This study examines the widely held view that earnings from rural wage employment can help farm households overcome constraints on farm investments. It uses a panel dataset of 359 randomly selected farm households from three resettlement areas in Zimbabwe over the period 1996/97 to 1998/99. It...

This paper studies the implications of farm–non-farm population shifts for household poverty outcomes in Cameroon. It uses total real expenditure per adult equivalent as the wellbeing indicator, as well as the 1996, 2001 and 2007 Cameroon household consumption surveys carried out by the...

This paper evaluates the impact of food prices inflation on consumption expenditure and poverty status using panel data of 1,078 rural households collected in 2004 and 2009 from four regional states in Ethiopia. The study revealed that the incidence of poverty was 37% in 2004 and increased to...

This paper critically reviews the effects of the global food and financial crises on developing countries, with specific focus on Africa. While assessments of the intertwined effects of the crises have often focused on short-term transitory causal factors, this paper takes the view that the...

Rural households in sub-Saharan Africa face many risks and are therefore often vulnerable to poverty. Income diversification has been proposed as a potentially effective strategy to mitigate their risks. This paper explores how portfolio decisions of fishery-dependent households in Cameroon...

In a number of sub-Saharan African countries, farm input subsidies are currently implemented in order to stimulate farm-level fertiliser application, enhance food security, improve household income and alleviate poverty. In this paper, a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and the Foster,...

This study provides empirical evidence on the effects of production risk on smallholder farmers’ adoption of farm technology, using plot-level data collected from two semi-arid districts in Kenya, Machakos and Taita Taveta. Using Mundlak’s approach (1978), the study found that...

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....

The study examines the determinants of improved agricultural technologies adoption in Uganda, using a nationally representative panel data set of 1,600 farming households, collected by the Ugandan Bureau of Statistics in 2005/6 and 2009/10. Two agricultural technologies—improved seeds and...

Agriculture has multiple functions to fulfill for the development of the sub-Saharan Africa countries. It should be a source of growth and an instrument for poverty reduction and contribute to the provision of environmental services. Yet it is still used far below its potential, with gains in...