After decades of neglect, agricultural mechanisation is back on the development agenda in Africa. Taking the mechanisation efforts of Ghana as an example, this paper analyses the governance challenges involved in government and private sector efforts to promote mechanisation in smallholderbased farming systems. To identify these governance challenges, this paper develops a conceptual framework that combines the agricultural innovation system approach with the concepts of New Institutional Economics. Two qualitative empirical methods were used to apply the framework: the Net-Map technique, which is a participatory mapping tool, and expert / key informant interviews. The results show that next to well-known problems such as market failures concerning access to spare-parts supplies and credit, mechanisation is constrained by missing institutions, particularly those that would be required to ensure adequate skill development of tractor-operators and technicians. In addition, exchange rate fluctuations and impeding customs practices prevent stronger private sector involvement in mechanisation. Governance challenges such as political interest and elite capture were found to limit the effectiveness of government imports of tractors and machinery. The findings suggest that instead of focusing on the supply of subsidised machinery, the government could be more effective by investing in institutional development to strengthen the agricultural innovation system for mechanisation and to support emerging private sector initiatives.

Digital agriculture offers far-reaching opportunities for accelerating agricultural transformation. Based on empirical evidence and guided by economic theory, this study shows that digital agriculture is driven by private firms, including established input firms and global software firms and start-ups that are new to agriculture. Although there are concerns that digital agriculture will enhance

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While there is a consensus that rural poverty has to be reduced, there are two opposing views on the role that agriculture can play in this regard: a “farm-based” and an “off-farm led” development paradigm where the respective other sector is merely a complementary income source during a transition period. The latter paradigm is supported by studies finding that rural youth in sub-Saharan Africa are not particularly interested in agriculture. However, policy discourse on youth in agriculture often situates their aspirations as either full-time farming or non-farming, thus either supporting or opposing one or the other of the two paradigms, while neglecting the shades of grey between these two extremes. Using a mixed-methods approach—a household survey and a narrative-based tool called SenseMaker—to collect data from both adults and youth in 261 households in rural Kenya, this study suggests that this categorical understanding needs to be revisited to inform rural development strategies based on the actual aspirations of rural youth.

One challenge of collecting socioeconomic data, such as data on time-use, is recall biases. While time-use researchers have continuously developed new methods to make data collection more accurate and easy, these methods are difficult to use in developing countries, where study participants may have low literacy levels and no clock-based concepts of time. To contribute to the closing of this research gap, we developed a picture-based smartphone app called Time-Tracker that allows data recording in real time to avoid recall biases. We pilot tested the app in rural Zambia, collecting 2,790 data days. In this article, we compare the data recorded with the app to data collected with 24-hours recall questions. The results confirm the literature on recall biases, suggesting that using the app leads to valid results. We conclude that smartphone apps using visual tools provide new opportunities for researchers collecting socioeconomic data in developing countries.

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