Over the past decade, Africa and other developing regions have been in the midst of tremendous changes. Market liberalisation and governmental decentralisation policies have interfaced with globalisation and urbanisation trends to dramatically transform social, political, economic and cultural lives. Agriculture can no longer remain behindserving only to meet subsistence food needs. Agriculture has to become a dynamic and integral part of the market economy. If African agriculture is bypassed by the economic transformation going on world wide, then large numbers of Africans and perhaps all of Africa will remain poor and food insecure. The fundamental purpose behind the FAO initiative to strengthening farmagribusiness linkages is to help transform the agricultural sector in order to accelerate productivity growth, increase income and employment generation, improve food security, and increase competitiveness in regional and international trade. In 2001 and 2002 five country case studies on farm-agribusiness linkages were undertaken in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. The main purpose of the studies was to get an insight into current farm-agribusiness linking arrangements. This included identifying and analysing successful linkages highlighting different methods and practices as well as exploring key factors that have led to successful partnerships. The country studies also contained a brief agribusiness sector overview. The work in Africa began with preparation of five case studies which are presented as summary results as well as individually. FAO work on farm-agribusiness linkages emerged from a broader cross-regional study on farm-agribusiness linkages launched in 2000. The first stage was a series of country studies and a regional consultation in Asia. During 2001 and 2002, case studies and a regional workshop on agribusiness linkages were carried out in Latin America. This was followed by a workshop on strategies for improving negotiation and compliance capabilities, held in November 2002 in Peru. An expert consultation on strengthening farm-agribusiness linkages in Africa was held in March 2003 in Nairobi, Kenya.

This research analyzes the impact of farmers' capability to access market information on the improvement of farmer household livelihood. For this purpose, a fieldwork was conducted in Nga Son district with specific objectives: (i) To describe the market information system in Nga Son, Thanh Hoa; (ii) To identify the farmers' capability of access, understanding and use of market information; (iii) To explore the influence of access and use of market information on the change of farmer household economic condition; and (iv) To determine farmer's advantages and disadvantages of access to market information in Nga Son. The results show that: (i) The system provides MI service has initially formed in Nga Son district, in which the extension station and staff play as key roles; (ii) The farmers' capability of access in the district still remain at average level and farmers are sluggish in access to market information service; (iii) The farmers' capability of access to market information closely related to their annual incomes; (iv) Factors that impact on the farmers' capability of access to market information including educational background, economic condition of household and effective supports and interventions of local government, of which the economic conditions of households is the main factor. Based on empirical results mentioned, our proposed suggestions are: (i) Strengthen the market information system; (ii) Improve the capability to access market information of farmers through training courses; and (iii) Increase public awareness and investment within refurbishing the transportation systems, restructuring the marketing system, promoting the development of cooperatives, enhancing the application of high technologies such as Internet, mobile phone, radio and newspaper to provide reliable market information services.

Based on the context of Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam, this paper studies the factor affecting the management of pesticide business for the case of Vietnam. The authors propose the model with five factors affecting the management of pesticide business activities in Thanh Hoa province, including (i) Content and implementation methods of the legal documents; (ii) Capacity of the management staff; (iii). Awareness and legal compliance of the pesticide traders; (iv) Budget, infrastructure, and facilities for the pesticide management; and (v) Collaboration between management stakeholders. In this study, 176 pesticide traders were investigated for the 5 mentioned factors in Thanh Hoa province. The question of factors influencing the management of pesticide business activities in the province was done by using Exploratory Factor Analysis and Regression Analysis. The result showed that all the above factors have affected the management of pesticide business in which, the collaboration between the management stakeholders and the awareness and legal compliance of pesticide traders are the most affected while the content and implementation methods of the legal documents are less influence. Based on these results, the paper proposes solutions to improve the management of pesticide trading activities in the coming time in Thanh Hoa province. Contribution/ OriginalityThis work significantly contributes to the literature on the management and business of the pesticide. We show crucial factors influence the management of pesticide business. Based on these results, we propose several recommendations for policymakers and provincial governments to a limited negative effect of pesticides used and to develop sustainable agricultural production as well as ensuring human health and environmental protection.