Rising agricultural productivity in developing countries is crucial to ease the tension of increased population and haunting concern on food security. Nevertheless the soaring price of fertilizer and sluggish dissemination of improved seed varieties prohibit the poor to tap benefits from...

This paper assesses the implications of large-scale investments in biofuels for growth and income distribution. We find that biofuels investment enhances growth and poverty reduction despite some displacement of food crops by biofuels. Overall, the biofuel investment trajectory analyzed...

Even though it is clear that Substantial growth in inorganic fertilizer use is a prerequisite for sustained agricultural growth in Africa, fertilizer use is still one of the factors explaining lagging agricultural productivity growth in SSA. High transport costs and less policy support pose a...

We investigate the impacts of coffee and cotton production on land management and land degradation in Uganda, based on a survey of 851 households and soil measurements in six major agro-ecological zones, using matching and multivariate regression methods. The impacts of cash crop production vary...

Food systems in developing countries are undergoing a profound transformation characterized by the emergence and expansion of modern retailers and integrated supply chains. Appropriate policies are needed to guide this transformation, presupposing a good understanding of consumer preferences. We...

The mycotoxin fumonisin is associated with oesophageal cancer and birth defects. The Eastern Cape province of South Africa has high levels of fumonisin in maize and oesophageal cancer. This study measures the amounts of the mycotoxin fumonisin in the grain of Bt maize, commercial hybrids, and...

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 presents an ex ante analysis of the private and social profitability of the introduction of Bt cotton for a major cotton producing area of northern Mozambique. Cotton is especially relevant to rural poverty reduction because smallholders often have few alternative cash earning...

The Chinese government is moving towards market mechanisms to promote environmental sustainability. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a globally recognised label gaining ground within Non Timber Forest Product markets (NTFP). Standardization and replicability have become essential in order...

The pressure on land as required input in competing uses fuelled research on trade-offs in land use due to agricultural land expansion to meet food demand which is explicitly and implicitly treated in global land use modelling. Global land use studies rely on assessing the trade-offs by assuming...