Purpose Female smallholder farmers in low-income countries face barriers to accessing capital and commodity markets. While agricultural cooperatives provide services that contribute to the income and productivity of small-scale producers, evidence of cooperatives' social and economic empowerment...

Some recent research began to shift the focus of development efforts away from income and yield to more diverse concepts that consider people's intrinsic drivers and values, such as aspirations and personality traits. We aim to contribute to the literature by exploring the connections between...

Following the 2007–8 global food crisis, agricultural producers have invested in large tracts of land in developing countries. We investigate how the arrival of large-scale farms changes inter-personal trust and reciprocity, important components of social capital, in traditional villages. We...

Climate variability and poor distribution of rainfall often causes serious agricultural production losses and worsens food insecurity. Given that the direct effects of climate change and variability are transmitted through the agricultural sector, improving farm households capacities to adapt to...

Problem: That climate change and subsequent natural disasters resulting from it will affect the agricultural sector is not new to anyone familiar with the disaster literature. However, the exact magnitude of such impacts remains to be estimated. Methodology: Using empirical evidence based on a...

International aid is often analysed as if it was a homogeneous product exclusively distributed between a relatively small numbers of public agencies. In contrast, this paper contributes to thinking about aid as a quasi-market with many different suppliers, users, channels, products and brands....

Using the case of past and ongoing land tenure reforms in Mozambique, this paper aims at assessing the determinants of tenure security for households and the implications of such tenure security on their observed behavior in undertaking long-term land-related investments. An attempt is made to...

This study analyzes the impact of increasing population density in Kenya’s rural areas on smallholder behavior and welfare indicators. We first present evidence to explain how land constraints can be emerging within an overall context of apparent land under-utilization. Using data from five...

This study analyzes the implications of increasing population density in Kenya’s rural areas on smallholder production and commercialization. Using data from five panel surveys on 1,146 small-scale farms over the 1997-2010 period, we use econometric techniques to determine how increasing rural...

The recognition that innovation occurs in networks of heterogeneous actors and requires broad systemic support beyond knowledge brokering has resulted in a changing landscape of the intermediary domain in an increasingly market-driven agricultural sector in developing countries. This paper...

The recognition that innovation occurs in networks of heterogeneous actors and requires broad systemic support beyond knowledge brokering has resulted in a changing landscape of the intermediary domain in an increasingly market-driven agricultural sector in developing countries. This paper...

Agricultural commercialization has become the centerpiece of the sector development strategy in Uganda in recent years. Nevertheless the low market participation of most smallholders in the country remains a fact. We employ semi-parametric regression techniques to analyze the current state of...

In most sub-Saharan African economies, agriculture is the dominant sector and plays an essential role in rural and overall economic development. Paradoxically, sub-Saharan Africa is the sole region in the developing world where per capita food production has remained low for many years....

Agricultural commercialization has become the centerpiece of the sector development strategy in Uganda in recent years. Nevertheless the low market participation of most smallholders in the country remains a fact. We employ semi-parametric regression techniques to analyze the current state of...

Agricultural commercialization has become the centerpiece of the sector development strategy in Uganda in recent years. Nevertheless the low market participation of most smallholders in the country remains a fact. We employ semi-parametric regression techniques to analyze the current state of...

Household characteristics are commonly used to explain variation in smallholderefficiency levels. The underlying assumption is that differences in intended behaviorare well described by such variables, while there is no a priori reason that this is thecase. Moreover, heterogeneity in farmer...

The Aldeia Nova project aimed at demobilizing ex-combatants to remote areas and settling them in modern agricultural communities. Three years since the first settlers arrived at the Waku-Kungu valley, 600 families are using modern agricultural technology to produce milk, eggs and vegetables...

Household characteristics are commonly used to explain variation in smallholder efficiency levels. The underlying assumption is that differences in intended behavior are well described by such variables, while there is no a priori reason that this is the case. Moreover, heterogeneity in farmer...

This paper analyses Malawi’s smallholder agricultural efficiency, using a nationally representative sample survey of rural households undertaken by the National Statistical Office in 2004/2005. It aims to inform agricultural policy about the level and key determinants of inefficiency in...

This paper uses the sustainable livelihoods framework to explore the contribution of smallholder production to food security in some sub-Saharan African countries and relates it to the South African case. Noting that many of the world’s hungry are smallholder farmers, it is clear that...

Poverty is still a predominantly rural phenomenon. However, the context of rural poverty has been changing across the world, with high growth in some economies and stagnation in others. Furthermore, increased openness in many economies has affected the specific role of agricultural growth for...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to synthesize lessons from the agricultural value chain models and their associated financing mechanisms in China and India as to provide policy recommendations on how best to facilitate development of efficient and inclusive value chains....

We assess the level and determinants of relative technical efficiency of maize-based smallholder farmers using a translog stochastic frontier (TL) model and a symmetric generalized Barnett production function (SGB), both of which are tested for economic regularity conditions. In addition, we...

Smallholder Agriculture is key to livelihoods of many rural households in developing and transition economies. In Kenya, small farms account for over 75% of total agricultural production and nearly 50% of the marketed output. Despite favourable trends in global development drivers such as rising...

Sub-Saharan Africa is typically regarded as land abundant, and previous efforts to estimate the true extent of potentially available cropland (PAC) have largely affirmed this perception. Such efforts, however, have largely focused on production potential and have underemphasized economic...