2015 a été une année marquante pour l’avenir de la planète et donc pour l’avenir de chaque femme, chaque homme, chaque enfant, fille ou garçon, aux quatre coins du monde. Deux événements importants – le Sommet des Nations Unies sur le développement durable 2015 et la COP21, sur le développement et le changement climatique, ont donné lieu à des engagements concrets et sans précédent à l’échelle mondiale pour éradiquer la pauvreté d’ici à 2030 et promouvoir la protection de l’environnement.
Cette publication offre de nombreux exemples concrets détaillant différentes manières de réengager les jeunes dans le secteur agricole. Elle montre à quel point des programmes éducationnels sur mesure peuvent offrir aux jeunes les compétences et la perspicacité nécessaires pour se lancer en agriculture et adopter des méthodes de production respectueuses de l’environnement. Beaucoup des approches ou des initiatives décrites dans cette publication sont issues des jeunes eux-mêmes.
Many smallholder farmers in developing countries grow multiple crop species on their farms, maintaining de facto crop diversity. Rarely do agricultural development strategies consider this crop diversity as an entry point for fostering agricultural innovation. This paper presents a case study, from an agricultural research-for-development project in northern Ghana, which examines the relationship between crop diversity and self-consumption of food crops, and cash income from crops sold by smallholder farmers in the target areas.
The rise of new powers in development has generated much debate on the extent to which South–South Cooperation (SSC) constitutes a new paradigm of development more relevant to African needs or a disguise for a new form of imperialism. This paper critically examines the rise of Chinese and Brazilian technical and economic cooperation in African agriculture with two cases drawn from Ghana and Mozambique.
This paper introduces a practical e-learning system, identified as Knowledge Exchange E-learning System (abbr. KEES), for knowledge distribution in rural areas. Particularly, this paper is about providing a virtual teaching and learning environment for small holders in agriculture in those rural areas.
Governments in sub-Saharan Africa and their donors have made business investment a major policy goal, supported by a variety of incentives designed to support business investment in agriculture. However, little is known about the factors which influence agribusiness investment in Africa, and how effective these incentives have been. This paper examines the motivations of agribusiness investment, the effectiveness of government and donor policy incentives, and the relevance of these incentives for four different commercialisation pathways.
In the existing literature, the effects of contract farming on household welfare were examined with mixed results. Most studies looked at single contract types. This paper contributes to the literature by comparing two types of contracts – simple marketing contracts and resource- providing contracts – in the Ghanaian oil palm sector. We investigate the effects of both contracts on farm income, as well as spillovers on other household income sources. We use survey data collected with an innovative sampling design and a control function approach to address possible issues of endogeneity.
Smallholder farmers in developing countries often suffer from high risk and limited market access. Contract farming may improve the situation under certain conditions. Several studies analyzed effects of contracts on smallholder productivity and income with mixed results. Most existing studies focused on one particular contract scheme. Contract characteristics rarely differ within one scheme, so little is known about how different contract characteristics may influence the benefits for smallholders.
Ghana’s cocoa production belt also serves as the main forests repository of the country. Cocoa farm- ing is both a direct and indirect driver of deforesta- tion in Ghana (UNEP, 2008). This implies that critical interventions are needed to deal with deforestation emanating from cocoa production.
We examine the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights oninvestment and productivity in agriculture in Akwapim, Ghana. Weshow that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local politicalhierarchy have more secure tenure rights and that as a consequencethey invest more in land fertility and have substantially higher output.The intensity of investments on different plots cultivated by a givenindividual corresponds to that individual’s security of tenure overthose specific plots and, in turn, to the individual’s position in thepolitical hierarchy relevant to those specific plot