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Access to credit is an important factor in the attainment of agricultural productivity increase. We adopted a Tobit model to assess the factors that influence the intensity of rural smallholder cassava farmers' access to credit in Southwest Nigeria, using primary data collected from 856 rural households by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in 2011. The results of the empirical Tobit model indicate that seven out of the 11 variables included in the model are statistically related to the intensity of access to credit. However, only total livestock unit, cassava output, monetary value of the households' productive assets and household size are positively and statistically significant. This implies that increase in output, diversification of households' income sources into livestock production and accumulation of assets are important variables that have the potential to enhance farmers' access to larger amounts of credit. Therefore, policies that will lead to improve farmers' outputs and/or increase diversification and assets accumulation are recommended for this region.

Reducing both hunger and high expenditure on food imports is a priority for most developing African countries. Countries that hitherto have relied heavily on food imports are seeking new approaches to increase the utilization of locally grown crops. This review uses the case of cassava to propose that scientific and technological innovations, supported by public investment and appropriate policies, offer opportunities for better utilizing locally grown crops, encouraging agro-industrial development, reducing import expenditure, and providing much-needed income (bread) to smallholders. This review highlights areas that require further research in order to achieve sustainable development in the processing of raw cassava root into cassava flour for bread production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Non-farm activities have been generally considered as important strategy for overcoming credit constraints faced by rural households as well as for reducing poverty through income effect. This paper employs binary probit and average treatment effect to estimate the impact of participation in non-farm activities on adoption of improved cassava and beans varieties in South-Kivu, DR Congo. Results showed on one hand that the participation rate in non-farm activities in South-Kivu was 38% and 52.1% respectively for crafts and small businesses. On the other hand, the rate of adoption of new cassava and beans varieties were 14 and 28% respectively. Factors affecting the adoption rate were gender, education, household size, the presence of non-farm activities, household assets in terms of livestock owned, market access and access to the information on new technologies. These results demonstrate the tendency of rural households to include the practice of non-farm activities among their strategies for survival and diversify their sources of income or supplement farm income. Results of this study indicate a positive relationship between engagement of rural households in non-farm activities and their propensity to adopt improved varieties. There is still a huge gap between potential adoption rate and actual rate of adoption for cassava and beans improved varieties in the study area. Therefore, actors involved in the development of the agricultural sector have to be aware of the importance of these factors even when they are working for the promotion of purely agricultural activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Traditional shifting cultivation systems can no longer be sustained in West Africa because of rapid increases in human and livestock populations. Short-duration, improved fallows are among the alternative land-management strategies that have evolved. This paper reviews how velvetbean or mucuna (Mucuna pruriens) and stylo (Stylosanthes hamata and Stylosanthes guianensis) management systems were developed and disseminated in West Africa. Mucuna was first adopted by farmers in southwestern Benin between 1988 and 1992, and the number of testers of the innovation rose to 10,000 farmers throughout Benin by 1996. Suppression of spear grass (Imperata cylindrica) was perceived as the main benefit of mucuna fallows. The stylo technology was introduced in thelate 1970s, and it was primarily targeted to livestock production inthe subhumid monomodal rainfall zone. The uptake of stylo has been relatively slow and modest in West Africa in contrast to the faster rate of adoption of mucuna in southwestern Benin. Some of the contributory factors to the slower adoption of stylo than mucuna include rainfall regime, lack of motivation of livestock keepers, insecure land tenure, limited capability and facilities of extension staff, poor communication among scientists, and unsatisfactory establishment of the crop. Recommendations to increase the adoption of improved fallows include the use of a participatory approach in problem identification, expansion of the genetic base of cover crops for use in fallows, optimization of the multiple benefits of cover crops, management of the improved system, promotional strategies, and appropriate policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of black soldier fly (BSF) larvae and frass in agriculture can make an important contribution to food and nutrition security. However, it is important to understand whether consumers are willing to consume food products resulting from the use of BSF larvae as animal feed or BSF frass as fertilizer. This study employed the stated preference approach as food products produced using BSF larvae and frass are not currently available on the market. Questionnaires were administered to a total of 4412 consumers in Ghana (1360), Mali (1603), and Niger (1449). The results show that the vast majority of respondents are willing to consume vegetables (88%) produced using BSF frass and meat (87%) produced using animal feed made of BSF larvae. A smaller percentage of respondents are even willing to pay USD 1.32 and USD 1.7 more if the base price of BSF-based products were USD 5 per kg. Age, gender, education, and country positively influenced the respondents' willingness to consume food produced using BSF products. In contrast, neighborhood status, income, and household size are inversely related to the respondents' willingness to pay for and consume these products. Our findings are, therefore, important to scaling up BSF technologies in the region.

Although global assessments of the initial impacts of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have focused on income, jobs, and health conditions, this study constitutes one of the first studies that assessed the impact of COVID-19 on food security in DRC and established the short-term implications of the COVID-19 outbreak on rural households' food security in DRC. In addition, the study recommendations contributed to shaping government interventions toward the pandemic in the Country. The study used data from four western provinces of the country on 1339 households. Our results show that 80 % of households experienced an increase in food prices, 61 % a noticeable decrease in the availability of food, and 54 % a decrease in their dietary diversity. Due to changes in food availability, dietary diversity, and food accessibility imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak, >70 % of households experienced either a decrease in the consumption of meat, milk, fish, and cereals or an increase in their consumption of traditional vegetables. In addition, COVID-19 significantly affected food security dimensions in larger households, households with a greater number of members aged 35 years and above, households headed by women, households where members participate in associations or cooperatives, households that depend on crop sales as the major source of income, and in poorer households. These findings highlight the significant implications of the COVID-19 outbreak on household food security in western DRC and underscore the need for emergency interventions to strengthen the resilience of rural people and accelerate their recovery and other long-term measures toward sustainable and inclusive development., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2022 The Author(s).)

Lack of good-quality planting materials has been identified as the most severe problem militating against increased agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and beyond. However, investment of research efforts and resources in addressing this menace will only be feasible and worthwhile if attendant economic gains are considerable. As a way of investigating the economic viability of yam investment, this research has been initiated to address problems confronting yam productivity in eight countries of SSA and beyond: Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire, Papua New Guinea, Jamaica, and Columbia. Research options developed were to be deployed and disseminated. Key technologies include the adaptive yam minisett technique (AYMT), varieties adapted to low soil fertility and drought, nematode-resistant cultivars (NRC), and crop management and postharvest practices (CMPP). This article aims at estimating the potential economic returns, the expected number of beneficiaries, and poverty reduction consequent to the adoption of technology options. Estimates show that the new land area that will be covered by the technologies in the eight countries will range between 770,000 ha and 1,000,000 ha with the highest quota accounted for by AYMT. The net present value will range between US$584 and US$1392 million and was highest for the NRC. The CMPP had the lowest benefit-cost ratio of 7.74. About 1,049,000 people would be moved out of poverty by these technologies by 2037 in the region. These technologies are less responsive to changes in cost than that in adoption rate. Therefore, the realization of the potential economic gains depends on the rate and extent of adoption of these technologies. Giving the knowledge-intensive nature of some of these interventions, capacity building of potential adopters will be critical to increasing the sustainability of the yam sector, thereby enhancing food security and reducing poverty., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2020.)

This article evaluates the impact of cowpea market participation on household food security and income in northern Nigeria. Using household survey data from a representative sample of over 1,500 farm households and applying a combination of instrumental variable techniques and dose-response functions, we found that cowpea market participation had a statistically significant positive impact on household food security and income. Cowpea market participation increased food expenditure by 1.6% and household income by 0.7% with a 10 unit increase in the quantity of cowpea sold. These results underscore the importance of cowpea market participation for household food security and income improvement. We also found that selling cowpea to rural and urban traders significantly increased household income, food expenditure, and food security. Results show that selling cowpea to rural and urban traders increased household income by 17% and 13%, respectively. The results point to the need for an enabling policy environment and public infrastructure to enhance market participation of farmers and traders. Public infrastructure investments in the form of feeder road construction and maintenance in the distant villages are encouraged, which in the long run can translate into improved cowpea productivity and welfare of smallholder farmers., (© 2020 The Authors. Food and Energy Security published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association of Applied Biologists.)

This study undertakes an ex-ante evaluation of the effects of alternative technology and policy options on soybean supply and demand in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to 2050. Current soybean consumption in SSA is dominated by cooking oil followed by soybean cake used as animal feed. Due to weak processing sectors and low soybean yields, the region is currently importing about 70% of its consumption requirements. Based on the results from a geospatial bio-economic modeling framework, soybean consumption in SSA is projected to more than double by 2050 compared to 2010 due in part to a rising population and rising incomes. On the other hand, supply from domestic production is projected to increase by 80% over the same period. Hence, by 2050, net imports into SSA would be nearly 4 times higher than supply from domestic production. Under a future drier climate, some of the production gains achieved through soybean research and extension would be lost and this would further worsen the soybean demand gap in SSA relative to the baseline. This study shows that relying on conventional breeding alone to increase soybean yields in SSA would not be enough to substantially reduce the future demand gap. A combination of promising innovations affecting the soybean value chain across SSA would be needed to close the soybean demand gap in SSA by 2050 under a drier future climate., (© 2019 The Authors. Food and Energy Security published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. and the Association of Applied Biologists.)

Adoption of improved agricultural technologies has long been recognized as critical for reducing poverty through increased productivity, incomes, and asset accumulation. Using a nationally representative survey data from a sample of over 1500 households in Nigeria, this paper evaluates the impacts of adoption of improved cowpea varieties on income and asset poverty reduction using an endogenous switching regression model. The results showed that adoption of improved cowpea varieties increased per capita household income and asset ownership by 17 and 24 percentage points, respectively. The results based on the observed and counterfactual income and asset distributions further showed that adoption reduced both income poverty and asset poverty by 5 percentage points. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy options for increasing adoption and impacts of improved cowpea varieties in Nigeria., Competing Interests: None., (© 2019 The Authors.)

Previous studies on the adoption and impacts of improved crop varieties have relied on self-reported adoption status of the surveyed households. However, in the presence of weak variety maintenance and poorly functioning seed certification system, measurement errors in self-reported adoption status can be considerable. This paper investigates how such measurement errors can lead to biased welfare estimates. Using DNA-fingerprinting based varietal identification as a benchmark, we find that misclassification in self-reported adoption status is considerable, with significant false negative and positive response rates. We empirically show that such measurement errors lead to welfare estimates that are biased towards zero and substantially understate the poverty reduction effects of adoption. While the empirical evidence suggests attenuation bias, our theoretical exposition and simulations demonstrate that upward bias and sign reversal effects are also possible. The results point to the need for improved monitoring of the diffusion process of improved varieties through innovative adoption data collection approaches to generate robust evidence for prioritizing and justifying investments in agricultural research and extension., (© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Lambda-cyhalothrin (λ-cyhalothrin) is the most commonly used pyrethroid insecticide for vegetable farming in Benin. This insecticide is misused and overused by farmers, and hence may pose health hazards to consumers. We monitored λ-cyhalothrin residues in lettuce and cabbage from farms at the market gates in Cotonou and Parakou using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis techniques. These residues were also monitored on samples directly from farms (on-farm sampling) for 14 days post-treatment. Potential factors such as photolysis and hydrolysis involved in λ-cyhalothrin degradation were also screened. Results revealed that the level of λ-cyhalothrin residue concentrations in lettuce from Houeyiho decreased from 4.2 mg/kg on Day 1 to about 0.2 mg/kg on Day 7. On Day 9, analyzed lettuces were all λ-cyhalothrin free. In contrast, even 14 days after treatment of cabbage from Bawera (Parakou), we still recorded the presence of λ-cyhalothrin residues in analyzed samples. For samples from market gates, λ-cyhalothrin residues were found in lettuce from two markets out of the nine surveyed in Cotonou. Interestingly, none of these contaminated samples had residues above the maximum residue limit for lettuce (MRL = 0.5 mg/kg). Similarly, in Parakou, samples from all five surveyed vegetable markets were contaminated with λ-cyhalothrin residues at concentrations below the MRL for cabbage (MRL = 0.2 mg/kg). We conclude that λ-cyhalothrin residues in lettuce and cabbage from farms and markets in Parakou and Cotonou are within the MRL, and hence are relatively safe for consumption.

This study measured the impacts of drought tolerant maize varieties (DTMVs) on productivity, welfare, and risk exposure using household and plot-level data from rural Nigeria. The study employed an endogenous switching regression approach to control for both observed and unobserved sources of heterogeneity between adopters and non-adopters. Our results showed that adoption of DTMVs increased maize yields by 13.3% and reduced the level of variance by 53% and downside risk exposure by 81% among adopters. This suggests that adoption had a "win-win" outcome by increasing maize yields and reducing exposure to drought risk. The gains in productivity and risk reduction due to adoption led to a reduction of 12.9% in the incidence of poverty and of 83.8% in the probability of food scarcity among adopters. The paper concluded that adoption of DTMVs was not just a simple coping strategy against drought but also a productivity enhancing and welfare improving strategy. The results point to the need for policies and programs aimed at enhancing adoption as an adaptation strategy to drought stress in Nigeria and beyond., (Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

In Nigeria, Aflasafe is a registered biological product for reducing aflatoxin infestation of crops from the field to storage, making the crops safer for consumption. The important questions are whether farmers will purchase and apply this product to reduce aflatoxin contamination of crops, and if so under what conditions. A study was carried out to address these questions and assess determinants of willingness to pay (WTP) for the product among maize and groundnut farmers in Kano and Kaduna states in Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to collect primary data from 492 farmers. The majority of farmers who had direct experience with Aflasafe (experienced farmers) in Kano (80.7%) and Kaduna (84.3%) had a WTP bid value equal to or greater than the threshold price ($10) at which Aflasafe was to be sold. The mean WTP estimates for Aflasafe for experienced farmers in Kano and Kaduna were statistically the same. However, values of $3.56 and $7.46 were offered in Kano and Kaduna states, respectively, by farmers who had never applied Aflasafe (inexperienced farmers), and the difference here was significant (P < 0.01). Regression results indicate that contact with extension agents (P < 0.01) and access to credit (P < 0.05) positively and significantly influenced the probability that a farmer would be willing to pay more for Aflasafe than the threshold price. Lack of awareness of the importance of Aflasafe was the major reason cited by inexperienced farmers (64% in Kano state and 21% in Kaduna state) for not using the product. A market strategy promoting a premium price for aflatoxin-safe produce and creating awareness and explaining the availability of Aflasafe to potential users should increase Aflasafe usage.

In an attempt to go beyond the so called " smart " subsidies, Nigeria has embarked on a potentially innovative mobile phone-based input subsidy program that provides fertilizer and improved seed subsidies through electronic vouchers. In this article, we examined the productivity and welfare effects of the program using household-level data from rural Nigeria. The article employed instrumental variable regression approach to control for the potential endogeneity of the input subsidy program. Our results suggest that the program is effective in improving productivity and welfare outcomes of beneficiary smallholders. The size of the estimated effects suggests a large improvement in productivity and welfare outcomes. Moreover, the distributional effects of the program suggest no heterogeneity effects based on gender and farm land size. These results are robust to using alternative measurements of program participation. The benefit-cost ratio of 1.11 suggests that the program is marginally cost-effective. Overall, our results suggest that while improving average productivity is a good outcome for improving food security, improving the distributional outcome of the program by targeting the most disadvantaged groups would maximize the program's contribution to food security and poverty reduction.

This paper examines the impacts of access to extension services and cooperative membership on technology adoption, asset ownership and poverty using household-level data from rural Nigeria. Using different matching techniques and endogenous switching regression approach, we find that both extension access and cooperative membership have a positive and statistically significant effect on technology adoption and household welfare. Moreover, we find that both extension access and cooperative membership have heterogeneous impacts. In particular, we find evidence of a positive selection as the average treatment effects of extension access and cooperative membership are higher for farmers with the highest propensity to access extension and cooperative services. The impact of extension services on poverty reduction and of cooperatives on technology adoption is significantly stronger for smallholders with access to formal credit than for those without access. This implies that expanding rural financial markets can maximize the potential positive impacts of extension and cooperative services on farmers' productivity and welfare.

Background: Knowledge on the spread and distribution of insecticide resistance in major malaria vectors such as Anopheles funestus is key to implement successful resistance management strategies across Africa. Here, by assessing the susceptibility status of an inland population of An. funestus Giles (Kpome) and investigating molecular basis of resistance, we show that multiple resistance and consistent plasmodium infection rate are present in Anopheles funestus populations from Kpome., Methods: The insecticide susceptibility level of collected Anopheles funestus was assessed. Synergist (PBO) was used to screen resistance mechanisms. The TaqMan technique was used for genotyping of insecticide resistant alleles and detecting plasmodium infection levels. The nested PCR was used to further assess the plasmodium infection rate., Results: The TaqMan analysis of plasmodial infections revealed an infection rate (18.2 %) of An. funestus in this locality. The WHO bioassays revealed a multiple phenotypic resistance profile for An. funestus in Kpome. This population is highly resistant to pyrethroids (permethrin and deltamethrin), organochlorines (DDT), and carbamates (bendiocarb). A reduced susceptibility was observed with dieldrin. Mortalities did not vary after pre-exposure to PBO for DDT indicating that cytochrome P450s play little role in DDT resistance in Kpome. In contrast, we noticed, a significant increase in mortalities when PBO was combined to permethrin suggesting the direct involvement of P450s in pyrethroid resistance. A high frequency of the L119F-GSTe2 DDT resistance marker was observed in the wild DDT resistant population (9 %RS and 91 %RR) whereas the A296S mutation was detected at a low frequency (1 %RS and 99 %SS)., Conclusion: The presence of multiple resistance in An. funestus populations in the inland locality of Kpome is established in this study as recently documented in the costal locality of Pahou. Data from both localities suggest that resistance could be widespread in Benin and this highlights the need for further studies to assess the geographical distribution of insecticide resistance across Benin and neighboring countries as well as a more comprehensive analysis of the resistance mechanisms involved.