Understanding the Persistent Low Performance of African Agriculture

Dessy, Sylvain; Ewoudou, Jacques; Ouellet, Isabelle

doi:10.2139/ssrn.905291

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Since the late 1970s to mid-1980s, many African countries including Ghana have implemented macroeconomic policies, sectoral and institutional reforms aimed at ensuring high and sustainable economic growth, food security and poverty reduction. Though in recent times some African countries have recorded some level of growth in the agricultural sector, however, the sector's growth remained insufficient to adequately address poverty, attain food security, and lead to sustained GDP growth on the continent (Dessy et al, 2006 andWorld Bank, 2008). Food security and poverty reduction have been a major campaign issues across all political parties, yet provision of enough food to feed the entire population has eluded many governments.…”

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confidence: 99%

Analysis of Food Security Status of Farming Households in the Forest Belt of the Central Region of Ghana

Kuwornu¹,

Suleyman²,

Amegashie³

2013

RJOAS

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The study seeks to examine the Food Security Status of Farming Households in the Forest Belt of the Central Region of Ghana. A multistage sampling technique was used to select the respondents that were interviewed. In all 134 farming households were interviewed but 120 were selected for analysis after removing the questionnaires which were not properly administered. The households were selected from eight communities in two districts. Food consumption data of 851 individuals in 120 households were used for the analysis. The study reveals that the majority of the farming households (60%) were found to be food insecure. Further, the Binary Logit Model results reveal that an increase in household's income, having access to credit as well as increase in the quantity of own farm production improve the food security status of farming households in the Forest Belt of the Central Region of Ghana. However, holding all other factors constant, increases in non-working member of households worsens the food security status of farming households. Most of the food insecurity coping strategies adopted by household's are not severe and can only be used to avert the impact of food insecurity on a temporal basis. These results have policy implications for Food Security Status of Farming Households in developing countries.

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confidence: 99%

Analysis of Food Security Status of Farming Households in the Forest Belt of the Central Region of Ghana

Kuwornu¹,

Suleyman²,

Amegashie³

2013

RJOAS

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“…The growth of the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the past decades has not been fast enough to adequately address poverty and malnutrition, and lead to sustained GDP growth on the continent (Dessy et al, 2006;World Bank, 2008). While the focus has for the last few decades been on technology adoption, recent research has shown that the impact of technological research and Development (R&D) on African farming has been disappointing (Thirtle, et al, 2003;Adjei-Nsiah et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The growth of the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the past decades has not been fast enough to adequately address poverty and malnutrition, which would lead to sustained GDP growth on the continent (Dessy et al, 2006;World Bank, 2008). Many empirical studies have attributed the slow growth to the dominance of smallholder farmers in the sector who are mainly challenged with low productivity.…”

Section: The Case For Institutional Innovations In Sub-saharan Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional Innovations for Smallholder Agricultural Production Systems in Kenya: A Case of Smallholder Tea Subsector

2015

EJSD

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The smallholder tea sub-sector which is part of the larger Kenyan tea industry has enjoyed considerable success since its inception in the early 1960s. The planted area under the smallholder system, expanded from 2,522 hectares in 1962 to over 100,000 hectares in 2015; while annual production rose from 1.3 million kgs of green leaf to over 1 billion kgs of green leaf over the same period. Other industrial crops such as coffee, sisal and cotton that previously thrived have struggled to survive under diminished government direct investment in the agricultural sector. The smallholder tea subsector has conversely, managed to endure systemic constraints and challenges to remain competitive. This paper shows that while the relative success of the subsector can be explained by the adoption of modern technologies, there are other relevant factors including policy and institutional that KTDA has embraced to remain competitive. Evidence from the study suggests that innovative institutional arrangements and support systems which have been associated with enhanced farmers earnings. In addition, the participatory governance framework put in place post 2000, innovative approaches to the provision of advisory services and information sharing systems have provided an incentive for smallholder farmers to produce high quality teas that directly translated into better earnings. The presence of participatory governance, innovative and efficient systems that reduce costs and enhance farmers earnings are critical success factors for any smallholder agricultural value chain.

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“…They further observed that regional councils and agricultural support programs played significant role in helping farmers improve their efficiency and sustainability. In their study of the Thai agriculture TFP changes and the determinants over the period 1970-2006, (Suphannachart & Warr, 2010 employ a time-series data at an aggregate level for both crops and livestock individually, with the use of the conventional growth accounting framework. Their results confirm that agricultural research is a key determinant of TFP in both the crop and livestock sectors.…”

Section: Review Of Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Determinants of Agriculture Total Factor Productivity Dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa – Evidence From 44 Countries (1961-2019)

Baion,

Jianmin,

Yunxia

2024

Preprint

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This work estimates agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) change in 44 countries in the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) region for a period of 59 years, (1961–2019). We measure TFP by calculating the Malmquist productivity index (MPI) which decomposes the changes into technological change (techch), efficiency change (effch), scale efficiency change (sech) and pure efficiency change (pech). The determinants of agricultural total productivity changes are identified and their effects on TFP measured. We discover average annual decline of 0.975 in agriculture TFP largely due to a 0.975 technological regression during the study period. Our analysis of the determinants of TFP changes establishes that factors like land policies, good governance, conflict/war and credit to agriculture, influence TFP changes.

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Understanding the Persistent Low Performance of African Agriculture

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

Analysis of Food Security Status of Farming Households in the Forest Belt of the Central Region of Ghana

Analysis of Food Security Status of Farming Households in the Forest Belt of the Central Region of Ghana

Institutional Innovations for Smallholder Agricultural Production Systems in Kenya: A Case of Smallholder Tea Subsector

The Determinants of Agriculture Total Factor Productivity Dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa – Evidence From 44 Countries (1961-2019)

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