Offa Local Government Area is one of the major sweet-potato growing areas of Nigeria. Sweet potato is grown mainly on smallholder farms and concentrated particularly in communities in Offa Local Government Area. This study randomly selected 90 small scale farmers purposively from 9 communities to investigate constraints to production, processing and marketing of sweet-potato. Data were collecte...

Future climate changes will affect smallholder farmers in the developing world, posing threats to household food security. Nevertheless, there remains limited comparable evidence across multiple countries and regions regarding the global extent of climate shocks affecting smallholder food security. We examine data from 5,299 household surveys across 15 countries in Latin America, Africa and Sou...

Natural resource degradation and water scarcity are a global concern, which typically threatens the sustainability of smallholder farmers’ livelihoods in semi-arid developing areas. As part of research efforts, a number of water-conservation technologies (WCT) have been developed, yet with low adoption rates in smallholder farming environments. This paper discusses the concepts of adoption and ...

Policymakers in many African countries, and other parts of the world where a significant part of the rural population is poor and food insecure, face a two‐edged dilemma. On the one hand there is a need to increase the quantity of marketed food staple surpluses to feed a growing population, especially rapidly growing urban centers where unrest can be politically destabilizing. Many of these new...

The study compared economic efficiency among smallholder farmers who practiced low external input technology [LEIT] and high external input technology [HEIT] agriculture in a harsh macroeconomic environment typified by inadequate fertilizer subsidy in Imo State, Nigeria. Cross sectional data generated from 160 smallholder farmers randomly selected from 2 out of the 3 agricultural zones in Imo S...

Striga hermonthica (witchweed) is a parasitic weed that attacks and significantly reduces the yields of maize, sorghum, millet, and sugarcane throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Low cost management methods such as hand weeding, short crop rotations, trap cropping, or conventional biocontrol have not been effective. Likewise, Striga-tolerant or herbicide-resistant maize cultivars are higher yielding,...

BACKGROUND Livelihoods strategies and food security experiences can positively and negatively affect infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices. This study contributes to this literature by exploring how variation in household economics among rural farmers in Tanzania relates to IYCF patterns over the first 8 months of an infant's life. METHODS These data were produced from a longitudina...

Soil fertility degradation remains the major biophysical cause of declining per capita crop production on smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa. Appropriate soil fertility regimes, are therefore, critical for improved crop productivity. This study investigated the feasibility of using sole organics or their combinations with inorganic fertilisers to improve maize (Zea mays) production in the ...

A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine prevalence and risk factors of cryptosporidiosis in bovine from two contrasting production system in and around Tanga municipality between May 2003 and January 2004. The study populations comprised 117 calves aged ≤3 months, randomly selected from 44 smallholders dairy and traditional managed herds, respectively. Individual calf and herd-level ...