All Articles

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.

We look at the prioritisation of agricultural value chains (VCs) for the allocation of R&D resources that maximise development outcomes (poverty, growth, jobs and diets) in Senegal.

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.

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 paper assesses the differences in technical efficiency of, and the cassava production systems employed by, male-managed (MMF) and female-managed (FMF) cassava farms in the Fanteakwa District of Ghana.

This study examined the effect of collective marketing on mango income for 226 smallholder farmers in Mwala sub-county. The study employed an endogenous switching regression model to account for selection bias from observed and unobserved farmer attributes.

This paper investigates the interdependence of decisions on the adoption of agricultural technology and the simultaneous interaction between adoption and food security situations of smallholders, using a sample of 260 households from rural Ethiopia.

Three experiments were conducted from 2014 to 2018 to examine the economics of yellow passion fruit production under different soil fertility management. In 2014, two yellow passion fruit genotypes, that is Conventional and KPF 4, were grown in the field and pot simultaneously under varying rates of poultry manure (PM), including 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 t/ha.

This study examines the extent to which, in the Sahelian environment – where the scarcity of forage is intensifying – climate change perceptions influence the adoption of cottonseed cake among livestock producers in the Hauts-Bassins region of Burkina Faso.

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.

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 examines how food prices and related seasonality factors affect the dietary choices of low-income farm households in rural Tanzania. The Kishapu and Mvomero districts were selected based on contrasting rainfall patterns, farming practices and economic activities.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our understanding of climate-induced crop failure and crop abandonment is limited at present. This study surveyed theoretical and empirical literature on climate-induced crop failure and crop abandonment.

This study examines the effects of rising food prices on rural household living standards, with a particular focus on the moderating role of non-farm diversification.

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 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

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.

The Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) has reformed the implementation of the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP). The objective of FISP is to increase competitiveness in the agricultural sector among all key players (input suppliers, agro-dealers, banks, etc.), while improving farmers’ welfare.

Zambia has been implementing agricultural input subsidy programmes to stimulate crop production and productivity among smallholder farmers with the goal of increasing national food security.