This paper explores how farm productivity affects poverty, and how various factor market constraints affect farm productivity. The empirical analysis draws on representative surveys of farm households in Kilimanjaro and Ruvuma, two cash crop growing regions in Tanzania. We find that poorer...

The closely interlinked food, fuel and financial crises pose a significant new challenge to the global effort to reduce poverty. In short run, the oil-biofuels nexus was clearly the driving force behind the surge in food prices, but export restrictions and panic purchases turned a tightened...

This paper analyzes the sources of rural non-farm sector growth in the Philippines, which has become the main driver of rural poverty reduction. We find that agricultural growth has significantly positive effects on service sector growth (with elasticity of about 0.20) but little effects on...

In Rwanda for the past decade, rural households have lived with civil unrest and genocide, changing land laws, large population flows both into and out of the country, and climatic threats with droughts and floods. The illness and untimely death of prime age adults from a number of health...

This paper demonstrates that income survey data can be very informative in explaining the variation across households in the incidence and severity of absolute poverty using a rural household income data set for Mozambique. Results from regression analysis of the sources of variation are used to...

Livestock farming is an important facet of agriculture and livelihood in South Africa. It forms the essence of rural agriculture contributing food, socio-economic stability, employment and income. After the liberalization of the agricultural sector and phasing out of past protection mechanisms...

We assess long-run patterns of global agricultural productivity growth in developing countries between 1970 and 2005 and examine the relationship between investments in technology capital and productivity. To measure agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) we employ a Solow-type growth...

Using district- and regional-level public expenditure data and household-level production data, this paper estimates the agricultural productivity returns to different types of public expenditure across various agro-ecological zones of Ghana. The results reveal that provision of various public...

Agricultural productivity growth is widely seen as an essential instrument of poverty reduction, food security and broader economic growth. Paradoxically, however, the agricultural sector is often neglected by African governments in what is often termed ‘urban bias’. This paper explores what...

Agricultural multifunctionality is the recognition of the joint exercise of economic, environmental and social functions by this sector. In order to make this concept operative for the design of public policies, it is necessary to estimate the social demand for such functions. The main objective...