In poor countries the agricultural sector is essential to growth, poverty reduction, and food security. In Sub- Saharan Africa, the agricultural sector employs 65 percent of the labor force and generates 32 per cent of GDP growth (Christian Friis Bach and all, 2008).More than half of rural...

This article assesses the relative importance of risk preferences and rainfall availability on households’ decision to engage in off-farm employment. Devoting time for off-farm activities, while it helps households earn additional incomes, involves a number of uncertainties. Unique panel data...

The research question is to assess the contribution of migration to rural livelihoods through remittances to the migration sending rural households. The paper presents empirical findings from a household survey conducted in the Limpopo Province of South Africa in 1999/2000.The survey covering...

The theme of this conference provides an ideal opportunity to take this argument and the case I made for cross disciplinarity, a bit further. Last year I have argued that agricultural economists need to utilise the strengths of sociology, anthropology and political analysis in order to be better...

The institutional economic appraisal conducted in this paper confirms that equity schemes are subject to institutional incompleteness as proposed in ICT. The incompleteness stem from the lack of verifiability related to social capital, embeddedness, governance and micro performance. In addition,...

This study is based on data collected from 141 family-type farms in the Yatenga province in Burkina Faso. A probit approach is used to analyze the effect of perception of land degradation and other factors on the adoption of zaï and stone rows. The results of the estimation show that the...

We assess the level and determinants of relative technical efficiency of maize-based smallholder farmers using a translog stochastic frontier (TL) model and a symmetric generalized Barnett production function (SGB), both of which are tested for economic regularity conditions. In addition, we...

This paper examines the impact of marketing cooperatives on smallholder commercialization of cereals using detailed household data in rural Ethiopia. We use the strong government role in promoting the establishment of cooperatives to justify the use of propensity score matching in order to...

The traditional way of information dissemination has been through people; the modern way is through the electronic media – improved information and communication technologies (ICTs). For effectiveness, modern ICTs should help women to improve on their income generating capacity. Issues of level...

Rice sector contributes significantly to secure households with regard to their food needs but also to the creation of employments and income generation. The sector development and its evolution over the years have been marked by various policies and approaches. These development stages of the...