Although many countries have made significant progress in the last decade, poverty and malnutrition continue to be major problems in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Experts estimate that rising food prices have driven about 44 million people into poverty in developing countries since June 2010, as food...

This paper traces the trajectories of successful commercial smallholders operating under differing sets of market institutions. Analysis focuses on maize, cotton and horticulture, three widely marketed crops with strikingly different market institutions. Maize receives intensive government input...

Improved technologies are important in improving agricultural productivity and food security. The NuME project aims at improving food security among rural households through the dissemination of quality protein maize varieties. However, the project has yet conducted a gender analysis, which this...

In this paper we examine empirically the effect of Information and Communication Technologies on the adoption of improved rice varieties and its indirect effect on productivity with focus of the rural radio in Burkina Faso. The econometrics framework adopted is the Rubin Causal Model that has...

Smallholder agriculture is not achieving its pivotal role of attaining food security in developing countries like South Africa. In rural areas, smallholder farmer’s efficiencies have always been hindered mostly by some factors beyond their control such Agro-ecological factors. The challenge is...

Since the beginning of 1970’s, more than 40 improved maize varieties have been released and disseminated to maize potential areas in Ethiopia. Using cross-sectional survey data collected in 2011 from 39 districts in five Regional States, this paper examines smallholder farmers’ knowledge,...

A Tobit model censored at zero was selected to examine factors explaining differences in production efficiency amongst resettled farmers. Efficiency scores obtained from Data Envelop Analysis (DEA) were used as the dependent variable. From the factors inputted in the model, age of household...

Paper removed at the request of the authors. Please contact Dr. Yegbemey with inquiries.

Maize is a main staple food in Nigeria, high productivity and efficiency in its production are critical to food security and poverty alleviation in the country. Thus, this paper estimates cropping intensification, the levels of technical efficiency of 252 maize–based farming households in...