July 2022

Impacts of cassava whitefly pests on the productivity of East and Central African smallholder farmers

A key constraint to smallholder cassava production systems in Africa is the cassava whitefly pest species. These pests are a group of several cryptic species within Bemisia tabaci that cause direct damage to cassava and vector viruses that cause disease. We employ a farm-level stochastic production frontier (SPF) model to determine the impacts of the cassava whitefly pests on the productivity and technical efficiency...

Author(s): Paul Mwebaze, Sarina Macfadyen, Paul De Barro, Anton Bua, Andrew Kalyebi, Fred Tairo, Donald Kachigamba, Christopher Omongo and John Colvin  

August 2022

Adoption of electronic commerce by agribusiness small medium enterprises in the upper east region of Ghana

Technological evolution has triggered more advanced market-based approaches to the transfer of goods, services, and information. In Ghana, Agribusiness small-medium enterprises' electronic commerce adoption is concentrated in Accra and Kumasi. This study spotting the research gap in Agribusiness small-medium enterprises' electronic commerce adoption selected the Upper East Region for the study. The study is...

Author(s): Selorm Omega, Selorm Akaba, and William Ghartey  

August 2022

Determinants of agricultural commercialization in smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe: The case of Zhombe North Rural District

Agricultural commercialization raises farm incomes and improves living standards in African farming populations. Despite its importance, it remains low in Africa. Limited studies in agricultural commercialization have explored different tools for analysis given the agricultural commercialization indicators with zeros and fractions. This paper addresses methodological issue and adds literature on factors affecting...

Author(s): Pamela Madududu, Faustino Madzokere, Newettie Jambo and Freddy Ruzhani  

September 2022

Exploring the drivers of technical efficiency in Senegal’s agricultural production sector

Most agricultural farmers in Senegal make limited use of key agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, certified seeds, irrigation, mechanization and pesticides. Such situation happens in a context where most farmers are exposed to droughts, land degradation, and erratic climatic shocks. These factors typically lead to negative effects on technical efficiency, and therefore unfavorable outcome results in terms of food...

Author(s): Telleria Juarez Roberto Ariel and Marco Antonio Romay Hochkofler