This study is based on data collected from 141 family-type farms in the Yatenga province in Burkina Faso. A probit approach is used to analyze the effect of perception of land degradation and other factors on the adoption of zaï and stone rows. The results of the estimation show that the...

This report is a summary of emerging issues affecting African agriculture, recent experiences and policy proposals that can guide interventions in improving the sector’s productivity. Agriculture is at the centre of rural poverty reduction in Africa and urgent measures are needed to increase...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) underscore an overriding importance of human development for sustained economic, social, political and other development, and nutrition is the beginning of human development. Nutrition has, however, not been viewed as a development imperative in many...

Au Cameroun comme dans beaucoup d’autres pays en Afrique subsaharienne, les recherches sur le VIH/SIDA se sont confinées dans les zones urbaines et ignorant en quelque sorte les zones rurales. C’est ainsi que ses liens avec l’agriculture et le développement rural n’ont reçu que peu...

Striga is an indigenous parasitic weed that attacks cereals and other crops in Africa. In maize croplands alone, Striga infests over 2.3 million ha resulting in 1.6 million tons of grain loss worth US $383 million annually. An innovative approach to controlling the parasite was to induce...

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)...

The restructuring process of the food markets in South Africa is at an advanced stages of consolidation and the emergence dominance of few supermarket chains expanding into non-traditional areas, through franchise format stores and forecourt stores overtaking informal wet markets and green...

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...

The transition out of extreme poverty and hunger in agrarian economies requires an understanding of how new agricultural technologies are adopted by poor farmers. In Uganda, improved germplasm from the cassava breeding program has generated new varieties that are increasingly being grown by...

To improve the livelihood of the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) much attention has been paid to the development of new agricultural technologies. We hypothesize that farmers can also improve their livelihood through cooperation. Partial cooperation, in which knowledge is shared or bargaining...