Infrastructure and Technology Constraints to Agricultural Development in the Humid and Subhumid Tropics of Africa

Spencer, Dunstan S. C.

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8268.1996.tb00090.x

Cited by 35 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Spencer (1994) compared the density of Africa's road network in early 1990s with that of India in the 1950s prior to the green revolution and found that India had nearly six times the density on average. If one takes the Indian density as broadly indicative of what is needed for rapid agricultural growth, then it is clear that much of Africa will need massive investments in rural infrastructure before it can hope to launch a successful agricultural revolution (see also Platteau (1996)).…”

Section: (V) Property Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of change in global agriculture

Hazell

Wood

2007

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

431

257

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As a result of agricultural intensification, more food is produced today than needed to feed the entire world population and at prices that have never been so low. Yet despite this success and the impact of globalization and increasing world trade in agriculture, there remain large, persistent and, in some cases, worsening spatial differences in the ability of societies to both feed themselves and protect the long-term productive capacity of their natural resources. This paper explores these differences and develops a country!farming systems typology for exploring the linkages between human needs, agriculture and the environment, and for assessing options for addressing future food security, land use and ecosystem service challenges facing different societies around the world.

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Section: (V) Property Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of change in global agriculture

Hazell

Wood

2007

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

431

257

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“…The precarious state of Africa's food security, the extent of the continent's rural poverty, and the failure of many conventional programs and projects to bring about meaningful progress 21 call for a rethinking of the continent's agricultural R&D strategy in the 21st century 6,7,9,14 . Although many different models of partnerships have promoted PPP in technology delivery, few have provided tangible results (improved farmers' livelihoods) in developing country agriculture.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delivery of Agricultural Technology to Resource‐poor Farmers in Africa

Mignouna

Abang²,

Omanya

et al. 2008

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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Recent developments in agricultural science and technology have the potential to transform the agricultural sector in the developing world. These technological advances constitute key drivers of economic growth and hold great promise for poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Agricultural research and development in Africa is undergoing a major paradigm shift. Until recently, public-sector institutions in Africa worked in isolation to create and disseminate agricultural technologies to smallholder farmers. However, they need access to improved proprietary technologies developed for the most part by the private sector in developed countries. These technologies are currently concentrated in the hands of a few large corporations and are protected by intellectual property rights. The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is a new initiative addressing the challenges associated with the access, development, and deployment of agricultural technologies to smallholder farmers in SSA. This article describes the AATF model of facilitating the creation of partnership alliances dedicated to promote and support collaboration among a wide variety of public-and private-sector organizations around shared agricultural research and development goals for the public good. It explains AATF's public-private partnership framework for technology delivery in the light of market failures, institutional constraints, and systemic weaknesses, which impede public-sector organizations from accessing and delivering pro-poor knowledge and technology to farmers. The article provides policy makers, research managers, and business decision makers with an understanding of how access to, and delivery of, proprietary technologies could contribute to food security and the improvement of farmers' livelihoods in Africa.Key words: agricultural technology; biosafety regulation; freedom to operate; intellectual property management; public-private partnership; research for development; rural poverty African Agriculture and Constraints to Agricultural ProductivityAfrica has an estimated land area of about 30 million km 2 , second only to that of the Asian continent. The population, which stood at 200 million 30 years ago, has increased more than fourfold to the current estimate of 930 million. At the current growth rate of 3.1%, the highest population growth rate in the world, it is projected that there will be 1.7 billion people living in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Agriculture h.mignouna@aatf-africa.org remains the backbone of many African economies, representing an estimated 57% of total employment and 17% of the gross domestic product. 1 Despite the importance of this sector, agricultural productivity of the continent is low, barely exceeding 1% annual growth.SSA is the only region of the world where per capita food grain output has declined over the past four decades, requiring the continent to import 25% of its food grain requirements.2,3 Cereal crop yields in SSA have stagnated and remain at an average of about 1 ton per hectare (ha)...

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“…Aside from climatic factors, other causes for the failure of a GR in SSA include the low availability of irrigation, insufficient fertilizer usage, soil degradation in some areas, under-developed infrastructure, poor governance and coordination, inaccessibility to markets, lack of agricultural credit and education (Kuyvenhoven, 2008;Hayami & Godo, 2005;Spencer, 1994;David & Otsuka, 1994).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Changing Effects of Agro-Climate on Cereal Crop Yields during the Green Revolution in India, 1972 to 2002

Tsusaka¹,

Otsuka

2013

JSD

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Conventionally, agricultural technologies associated with the Asian Green Revolution (GR) have been regarded as a resource-demanding type of technologies which achieve higher crop yields by intensive use of inputs including water, but are therefore sensitive to harsh agro-ecological conditions such as droughts. This study uniquely explores the changes over time in the impacts of climatic conditions and irrigation on cereal crop yields in India during the 31-year period from 1972 to 2002. A district-level panel data set is assembled from several sources, and the yield equations for five major crops (wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, pearl millet) are estimated by combining two-way fixed effect and sample selection models. It is found that climate dependence of crop yields decreased over time, particularly at the later stage of the GR, indicating that GR technologies for these cereal crops have mitigated, rather than aggravated, the adverse effects of climatic conditions on crop yields. Moreover, it is also found that the adoption of irrigation leads not only to directly enhancing crop yields but also to alleviating the negative influences of temperature and rainfall. The results suggest that recent agricultural technologies developed in Asia can be conducive to overcoming harsh production environments in less-favored regions of the world, if proper institutions are in place.

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Infrastructure and Technology Constraints to Agricultural Development in the Humid and Subhumid Tropics of Africa

Cited by 35 publications

References 15 publications

Drivers of change in global agriculture

Drivers of change in global agriculture

Delivery of Agricultural Technology to Resource‐poor Farmers in Africa

The Changing Effects of Agro-Climate on Cereal Crop Yields during the Green Revolution in India, 1972 to 2002

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