Agricultural intensification in West Africa is in its early stages and several hypotheses have been postulated about its evolution and possible pathways. In addition, farm efficiency may vary across farms and other socio-economic domains, opening opportunities to improve efficiency and...

Empirical studies on agricultural technology adoption generally divide a population into adopters and nonadopters, and analyse the reasons for adoption or nonadoption at a point in time. In reality, technology adoption is not a one-off static decision, rather it involves a dynamic process in...

The experience with Vertisols technology generation, diffusion and adoption process in case study areas indicate that either a full package of a technology may be adopted or some components of a package may be adopted depending on farmer knowledge, needs and resource conditions. Gradually...

Considering leguminous trees Leucauena and Gliricidia as good sources of quality food, on-station and on-farm studies were conducted in the humid zone of West Africa to establish animal responses to levels, times and forms of browse supplementation, to develop alternative feeding strategies for...

Development is a human problem and is aimed at changing man and his economic, social, ecological environment. Throughout history, man has acquired new knowledge to shape his future. As human needs multiplied and became more complex, science and technology – processes of systematic inquiry for...

Poverty, low crop and animal productivity and large-scale resource degradation are major problems in the agriculture sector in the East African highlands. Among others, integration of forage legumes in cereal based cropping systems has been proposed as a promising strategy to improve the...

Farmer participatory tillage trials were conducted in a highland Vertisol area of Ethiopia during the 1999 and 2000 cropping seasons. This participatory initiative clearly demonstrated that incorporating farmers’ knowledge, ideas and preferences could improve the wheat production package. A...

Cattle rearing in humid west Africa was nearly impossible in the past owing to the prevalence of trypanosomiasis, a disease caused by the tsetse fly. However, in recent times, with population pressure, jungle clearance, crop cultivation and tsetse control measures, the challenge has been...