Following the food price crisis in 2008, African governments implemented policies aiming at crowding in investment in rice value chain upgrading to help domestic rice compete with imports. This study assess the state of rice value chain upgrading in West Africa by reviewing evidence on rice millers’ investment in semi-industrial and industrial milling technologies, contract farming and vertical integration during the post-crisis period 2009–2019. We find that upgrading is more dynamic in countries with high rice production and import bills and limited comparative advantage in demand.
In the context of an exponential rise in access to information in the last two decades, this special issue explores when and how information might be harnessed to improve governance and public service delivery in rural areas. Information is a critical component of government and citizens’ decision-making; therefore, improvements in its availability and reliability stand to benefit many dimensions of governance, including service delivery.
Rice is one of the most important food crops in sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change, variability, and economic globalization threatens to disrupt rice value chains across the subcontinent, undermining their important role in economic development, food security, and poverty reduction. This paper maps existing research on the vulnerability of rice value chains, synthesizes the evidence and the risks posed by climate change and economic globalization, and discusses agriculture and rural development policies and their relevance for the vulnerability of rice value chains in sub-Saharan Africa.
This paper was synthesized from several scholarly literature and aimed at providing up-to-date information on climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, policies and institutional mechanisms that each agriculture subsector had put in place in dealing with climate change and its related issues in West Africa. For each subsector (crop, fishery and livestock), the current status, climate change impacts, mitigation and adaption strategies have been analyzed
This study aimed to identify the perceptions of farmer community towards the electronic media and relationship between different demographic characteristics of respondents with the use of electronic communication of TV and radio, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), a province of Pakistan. Random sampling technique was used for selecting 183 respondents. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Chi-square
This study is designed to assess the factors that affect smallholder rice farmer’s participation in market. In addition it also examines the effect of commercialization on the welfare of smallholder farmers. The method of Heckman two-stage model is used to obtain the desired objectives. Random sampling technique is used to collect data from 249 smallholder farmers.
The rural production in Brazil has experienced a significant competitive impact with the stabilization of the economy promoted by the Real Plan in 1994. Indeed, the Brazilian agriculture has achieved efficiency gains in terms of technology, economies of scale and general modernization of the activity in the field. In this context, the professional management of rural production evolved. However, the governance process does not evolve in the same dimension, and the “governance risk” is still poorly addressed in the rural environment, which often limits the potential of operations.
Building on previous research, the purpose of this study was to describe the needs of the extension agents, in the Riyadh Region of Saudi Arabia, for training on Organic Agriculture (OA). This knowledge will be used to develop organic educational programs for extension agents. The specific objectives were to:
This study identifies systemic problems in the New Zealand Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) in relation to the AIS capacity to enact a co-innovation approach, in which all relevant actors in the agricultural sector contribute to combined technological, social and institutional change. Systemic problems are factors that negatively influence the direction and speed of co-innovation and impede the development and functioning of innovation systems. The contribution in the paper is twofold.
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 alternative agricultural research and development investment scenarios on male and female employment in 14 African countries. The authors first estimate the effects of agricultural investment scenarios on the overall GDP growth of a given country using partial and general equilibrium models.