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The role played by youth in agriculture cannot be overemphasized, while agribusinesses are important generators of employment and income worldwide. Improving the sustainability of food value chains can benefit millions of rural poor people living in developing countries, especially young women. Despite policies and programs aimed at encouraging agricultural entrepreneurs, they are still facing challenges such as high-cost agrochemicals, limited access to credit, price volatility, etc. which seriously affect their capacity to remain in the sector. This study was undertaken to assess the performance and participation of young male and female entrepreneurs. This study made use of cross-section data from a survey conducted on 1019 young agricultural entrepreneurs in Cameroon. The data were analyzed using gross margin, student t-test, and logistic regression. Our study contributes to the literature by showing that young women agribusiness entrepreneurs are as competitive as their male counterparts and that the opportunities for young women in agriculture are good. Incentives such as single-digit interest rates and no collateral security should be directed to young women to receive more credit for purchasing agrochemicals and improved varieties of seed. Furthermore, a price control policy should be set up throughout the year to enable young women earn as their young men counterparts to enable them remain in production and marketing activities.

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This study explores the responses of rural land markets to rainfall shocks in Uganda and Kenya. This study matches the panel data on farm households with rainfall shocks constructed using high-resolution precipitation and temperature data. In both countries, access to credit plays a key role in defining households’ land market responses to rainfall shocks. Households with access to credit respond to rainfall shocks by acquiring more farmland through increased participation in land rental and sales markets. Pathway analyses suggest that exposure to rainfall shock has an impact on land rental prices. There is some evidence that similar to grain reserves and livestock, land markets can provide an avenue for households to respond to rainfall shocks.

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We examine the impact of the rapidly expanding mobile banking service “mobile money” on rural households’ decision to adopt modern agricultural inputs and its resultant effect on agricultural income using plot, household, and community-level panel data from rural Uganda. The main findings indicate that mobile money adoption increases per capita farm income by 13%. Pathway analyses show that mobile money adoption increases the likelihood of using chemical fertilizer on maize plots by 11 percentage points. Mobile money adoption increases the likelihood of high-yielding maize seeds adoption on maize plots by 8.2 percentage points. In the Ugandan context of rapid decline in soil fertility and very low adoption of fertilizer and modern seeds, mobile money provides an avenue to finance agricultural intensification.

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