What's New

Better linking Africa’s rural smallholder population to national, regional, and international agricultural value chains is a key rural development and poverty reduction priority. Which types of interventions will be successful in improving such linkages is highly context-specific, however, depending on the country, the target population, and the specific product being marketed. In a new book , IFPRI researchers examine how to best evaluate and implement context-specific value chain development (VCD) interventions, with several case studies conducted in Africa south of the Sahara.

Agriculture in West Africa faces numerous challenges, including soil degradation, market instability, and significant threats from climate change. In response to these obstacles, many adaptation strategies, such as production of non-traditional crop varieties, have been encouraged. It remains less clear, however, what actually drives farmers’ decisions to adopt (or not adopt) these strategies. For example, a farmer may choose to plant a new crop variety in response to a short-term drought or as part of a longer term strategy to adapt to climate change.

Rain-fed agriculture forms the mainstay of many West African economies, making the region particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and weather variability.  As a result, there is growing emphasis being placed by both researchers and policymakers on climate-smart agriculture and climate change adaptation strategies to help protect the livelihoods and food security of farmers and rural households.

One of the first steps in increasing smallholder farmers’ market access is ensuring that rural areas have adequate transportation infrastructure to physically move crops from farms to markets. Improved rural roads can reduce transportation costs and the cost of agricultural inputs, thus increasing agricultural productivity; roads can also help integrate producers into more lucrative national and regional markets, leading to greater trade and reducing price shocks caused by local conditions.

Focusing on agricultural growth, particularly that of smallholder farmers, can help countries in Africa south of the Sahara achieve broader economic and development objectives, including poverty reduction, says a new open-access book prepared by the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) and published by Oxford Press.