Development is a human problem and is aimed at changing man and his economic, social, ecological environment. Throughout history, man has acquired new knowledge to shape his future. As human needs multiplied and became more complex, science and technology – processes of systematic inquiry for...

A dynamic bio-economic model is used to show that, without technological and policy intervention, soil nutrient balances, income and nutrition could not be substantially or sustainably improved in a highland area of Ethiopia. Although cash incomes could rise from a very low base by more than 50%...

The TOP-MARD project is a 3-year, 11 country, project supported by the EU’s Framework 6 Programme for Research and Technology Development1. The aim of the research project was to build a policy model of multifunctional agriculture and rural development which would link the multiple functions...

The Multi-purpose Tree (MPT) species have the ability to fit into the farming systems of the East African region where low agricultural productivity, widespread land degradation and hence a diminishing capacity to support the growing human and livestock population are major problems. GIS has...

Empirical studies on agricultural technology adoption generally divide a population into adopters and nonadopters, and analyse the reasons for adoption or nonadoption at a point in time. In reality, technology adoption is not a one-off static decision, rather it involves a dynamic process in...

Cattle rearing in humid west Africa was nearly impossible in the past owing to the prevalence of trypanosomiasis, a disease caused by the tsetse fly. However, in recent times, with population pressure, jungle clearance, crop cultivation and tsetse control measures, the challenge has been...

One of the critical success factors for the future development of the agri-food sector is the increased integration of enterprises and other stakeholders in horizontal and vertical ‘communities’. Tracking and tracing, agreements on quality policy, improvements in logistics, dissemination of...

We analyse the impacts of the CAP reforms on the technical efficiency of the crop farms. We use an output distance function and an inefficiency effects model which incorporates the influences of exogenous variables on farm efficiency. We formulate policy variables (e.g. the CAP subsidies) and...

While farmers have been recognised as one of the key sources of innovation, many studies on agricultural innovations continue to consider farmers as adopters of externally-driven innovations only. Based on cross-sectional data from 409 farm households, this study, in contrast, analyses the...