The latest turmoil of production and price volatility in the global food sector has put agriculture back to the top of the development agenda. Population growth, changing consumer preferences, bioenergy demand and climate change are some of the huge challenges for agricultural production today and in the future. In the last decades, productivity has been constantly improved through the introduction of improved crop varieties and the greater use of mechanization, irrigation, chemical fertilizer and pesticides.
While several studies have shown that genetically modified Bt cotton can benefit smallholder farmers economically, the sustainability of these effects is still unclear and debated controversially between biotechnology proponents and critics. We use unique panel data of 533 cotton farmers, collected in India between 2002 and 2008, to analyze Bt impacts on cotton yield, profit, and household living standards. Results from fixed effects models show that the adoption of Bt cotton is associated with a net yield gain of 24% and a profit increase of 50%.
Classical innovation adoption models implicitly assume homogenous information flow across farmers, which is often not realistic. As a result, selection bias in adoption parameters may occur. We focus on tissue culture (TC) banana technology that was introduced in Kenya more than 10 years ago. Up till now, adoption rates have remained relatively low.
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 times, along countries’ development trajectory. To provide evidence in support of this statement, LenCD launched a call for submission of stories.
China is at a critical stage of transformation from traditional to modern agriculture and its agriculture and rural economic sector faces severe challenges of shortage of natural resources, environmental degradation, agricultural disasters, sluggish income growth of farmers and widening disparity between urban and rural areas. The fundamental solution to these problems lies with the advancement of agricultural science and technology.
The present manual provides a reference framework for the strategic and operational work in the field of capacity development. It is addressed to all staff of ADC in Austria as well as in the coordination offices, to non-governmental and implementing organisations, to stakeholders in partner countries, other donors and members of the public interested in development policy.
The aim of this study was to explore the interactions that exist among agricultural stakeholders in the southwestern highlands of Uganda as a way of identifying opportunities and gaps for operation of Innovation Platforms (IPs) under the proof of concept of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) research project.
The Africa Leadership Training and Capacity Building Program (Africa Lead), aims to support the capacity building program of the US Government’s Feed the Future Initiative, which aligns US Government assistance with Africa-owned agriculture development plans that are, in turn, aligned with the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program.
The Africa Leadership Training and Capacity Building Program (Africa Lead), aims to support the capacity building program of the US Government’s Feed the Future Initiative, which aligns US Government assistance with Africa-owned agriculture development plans that are, in turn, aligned with the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP).
This paper is a case study of capacity strengthening activities carried out at the Agricultural Research Corporation in Sudan between July 2008 and March 2011. These activities were undertaken through the project ‘Strengthening Capacity for Agricultural Research and Development (SCARDA)’ which was implemented in the East and Central Africa region by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa.