Download or read book African Farmers Value Chains and Agricultural Development written by Alan de Brauw and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a thorough introduction to and examination of agricultural value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, the authors introduce the economic theory of agri-food value chains and value chain governance, focusing on domestic and regional trade in (and consumption of) food crops in a low-income country context. In addition to mainstream and heterodox thinking about value chain development, the book pays attention to political economy considerations. The book also reviews the empirical evidence on value chain development and performance in Africa. It adopts multiple lenses to examine agricultural value chains, zooming out from the micro level (e.g., relational contracting in a context of market imperfections) to the meso level (e.g., distributional implications of various value chain interventions, inclusion of specific social groups) and the macro level (underlying income, population and urbanization trends, volumes and prices, etc.).Furthermore, this book places value chain development in the context of a process the authors refer to as structural transformation 2.0, which refers to a process where production factors (labor, land and capital) move from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity agriculture. Finally, throughout the book the authors interpret the evidence in light of three important debates: (i) how competitive are rural factor and product markets, and what does this imply for distribution and innovation? (ii) what role do foreign investment and factor proportions play in the development of agri-food value chains in Africa? (iii) what complementary government policies can help facilitate a process of agricultural value chain transformation, towards high-productive activities and enhancing the capacity of value chains to generate employment opportunities and food security for a growing population.
Download or read book Agricultural Development in China and Africa written by Xiaoyun Li and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development How much can Africa learn from Asia written by Diao, Xinshen, ed. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.
Download or read book Emerging Development of Agriculture in East Africa written by Takashi Yamano and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-04-28 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emerging Development of Agriculture in East Africa offers case studies that find promise in many new innovations. Farmers in Uganda have quickly learned the management of NERICA rice (a new upland rice variety), which is being disseminated in a limited way in the region. Also in Uganda, farmers living in more remote areas have improved access to markets due to the expansion of mobile phones. In Kenya, improved milk marketing systems have increased efficiency and led to tangible increases in the adoption of dairy production technologies. And the adoption of intensive dairy production systems in Kenya and Uganda are providing significant amounts of manure and positively impacting yields of maize and banana.
Download or read book Conservation Agriculture in Africa written by Saidi Mkomwa and published by CABI. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tillage agriculture has led to widespread soil and ecosystem degradation globally, and more particularly in the developing regions. This is especially so in Africa where traditional agricultural practices have become unsustainable due to severe exploitation of natural resources with negative impacts on the environment and food system. In addition, agricultural land use in Africa today faces major challenges including increased costs, climate change and a need to transform to more sustainable production intensification systems. Conservation Agriculture has emerged as a major alternative sustainable climate smart agriculture approach in Africa and has spread to many African countries in the past decade as more development and research, including in sustainable mechanization, has enabled its extension and uptake. It is key to transforming Africa's agriculture and food system given its ability to restore soil health, biodiversity and productivity of millions of smallholder farms as well as larger-scale farms. This book is aimed at all agricultural stakeholders in the public, private and civil sectors in Africa engaged in supporting the transformation of conventional tillage agriculture to Conservation Agriculture. The book will be of interest to: researchers, academics, students, development stakeholders, public and private sector investors and policy makers as well as institutional libraries across the world.
Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Agricultural and Rural Development in Africa written by Evans S. Osabuohien and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-06 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook examines agricultural and rural development in Africa from theoretical, empirical and policy stand points. It discusses the challenges of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and assesses how poverty and other development concerns can be addressed in rural communities through agricultural transformation. Additionally, the handbook extends the Post-2015 Development Agenda and it emphasizes the importance of the agricultural sector as it is closely related to the issues of food sustainability, poverty reduction, and employment creation. The contributors suggest multiple evidence-based policies to develop the rural areas through the transformation of the agricultural sector which can significantly benefit the African continent.
Download or read book African Agricultural Reforms written by M. Ataman Aksoy and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-06-25 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1990s, SSA countries initiated agricultural policy reforms to increase producer incentives and increase growth. Yet, agricultural growth rates after the reforms have been uneven. This has been attributed to lack of supporting infrastructure or the inability to respond to incentives by the smallholders. Based on ten studies, this volume provides a different framework to interpret the outcomes. First, it attributes the success of the reforms to the degree of consensus around the reform programs, which in turn, creates the institutions that can accommodate unexpected shocks. It differentiates between short run growth accelerations and sustained growth episodes. Second, it analyzes the impact of international prices which increased during the early 1990 and collapsed around 2000. Finally, it links the support institutions that evolved after the reforms back to the political economy of the stakeholders and their interests. Aksoy and Anil develop a political economy framework by bringing together the issues of consensus over the distribution of rents, role of unexpected changes, and the capabilities of institutions in handling these changes. Onal tests the of supply responses while Onal and Aksoy analyze international commodity prices and their transmission to the producers. Baffes analyzes impact of the adoption of cotton biotechnology in India and China, and the failure of SSA to also adopt. Baffes and Onal undertake a comparative study of coffee sectors in Uganda, and Vietnam which faced similar shocks. Five case studies cover cashew in Mozambique (Aksoy and Yagci), coffee and tea in Kenya (Mitchell), cashew in Tanzania (Mitchell and Baregu), tobacco in Tanzania (Mitchell and Baregu), and cotton in Zambia (Yagci and Aksoy). Results show that Agricultural policy reforms generated an immediate positive supply response. Real producer prices increased along with output. In unsuccessful cases where the short run supply response petered out, political and social consensus on the reforms was weak, and the ability to redistribute income after a negative shock was not built into the new arrangements. These products had been a major instrument for rent distribution before the reforms. The agencies could not be reformed to give greater non price support. In successful cases, there was greater consensus on the reforms program. The product was not a major rent distribution instrument and the producers were allied with the governments. Lower conflict also led to greater non price support. There was enough political and economic space for the parties to find solutions in case of shocks.
Download or read book Successes in African Agriculture written by Haggblade, Steven and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SubSaharan Africa is one of the poorest regions of the world. Because most Africans work in agriculture, escaping such dire poverty depends on increased agricultural productivity to raise rural incomes, lower food prices, and stimulate growth in other economic sectors. Per capita agricultural production in subSaharan Africa has fallen, however, for much of the past halfcentury. Successes in African Agriculture investigates how to reverse this decline. Instead of cataloging failures, as many past studies have done, this book identifies episodes of successful agricultural growth in Africa and identifies processes, practices, and policies for accelerated growth in the future. The individual studies follow developments in, among other areas, the farming of maize in East and Southern Africa, cassava across the middle belt of Africa, cotton in West Africa, horticulture in Kenya, and dairying in East Africa. Drawing on these case studies and on consultations with agricultural specialists and politicians from across subSaharan Africa -- undertaken in collaboration with the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development -- the contributors identify two key determinants of positive agricultural performance: agricultural research to provide more productive and sustainable technologies to farmers and a policy framework that fosters market incentives for increasing production. The contributors discuss how the public and private sectors can best coordinate the convergence of both factors. Given current concerns about global food security, this book provides timely and important resources to policymakers and development specialists concerned with reversing the negative trends in food insecurity and poverty in Africa.
Download or read book Public Expenditures for Agricultural and Rural Development in Africa written by Tewodaj Mogues and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whereas there is plenty of work looking at macroeconomic effect of public spending on growth and poverty in Africa as well as studies of the impact of spending or investment in one economic sector on outcomes in that sector or on broader welfare measures, this book fills a much needed gap in the research looking how the composition of public spending affects key development outcomes in the region. The book brings together recent analysis on the trends in, and returns to, public spending for agricultural growth and rural development in Africa. Case studies of selected African countries provide insights on the contributions of different types of public expenditures for poverty, growth and welfare outcomes, as well as insights into the constraints in gaining development mileage from investments in the agricultural sector.
Download or read book Insect and Hydroponic Farming in Africa written by Dorte Verner and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interestingly, some relief from today's woes may come from ancient human practices. While current agri-food production models rely on abundant supplies of water, energy, and arable land and generate significant greenhouse gas emissions in addition to forest and biodiversity loss, past practices point toward more affordable and sustainable paths. Different forms of insect farming and soilless crop farming, or hydroponics, have existed for centuries. In this report the authors make a persuasive case that frontier agriculture, particularly insect and hydroponic farming, can complement conventional agriculture. Both technologies reuse society's agricultural and organic industrial waste to produce nutritious food and animal feed without continuing to deplete the planet's land and water resources, thereby converting the world's wasteful linear food economy into a sustainable, circular food economy. As the report shows, insect and hydroponic farming can create jobs, diversify livelihoods, improve nutrition, and provide many other benefits in African and fragile, conflict-affected countries. Together with other investments in climate-smart agriculture, such as trees on farms, alternate wetting and drying rice systems, conservation agriculture, and sustainable livestock, these technologies are part of a promising menu of solutions that can help countries move their land, food, water, and agriculture systems toward greater sustainability and reduced emissions. This is a key consideration as the World Bank renews its commitment to support countries' climate action plans. This book is the Bank's first attempt to look at insect and hydroponic farming as possible solutions to the world's climate and food and nutrition security crisis and may represent a new chapter in the Bank's evolving efforts to help feed and sustain the planet.
Download or read book World Development Report 2008 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007-10-15 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the 'World Development Report'.
Download or read book Farmer Innovation in Africa written by Chris Reij and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-10 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Africa's major untapped resources is the creativity of its farmers. This book presents a series of clear and detailed studies that demonstrate how small-scale farmers, both men and women, experiment and innovate in order to improve their livelihoods, despite the adverse conditions and lack of appropriate external support with which they have to contend. The studies are based on fieldwork in a wide variety of farming systems throughout Africa, and have been written primarily by African researchers and extension specialists. Numerous lively examples show how a participatory approach to agricultural research and development that builds on local knowledge and innovation can stimulate the creativity of all involved - not only the farmers. This approach, which recognizes the farmers' capacity to innovate as the crucial component of success, provides a much-needed alternative to the conventional 'transfer of technology' paradigm. This book is a rich source of case studies and analyses of how agricultural research and development policy can be changed. It presents evidence of the resilience and resolution of rural communities in Africa and will be an inspiration for development workers, researchers and policy-makers, as well as for students and teachers of agriculture, environment and sustainable development.
Download or read book Africa s Green Revolution written by William G. Moseley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the dominant neoliberal agenda for agricultural development and hunger alleviation in Africa. The text reviews the history of African agricultural and food security policy in the post-colonial period, across a range of geographical contexts, in order to contextualise the productionist approach embedded in the much heralded New Green Revolution for Africa. This strategy, supported by a range of international agencies, promotes the use of hybrid seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides to boost crop production. This approach is underpinned by a new and unprecedented level of public–private partnerships as donors actively work to promote the private sector and build links between African farmers, input suppliers, agro-dealers, agro-processors, and retailers. On the consumer end, increased supermarket penetration into poorer neighbourhoods is proffered as a solution to urban food insecurity. The chapters in this volume complicate understandings of this new approach and raise serious questions about its effectiveness as a strategy for increasing food production and alleviating poverty across the continent. This book is based on a special issue of African Geographical Review.
Download or read book Food Security in Africa and Asia written by Henk Bakker and published by CABI. This book was released on 2011 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authored by an experienced agriculturalist with substantial field experience in developing countries, this book adds to the literature on food security by proposing practical measures for improving plant-based food security in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Covering issues affecting food security, this book discusses ways of measuring farmers' resources, strategies for action, and an analysis of the challenges and problems faced, concluding with a discussion of ways in which stakeholders could work better together. This title is suitable for policy makers, international development agencies, NGO.
Download or read book Agricultural Research in Africa written by Lynam, John and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book—prepared by Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI), which is led by IFPRI—offers a comprehensive perspective on the evolution, current status, and future goals of agricultural research and development in Africa, including analyses of the complex underlying issues and challenges involved, as well as insights into how they might be overcome. Agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara is at a prospective tipping point. Growth has accelerated in the past decade, but is unsustainable given increasing use of finite resources. The yield gap in African agriculture is significant, and scenarios on feeding the world’s population into the future highlight the need for Africa to expand its agricultural production. Agricultural Research in Africa: Investing in Future Harvests discusses the need to shift to a growth path based on increased productivity—as in the rest of the developing world— which is essential if Africa is to increase rural incomes and compete in both domestic and international markets. Such a shift ultimately requires building on evolving improvements that collectively translate to deepening rural innovation capacity.
Download or read book Africa s Gene Revolution written by Matthew A. Schnurr and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As development donors invest hundreds of millions of dollars into improved crops designed to alleviate poverty and hunger, Africa has emerged as the final frontier in the global debate over agricultural biotechnology. The first data-driven assessment of the ecological, social, and political factors that shape our understanding of genetic modification, Africa's Gene Revolution surveys twenty years of efforts to use genomics-based breeding to enhance yields and livelihoods for African farmers. Matthew Schnurr considers the full range of biotechnologies currently in commercial use and those in development - including hybrids, marker-assisted breeding, tissue culture, and genetic engineering. Drawing on interviews with biotechnology experts alongside research conducted with more than two hundred farmers across eastern, western, and southern Africa, Schnurr reveals a profound incongruity between the optimistic rhetoric that accompanies genetic modification technology and the realities of the smallholder farmers who are its intended beneficiaries. Through the lens of political ecology, this book demonstrates that the current emphasis on improved seeds discounts the geographic, social, ecological, and economic contexts in which the producers of these crops operate. Bringing the voices of farmers to the foreground of this polarizing debate, Africa's Gene Revolution contends that meaningful change will come from a reconfiguration not only of the plant's genome, but of the entire agricultural system.
Download or read book Transforming Agriculture in Southern Africa written by Richard A. Sikora and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a synthesis of the key issues and challenges facing agriculture and food production in Southern Africa. Southern Africa is facing numerous challenges from diverse issues such as agricultural transformations, growing populations, urbanization and climate change. These challenges place great pressure on food security, agriculture, water availability and other natural resources, as well as impacting biodiversity. Drawing on case studies from Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the chapters in this book consider these challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering key areas in constraints to production, the most important building blocks of good farming practices, and established and emerging technologies. This book will be a valuable support for informing new policies and processes aimed at improving food production and security and developing sustainable agriculture in Southern Africa. This informative volume will be key reading for those interested in agricultural science, African studies, rural studies, development studies and sustainability. It will also be a valuable resource for policymakers, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and agricultural practitioners. This title has been made available as Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CCBY-NC-ND) license and can be accessed here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429401701
