Summary This paper uses small-scale farm survey data from five countries of eastern and southern Africa to highlight four under-appreciated issues: (i) how land distribution patterns constrain the potential of crop technology and input intensification to enable many small farms to escape from...

Research on household food grain sales behavior in developing countries has tended to focus on the roles of market access and prices to explain why many rural households do not sell staple crops, though recent literature suggests that low household asset endowments may also be key constraints....

This paper draws upon development economics theory, demographic projections, and empirical evidence toconsider the likely consequences of the HIV/AIDS pandemic for the agricultural sector of the hardest-hitcountries of Eastern and Southern Africa. We identify four processes that have been...

Small-scale assemblers are both the most vilified and least understood actors in food value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on data from Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, this article explores how maize assemblers influence the market access conditions of small-scale farmers. Assembly...

It is widely perceived that African farmers are under-utilizing inorganic fertilizer. However, very little long-term evidence from farmers’ fields, accounting for variations in agro-ecological conditions, has been assembled to back this claim or determine the conditions under which it is true....