This paper applied an extended total factor productivity analysis to compare the resource use efficiency of alternative cropping systems in eastern Ethiopia. The results indicated considerable variation in resource use efficiency among cropping systems. Intercropping of sorghum with pulses in...

This study employed a Tobit model to examine factors that influence the adoption and intensity of utilisation of improved maize varieties in the West Shoa Zone in the central highlands of Ethiopia. The estimated results indicate that level of education, household labour, farm size, extension...

This paper employed a robust stochastic efficiency decomposition technique that accounts for scale effects to derive the technical, allocative, and overall productive efficiency of two samples of farmers, participants and non-participants in the New Extension Program (NEP), in two agro-climatic...

Table of Contents: Brief 1: The Impact of Climate Variability and Climate Change on Water and Food Outcomes: A Framework for Analysis by Claudia Ringer Brief 2: Vulnerability and the Impact of Climate Change in South Africa's Limpopo River Basin by Sharon Shewmake Brief 5: Measuring Ethiopian...

This paper assesses the potential economic impacts of balanced nutrient management systemstechnology options: BNMS-manure, which combines inorganic fertilizer and organic manure,and BNMS-rotation, which is maize–soybean rotation, in maize-based systems in the northernGuinea savanna areas of...

This study compares the empirical performances of the parametric distance functions(PDF) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) with applications to adopters of improved cereal production technology in eastern Ethiopia. The results from both approaches revealed substantial technical inefficiencies...

As part of a major effort to address soil fertility decline in West Africa, an integrated soil fertility management project promoted two technology packages: a combined application of inorganic fertilizer and manure (BNMS-manure) and a soybean/maize rotation practice (BNMS-rotation) in the...

This paper measures and compares total factor productivity growth in African agriculture under contemporaneous and sequential technology frontiers over the period 1970–2004. The paper further investigates the sources of agricultural productivity growth using a fixed-effects regression model...

Public agricultural research has come under increasing pressure to redefine its strategic priorities to contribute to poverty alleviation goals. However, the issue of whether the poor benefit more from agricultural research that pursues efficiency or equity objectives remains unresolved, largely...

Striga hermonthica (del) Benth is threatening rural livelihoods in western Kenya where maize is the major food and cash crop. Vulnerability analysis was conducted on a sample of 802 households in eight districts of Nyanza and Western provinces. Farmers perceived Striga as the major cause of...