This paper establishes level of up-take of the business opportunities provided by the metal silos technology among the artisans who were trained on how to make metal silos. It also assesses the factors that determine the practice of the metal silo business among the trained artisans. A third of...

This paper analyses the impact of the intensity of improved maize varieties adoption on food security and poverty using data collected in 2010 from maize-legume farming systems in rural Tanzania. We used a continuous treatment approach using generalized propensity score matching and parametric...

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,...

Access by smallholder farmers to markets has traditionally been constrained by lack of market information. Yet progress in smallholder agriculture is inconceivable without greater market participation. The desire to strengthen farmer access to market has thus resulted in the emergence of many...

Paper accepted for presentation at the 27th Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE), Beijing China, August 16-22, 2009, (Ref 690)

Maize is the major food crop and an important cash crop in East Africa, but yields have not increased in the last years. Maize prices fluctuate heavily both over time, causing price insecurity which hampers investment decisions, and over space which, combined with limited knowledge of that...

Commissioned by the CGIAR Science Council and prepared as a Background Paper for the 2008 World Development Report of the World Bank.

Striga is an obligate parasitic weed that attacks cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa. In Western Kenya, it has been identified by farmers as their major pest problem in maize. A new technology, consisting of coating seed of imidazolinone resistant (IR) maize varieties with the imidazolinone...

This study analyses the impact of the liberalization on the intensification of maize production in Kenya. It first analyses the impact of liberalization on input and output prices, followed by an analysis of farmer practices comparing two major farmer surveys, from 1992 and 2002. The results...