November 2013

The savannah accelerated development authority: Factors to consider in modernising agriculture in Northern Ghana

The move by government through the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) to modernise agriculture in the savannah areas of Ghana is in the right direction. However, the specific factors to consider in ensuring that farmers in the operational areas of SADA modernise their farming activities are not well known. This paper examines the factors that SADA must consider in its efforts to modernise agriculture...

Author(s): Emelia Guo, Mamudu A. Akudugu and Seidu Al-Hassan

November 2013

Towards sustainable smallholder irrigation development projects: A case study of the Maplotini irrigation scheme, Swaziland

Sustainability principles demand that agriculture projects must be capable of maintaining their productivity and usefulness to the society over the long run and must be environmentally friendly. Swaziland has made huge investments in irrigation projects over the last half century for improved livelihoods and economic growth. The study aimed to determine whether investments made in Maplotini irrigation scheme has...

Author(s): Banele L. Nkambule and Cliff S. Dlamini

November 2013

The impacts of agricultural technology use on productivity and food security among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe: The case of Makonde district

Zimbabwe’s semi-arid regions are characterized by high incidence of poverty, low rural incomes, low agricultural productivity, and food insecurity. These all lead to difficulties in sustaining rural livelihoods. Relatively little is known about the impacts of agricultural technologies on agricultural productivity and food security in the drier pockets of land located within the wetter regions of the country. This...

Author(s): Washington Muzari, Olga Kupika, Concilia Danha and Charity Mapingure

November 2013

Increasing women’s participation in cowpea storage activities: The case of Burkina Faso

Cowpea is a major staple and cash crop in West and Central Africa but it suffers serious losses to insects during post-harvest storage. To prevent these losses, triple bagging in polyethylene and polypropylene sacks, a simple, low-cost hermetic technology, has been disseminated over the last five years through village activities in ten countries in West and Central Africa. Participation of women in these extension...

Author(s): Dieudonné Baributsa, Clementine Dabiré, Karim Sawadogo and Jess Lowenberg-DeBoer