Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is an important staple in Burkina Faso as well as many other countries in West Africa. Among the major cowpea pests affecting the crop are the legume pod borer (Maruca vitrata), flower thrips (Megalurothrips sjostedti), bruchids (Callosobruchus maculatus), and...

Natural resource management practices, such as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), have been proposed to tackle agricultural challenges such as decreasing productivity growth and environmental degradation. Yet, the benefits of system technologies for farmers are often debated. Impacts seem...

Increased attention directed towards evidence-based aid clearly dominates evaluation discussions within the development community. All development agencies, but particularly non-governmental organizations (NGO), struggle with the requirements for rigorous impact assessments of their...

This study examines the relationship between agricultural technology adoption and poverty with a focus on New Rice varieties for Africa (NERICA). The NERICAs are a group of rice varieties developed by the Africa Rice Centre during the 1990s, resulting from the inter-specific crosses between the...

Biofortification, or the genetic improvement of the nutritional quality of food crops, is a promising strategy to combat undernutrition, particularly among the rural poor in developing countries. However, traditional methods of impact assessment do not apply to biofortified crops as little or no...

With the rapidly changing economic environments and numerous challenges hindering smallholders’ adoption of externally developed technologies, it is often argued that farmers’ innovations may be essential in the livelihoods of rural farm households and need to be promoted. Yet a rigorous...

Climate change and increasing climate variability threaten the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), and some of the worst effects on human health and agriculture will be in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in vulnerable regions. The relationships between climate change and the...