeneous effects of membership of a farmer group on access to water, use of inorganic fertiliser, household incomes, and farm asset holdings. A sample of 401 irrigators in South Africa was analysed using propensity score matching. The study found that group membership had a positive effect on all four outcomes.

The starting point for this article is the concept of a commodity exchange. A working definition is a physical or – more likely – electronic marketplace for buying, selling and trading commodities, whether ‘hard’ commodities, which typically are natural resources that must be mined or extracted (gold, rubber, oil, etc.), or ‘soft’ commodities, which are mainly agricultural products or livestock (coffee, corn, cotton, sugar, soybeans, etc.).

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.

This study examines the complementarity and substitutability effect of private investment and public expenditure on agricultural productivity in Nigeria for the period 1978 to 2018. The study employs the vector error correction modelling (VECM) technique, and the estimate shows that government expenditure on the agricultural sector had the most significant effect on agricultural productivity, followed by commercial bank credit for the agricultural sector.

Index-based insurance has emerged as a compelling strategy for agricultural risk management in Africa, particularly in contexts where smallholder farmers are disproportionately exposed to climate-related hazards.

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.

A new high-yielding upland rice variety known as New Rice for Africa (NERICA) has been recognised widely as a promising technology for addressing the food shortage and poverty problems in sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper evaluates the impact of variety awareness and nutrition knowledge on the adoption of biofortified crop varieties using a sample of 661 households from Kisii and Nyamira counties in Kenya.

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.

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.

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.