This paper assesses the feasibility of the maize storage structures used in Kenya. Maize is the most important staple crop, but produced seasonally, and consumed continuously at farm level, hence the need for on-farm storage. However, heavy post harvest losses occur mainly during harvesting and...

The instability of world prices of traditional cash crops led to the promotion of nontraditional crops. Among the latter, vegetable farming is positioned as strategic cropping for meeting urban and periurban food consumption in most West African countries. Seasonality differences between coastal...

In many Western countries and elsewhere, agriculture commodity exchanges have been in existence for centuries. However, Africa did not follow the same route for various reasons. It was only in the mid-1990’s that farmers and stakeholders again started to ask, how should we go about to market...

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...

Information asymmetry has traditionally constrained smallholder farmers’ access to markets. Past studies indicate that it inhibits adoption of modern technologies that have the capacity to enhance productivity of smallholder farms. Hence, farm productivity and agricultural transformation has...

The maize industry in South Africa has a long history of government intervention, fuelled by the two Marketing Acts (of 1937 and 1968). After the introduction of the Marketing of Agricultural Products Act (Act 47 of 1996), farmers were exposed to international maize prices, i.e. to the forces of...

Developing countries have been promoting initiatives that aim at reducing information asymmetry among market players especially smallholder farmers. Using co-integration error correction models, the study assessed effectiveness of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) based...

The efficiency with which farmers use available resources is very important in agricultural production. This study examines the resource use efficiency of cassava-based mixed crop farmers in Ogun and Oyo States, Nigeria. Cross-sectional data were collected from 265 cassava-based farmers (150 in...

Credit constraint occurs when a farmer cannot increase expenditure on inputs in order to maximize profit due to lack of farm credit or high cost of credit. Farming households are confronted with credit constraint that results in low crop output and profit. Using a non-parametric measure of...

Golden Rice has been genetically engineered to produce beta-carotene in the endosperm of the grain. It could improve the vitamin A status of deficient food consumers, especially women and children in the developing world. This paper analyses the potential impacts in a Philippine context. Since...