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.

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.

Building up resilience in agricultural households has assumed a critical role in development strategies in recent years because, it is argued, the costs of strengthening resilience are less than the recurring expenditure for disaster assistance.

Uganda’s climate is changing in terms of rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns, leading to extreme meteorological conditions such as prolonged drought, floods and landslides. Yet the majority (68%) of Ugandans rely largely on rain-fed agriculture, which is affected by climate variability.

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.

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 examines farmers’ preferences for an improved Bambara groundnut variety, the key attributes desired, factors influencing preference, and the number of attributes desired by smallholder farmers in Ghana.

Sub-Saharan African countries, with their initially large agricultural sectors, reduce poverty and urbanise most rapidly and efficiently when they achieve rapid agricultural growth.2 The faster agriculture grows, the faster its relative importance declines.

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.

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.

This study analyses the trade-offs between welfare (measured by income) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using a farm-level optimisation model that incorporates the predominant cereal (sorghum), legumes (groundnut, soybeans), livestock (cattle, goats and sheep) and trees (locust bean, camel’s foot) representative of production systems at two contrasting sites in northern Nigeria.

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.

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.

To enrich agriculture reform and reap its benefits, policy makers need to localise policy issues within and across their domestic zones. Using a stochastic meta-frontier function, this study analysed the production efficiency of the cassava subsector of cassava growers from Bomi and Nimba counties in Liberia.

Using an original database from French archives on French trade statistics, this article undertakes a comprehensive study of the nature and dynamic of French sectoral trade for the period 1880 to 1912.

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.

This study investigates the relationship between women’s empowerment in agriculture, their nutritional status and those of their children. Growing empirical evidence suggests that there is a positive link, but that not all empowerment dimensions influence nutritional outcomes.

The adoption of improved agricultural technologies is very low in Tanzania, which has led to both low crop productivity and low production. This paper therefore analyses the factors that influence the adoption of improved seeds, inorganic fertilisers and a package of technologies by smallholder maize farmers in Tanzania

This study examines whether Liberian consumers are willing to pay for new, locally produced nutrient-dense rice, and if farmers are willing to grow such rice.

Farmer–herder conflicts deepen the incidence of poverty and worsen the wellbeing of both farming and herding households in Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to cope with the effects of conflict on their livelihoods, households adopt various adaptation strategies.

This study employs a binary probit model on a sample of 319 smallholder farmers in Thulamela and Collins Chabane municipalities to examine their willingness to pay for agricultural extension services.