Public resources are limited and have competing demands, hence prioritization will be critical. Policymakers want to know what public spending on agriculture sector will have the largest impact on the poor and how the resources should be allocated among the different sub-sectors. This brief...

Cet article utilise les données issues de l’Enquête Modulaire Intégrée sur les Conditions de Vie des ménages au Bénin (EMICoV) pour estimer l’impact du financement rural par le budget national tel que définis par les accords de Maputo sur la probabilité de pauvreté en milieu rural...

The maize industry in South Africa has a long history of government intervention, fuelled by the two Marketing Acts (of 1937 and 1968). After the introduction of the Marketing of Agricultural Products Act (Act 47 of 1996), farmers were exposed to international maize prices, i.e. to the forces of...

Credit constraint occurs when a farmer cannot increase expenditure on inputs in order to maximize profit due to lack of farm credit or high cost of credit. Farming households are confronted with credit constraint that results in low crop output and profit. Using a non-parametric measure of...

This paper investigates sources and determinants of agricultural growth in Africa, concentrating on the growth path during the last three decades. The analysis employs the broader framework provided by empirical growth literature and recent developments in Total Factor Productivity (TFP)...

This paper assessed the effects of transactions costs—relative to price and non-price factors—on smallholder marketed surplus and input use in Kenya. A selectivity model was used that accounts not only for the effects of fixed and variable transactions costs but also for the role of assets,...

This paper analyses the effect of non-credit services of joint liability credit institutions on smallholder women beekeepers’ honey income. The non-credit services offered to the beekeepers are mainly enterprise development services (training on marketing, business, production and subsector...

Agriculture is the mainstay of the Kenyan Economy. However, agriculture has experienced low productivity over the years. Poor access to agricultural finance has been identified as a contributing factor to low crop productivity. Kenyan agriculture has undergone some fundamental changes which have...

Social capital is an important characteristic of a community and is one of the components of the asset pentagon of the sustainable livelihood framework. The study aimed at assessing the levels and dimensions of social capital and how social capital influences other livelihood capitals. A...

Although microfinance has elicited different reactions from different stakeholders, there seems to be a general agreement that it is useful in reducing poverty. This study is an attempt to contribute in to the debate on the impact of microfinance on household incomes. We use a pooled data set...