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.

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.

Improving local rice production capacity is a key element on the agenda of most countries in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU).

Evaluating the impact of agricultural practices helps policymakers and farmers in their decision-making. In Zambia, most households depend on agricultural activities, in particular maize production.

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.

This study examines the productivity of smallholder groundnut farmers in North-eastern Mozambique using data for 2016 from two provinces with high total production of said crop.

Climate change presents one of the most pressing challenges of the present time, with far-reaching implications for global economies and human socioeconomic well-being.

With increasing recognition holding the promise of overcoming the outstanding problems faced by African agriculture, IAR4D faces the danger of being ‘blurred’ by past approaches and falling short of its potential to deliver the desired impacts in diverse multi-stakeholder, biophysical, socioAfJARE economic, cultural, technological and market contexts unless its actualisation and working is clearly understood.

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 paper examines determinants of the adoption of rainwater-harvesting technologies in a rain shadow area of southern Malawi. The most common ex situ technologies in the area were dams, and the widely used in situ technologies were box ridges, contour markers and swales.

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.

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 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.

Agricultural commercialisation is a critical pathway for economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the lack of market information may impede this development. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine market information and preferences for soybean quality in a developing-world context.

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.

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 contributes to the expanding literature on multidimensional poverty and gender inequality in Tunisia by presenting an individual measure of multidimensional poverty.

Au Sahel, le changement climatique se caractérise manifestement par la récurrence des phénomènes extrêmes. Les séries de sécheresse des années 1970 à 1980 en constituent une illustration.

While irrigation is key to boosting agricultural productivity in Burkina Faso, it may come with hidden health costs. Drawing on data from over 1 000 households in the Sourou Valley and using propensity score matching, this study uncovers the unintended consequences of irrigation for public health.

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.

This analysis sits against the backdrop of unsuccessful attempts to reindustrialise Africa. Zambia must diversify from copper dependency to agriculture and the agro-processing sectors, and the question is whether there is enough capacity to deliver jobs or growth.

Livestock, particularly cattle, are an integral part of livelihoods in rural sub-Saharan Africa. However, diseases such as African animal trypanosomosis (AAT) have limited the potential of this important sector in the rural household economy.