Given the stagnant agricultural productivity and persistent food insecurity in low‐income countries—notably in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA)—there has been continued interest in the adoption of new technology and its impact on productivity in these regions. To increase crop yields and sustain yield gains, recent case studies of technology adoption unanimously recommend the adoption of integrated farm management systems, particularly in SSA. On the other hand, there have been increasing numbers of studies on social network or farmer‐to‐farmer technology extension. These studies explore more efficient extension systems than traditional public‐sector extension approaches. This article reviews both recent case studies of technology adoption and its productivity impacts as well as studies on agricultural extension to identify common findings, shortcomings, and major remaining issues.
Constrained access to land is increasingly recognized as a problem impeding rural household welfare in densely populated areas of Africa. This study utilizes household and plot level data from rural Kenya to explore the linkage between land access and food security. We find that a 10% increase in operated land size would increase total cereal consumption and home produced food consumption by 0.8% and 2.0%, respectively. We also find that land rental is the dominant mechanism that poor rural farmers use to access additional land for cultivation. However, the levels of long-term land investment (measured by applications of organic manure) and land productivity are significantly lower for rented plots than for own plots even after household fixed-effect and plot level observed characteristics are controlled for. Furthermore, land rental markets do not allow farmers to fully adjust their operated land size to their optimal level. These findings point to the existence of problems with land rental markets that impede their ability to fully contribute to national food security and poverty reduction goals.
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