Despite many decades of experimentation with supplier-led approaches to credit in many developing countries, limited success has been achieved in terms of improving access to credit for smallholder farmers. In the case of Mozambique, previous attempts by government to improve access to credit...

Smallholder farmers in developing countries need to improve their position in food value chains in order to improve their margins and as a strategy for coping with agricultural food price volatility through innovations within the chains. Value chain mappings and gross margin analysis were...

Smallholder farmer access to agricultural finance has been a major constraint to agricultural commercialization in developing countries. The ICT revolution in Africa has however brought an opportunity to ease this constraint. The mobile phone-based banking services that started in Kenya urban...

The paper analyses the factors that affect smallholder farmers choice of soil fertility management options in Malawi using a two-stage maximum likelihood estimation procedure. Using results from the Double-Hurdle model, the paper estimates the probabilities and intensities of fertilizer...

Many African countries have moved into the production of non-traditional agricultural products to diversify their exports and increase foreign currency earnings. Accessing developed country markets requires meeting food safety standards brought about by several demand and supply side factors....

Production of horticultural products for export is a major cash cropping practice in Kenya which is ranked third in terms of foreign exchange earnings after tourism and tea. Available evidence in the debate of the impact of cash cropping systems on food security however shows mixed results....

Maize is an important staple crop in Africa but is severely affected by frequent droughts leading to crop failure. Drought tolerant maize (DTM) has been recognised as one of the most important innovations necessary for maize farmers to be able to adapt to climate change and is, therefore,...

The prevalence of contract farming in the cotton industry of Zimbabwe implies that it has become the dominant marketing system. Even the “free” (independently produced) cotton is eventually sold to the contracting cotton merchants owing to enacted regulations which compel all prospective...