Agriculture constitutes a significant amount of the Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, a major characteristic of Kenyan agriculture is the predominance of primary production with a high concentration of women in the sector. Peanut production for instance is widespread in western...

This essay investigates the relationship between rural household income growth and access to electricity, extension services and roads. Following Dercon et al (2009), I outline a household income growth model that includes access to these public goods as growth conditioners. I estimate the model...

Integrating subsistence producers from developing and emerging countries with the world market is seen as a way out poverty. Market integration analyses have been predominately the domain of economists who generally indicate that only socioeconomic and institutional factors such as cost of doing...

The Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) is the approach suggested by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) through the sub Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSA CP) to address the acknowledged shortcoming of African Agricultural Research and Development’s...

Limited access to timely and adequate information has been identified as a major impediment to the growth of 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...

Traditional food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa are changing mainly because of globalized food market integration. There is a knowledge gap about the potential value of traditional foods and diets for health. A dynamics of imported new food products substituting to traditional foods rich in...

Commercialization of agriculture in is a worthy effort in attaining food sufficiency in Africa. However, this needed quest has had an enormous environmental, health and safety implications for the agricultural sector of the continent. This quest has led to intense use of machinery, agrochemicals...

Improving smallholder farmer market participation (agricultural commercialization) has seen the advent of a number of initiatives from collective action, extension service provision and even programs that utilize ICT tools in the provision of market information. Collective action through farmer...

Smallholder agriculture is not achieving its pivotal role of attaining food security in developing countries like South Africa. In rural areas, smallholder farmer’s efficiencies have always been hindered mostly by some factors beyond their control such Agro-ecological factors. The challenge is...

This paper will address the changes the CAP postâ€2013 may bring to its second pillar in EU countries. After the presentation of the legislative package put forward by the European Commission, a debate emerged in some countries on how to define rural development strategies for the period...