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Two important risks faced by many smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa are erratic weather patterns and insecure land tenure. It is likely these risks will increasingly interact as projections of more erratic weather make small-scale farming more difficult and demand for rural land grows. This paper asks how farmers in Western Tanzania view these compound risks and the influence this has on levels of investment in adaptive agricultural technologies and the demand for land certification in a lab-in-the-field setting. Presenting novel data from a series of framed decision tasks linked to a household survey, this paper explores the relationship between individual risk preferences, adaptive investment and the demand for land certification from a group of 645 rural households in Kigoma, Tanzania. While adaptive investment increases with weather related risk, we find it responds negatively to land tenure risk. Individual risk preferences and past experiences of land disputes play significant roles in adaptive investment. Demand for land certification is high, investment increases significantly after certification, especially for risk-averse individuals. • In a lab-in-the-field setting, adaptive investment responds strongly to land tenure and weather risk. • Investment in adaptive technologies is much lower than under expected income maximization. • Participants show high demand for land certification, but levels of willingness to pay are lower than current costs. • Risk-averse individuals show larger increases in investment after obtaining land certification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particularly for developing regions like Sub Saharan Africa, energy intensity is a critical policy issue and usually affected by four challenges: substitution between energy and other factors, technological change, changes in energy composition, and changes of economic growth. This paper examines energy intensity, output elasticity, energy-capital-labor substitution possibility, and factors contribution rates. The study applies a Translog production approach with data spanning 1990–2014 and further, applies ridge regression technique as a robust rectification to achieve unbiasedness in the findings. There is expected evidence of inverse relationship: higher energy intensity in lower per capita economy, evidenced by upward energy tariffs with lower energy elasticity. Factors are inelastic and have average elasticity substitution possibility for capital-energy with their inferential rebound effects' challenges. However, other combinations indicate complementarity at the current development stage. We further, observe that if higher energy intensity not managed, would translate into higher CO 2 intensity, because 99% of total energy is sourced from hydrocarbons of 51% and 48% of biomass. Based on the findings, policymakers and implementors are encouraged to integrate and optimize the whole energy system towards improving energy efficiency through increasing renewable energy composition from the current 1% to at least 10% whiles increasing quality-energy from nonrenewable. • Translog production with Ridge Regression analysis on energy intensity. • Higher energy intensity in lower per capita economy, and low energy elasticity. • The presence of energy substitution has implication for rebound effect on efficiency. • 99% of total energy consumption originates from hydrocarbons and biomass. • Energy poverty and inefficiency as a result of low energy technology innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• High-resolution map illustrates 16.8 TWh/year electricity demand for irrigation, refrigeration, incubation, and crop processing across Sub-Saharan Africa. • Irrigation pumping dominates end uses, with demand concentrated in semi-arid regions with high crop production. • Microgrid system sizing and costs compared for hundreds of off-grid sites across Kenya and Zambia, with and without inclusion of agricultural load. • Microgrid case study shows that serving agricultural end-uses along with community load has minimal impact on cost of energy. The use of advanced energy technologies for agricultural purposes—such as irrigation, refrigeration, crop processing, and egg incubation—has the potential to increase crop yield, reduce vulnerability to changing precipitation patterns, increase shelf life, strengthen income and employment opportunities in rural areas, and reduce emissions by displacing fossil fuel-based technologies. These productive uses of energy (PUE) in remote areas could potentially be powered by microgrids that additionally serve otherwise unelectrified communities, most of which are located in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we use high-resolution geospatial data to estimate the end-use electricity demand for a range of agricultural PUE across Sub-Saharan Africa, and we share these data in an open-access mapping tool. Next, we use REopt®, a techno-economic optimization model of energy systems, to determine the cost and system sizing implications of incorporating agricultural PUE into microgrid designs in Kenya and Zambia. We estimate the upper bound of agricultural PUE demand for irrigation, milling, shelling, refrigeration, and egg incubation across Sub-Saharan to be 16.8 TWh/yr. We find that incorporating local agricultural PUE into microgrid system designs increases the required system sizing while having minimal impact on the levelized cost of energy of these systems. Our analysis is the first to demonstrate the PUE potential in the agricultural sector at a 10x10-kilometer resolution across Sub-Saharan Africa and to show, at scale, how site-specific PUE can impact the cost and sizing of microgrids that are otherwise deployed to serve local household and community load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural extension to improve yields of staple food crops and close the yield gap in Sub-Saharan Africa often entails general recommendations on soil fertility management that are distributed to farmers in a large growing area. Site-specific extension recommendations that are better tailored to the needs of individual farmers and fields, and enabled by digital technologies, could potentially bring about yield and productivity improvements. In this paper, we analyze farmers' preferences for high-input maize production supported by site-specific nutrient management recommendations provided by an ICT-based extension tool that is being developed for extension services in the maize belt of Nigeria. We use a choice experiment to provide ex-ante insights on the adoption potentials of site-specific extension services from the perspective of farmers. We control for attribute non-attendance and account for class as well as scale heterogeneity in preferences using different models, and find robust results. We find that farmers have strong preferences to switch from general to ICT-enabled site-specific soil fertility management recommendations which lend credence to the inclusion of digital technologies in agricultural extension. We find heterogeneity in preferences that is correlated with farmers' resource endowments and access to services. A first group of farmers are strong potential adopters; they are better-off, less sensitive to risk, and are more willing to invest in a high-input maize production system. A second group of farmers are weak potential adopters; they have lower incomes and fewer productive assets, are more sensitive to yield variability, and prefer less capital and labor intensive production techniques. Our empirical findings imply that improving the design of extension tools to enable provision of information on the riskiness of expected outcomes and flexibility in switching between low-risk and high-risk recommendations will help farmers to make better informed decisions, and thereby improve the uptake of extension advice and the efficiency of extension programs. • Choice experiement on farmer preferences for site-specific extension recommendations • High willingness to accept ICT-enabled and site-specific extension recommendations • Observed heterogeneity in farmers' willingness to intensify production systems • Information on riskiness of return crucial for improved design of extension tools [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security remains a top development priority and global concern. It is enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Sustainable Development Goal two. Food security is also a core component of the human development and capability paradigm, since food access and entitlements are critical for reinforcing essential human capabilities. In introducing this special issue, this paper argues that agriculture is central to improving food security and reducing poverty in Africa. It suggests that realizing the potential of agriculture in Africa requires rapid increases in land productivity and increases in agricultural yields. A science-based approach that integrates gender and sustainability is critical to meet this goal, through the design and implementation of policies that improve the availability farm inputs and farm technology. The paper concludes by introducing the papers in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We define agronomic gain (AG) based on improvement in key performance indicators (KPIs). • KPIs include productivity, resource use efficiencies, and soil health. • AG assessment is applied to previous studies with attention to rice in sub-Saharan Africa. • Challenges in AG assessment in different research process stages are identified. • Solutions and future research areas in relation to the challenges are provided. Meeting future global staple crop demand requires continual productivity improvement. Many performance indicators have been proposed to track and measure the increase in productivity while minimizing environmental degradation. However, their use has lagged behind theory, and has not been uniform across crops in different geographies. The consequence is an uneven understanding of opportunities for sustainable intensification. Simple but robust key performance indicators (KPIs) are needed to standardize knowledge across crops and geographies. This paper defines a new term 'agronomic gain' based on an improvement in KPIs, including productivity, resource use efficiencies, and soil health that a specific single or combination of agronomic practices delivers under certain environmental conditions. We apply the concept of agronomic gain to the different stages of science-based agronomic innovations and provide a description of different approaches used to assess agronomic gain including yield gap assessment, meta-data analysis, on-station and on-farm studies, impact assessment, panel studies, and use of subnational and national statistics for assessing KPIs at different stages. We mainly focus on studies on rice in sub-Saharan Africa, where large yield gaps exist. Rice is one of the most important staple food crops and plays an essential role in food security in this region. Our analysis identifies major challenges in the assessment of agronomic gain, including differentiating agronomic gain from genetic gain, unreliable in-person interviews, and assessment of some KPIs at a larger scale. To overcome these challenges, we suggest to (i) conduct multi-environment trials for assessing variety × agronomic practice × environment interaction on KPIs, and (ii) develop novel approaches for assessing KPIs, through development of indirect methods using remote-sensing technology, mobile devices for systematized site characterization, and establishment of empirical relationships among KPIs or between agronomic practices and KPIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]