After years of neglect, there is a renewed interest in agricultural mechanization in Africa. Since government initiatives to promote mechanization are confronted with major governance challenges, private-sector initiatives may offer a promising alternative. However, given limited scientific studies on such private-sector options such approaches are often viewed skeptically. One concern is that multi-national agribusiness companies take advantage of smallholder farmers. Another concern is that mechanization causes rural unemployment. To shed light on these concerns, this paper analyzes an initiative of the agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere to promote smallholder mechanization in Zambia through a contractor model. The analysis focuses on the impact of this initiative on farmers who receive tractor services using Propensity Score Matching. The results indicate that farmers can almost double their income by cultivating a much larger share of their land
While livestock constitute a strategic sector to reduce poverty and enhance growth in developing countries, decision makers often lack data reflecting the diversity of livestock functions and systems. The authors therefore mobilised the Livestock Sector Investment Policy Toolkit to assess the...
LenCD has prepared a joint statement on results and capacity development (presented in this publication), which stresses that meaningful, sustainable results are premised on proper investments in capacity development and that these results materialize at different levels and at different...
Ce document examine les approches suivies actuellement en ce qui concerne le renforcement des capacités commerciales dans les pays africains. Ce but est de:
Identifier des mécanismes permettant de promouvoir un processus de formulation de la politique commerciale de type participatif et...
Zimbabwe has a pluralistic agricultural extension system. In addition to the public extension service, donors contract private service providers to deliver extension services in specific project areas. This study assesses the impact of an outsourced extension service on rural households...
Literature is scanty on how public agricultural investments can help reducing the impact of future challenges such as climate change and population pressure on national economies. The objective of this study is to assess the medium and long-term effects of...