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The various efforts done to promote conservation agriculture (CA) in the Sub-Saharan Africa and the Republic of South Africa have diminished over time. This study was carried out to determine the factors that influenced the adoption of CA in the Okhahlamba Local Municipality of Uthukela District Municipality in Kwa-Zulu Natal Province of South Africa. It used a dataset collected through a structured questionnaire from 273 smallholder farmers. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select the households, whereas descriptive statistics (such as frequency count and percentages) and logistic regression analysis were used to determine the factors that influenced the adoption of CA. The results revealed that the respondents’ age, access to credit, visits by extension agents, and training showed a significant influence on the adoption of CA practices by farmers. The results emphasized the important role of extension agents and of more female farmers in the promotion of CA practices. The study recommended intentional and direct effort by all stakeholders in promoting and encouraging farmers’ participation at all age levels, and to make the CA programmes flexible to accommodate the illiterate farming households. The study further recommended additional extension agents to adequately guide and train farmers on CA through all-inclusive extension services.

Migration has been identified as one of the pathways out of the cycle of poverty in developing countries. Nigeria as a developing nation was ranked second after Egypt in Africa and top 10 in the world remittance destination country with estimated official inflows of about US$25.08 billion in 2018. This study provides new evidence on the impact of remittance on household welfare in South-West Nigeria by delving deeper to understand the effect in rural versus urban context. We estimated the impact of remittance on welfare using Propensity Score matching estimation techniques to correct for selection bias that normally arises when remittance -recipient households are not randomly assigned. Average age and household size were 51 and 5 for remittance receiving households, 44 and 4 for non-remittance receiving households, respectively. The impact analysis showed that remittance had a positive impact on household welfare in all cases considered (South west, rural South west and Urban South west) and the estimates were highly sensitive to unobserved characteristics. The estimated average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) on pooled, rural and urban were N12411.95 ($34.47), N49985.28 ($138.84) and N88721.54 ($246.43) respectively for the households. However, the treatment estimates revealed that remittances had higher impact in urban households than the rural households. The application of our model to 552 households' show that the average treatment effects on treated (ATT) showed that remittance had a positive effect on household welfare. Specifically, the urban households received higher value or remittance than the rural but the magnitude of the impact is relatively higher in rural households versus urban households. Although, getting remittances from emigrant does not serve as the sole solution to poverty and national development, our results suggest that receiving remittances significantly improved the welfare of both farming (rural) and non-farming (urban) receiving households than non-receiving households thereby reducing incidence of poverty among the beneficiary. Policies addressing the transaction costs of funds transfer to receiving households in Nigeria and incentives for effective use of the fund among them could be explored as additional tools in improving household welfare in Nigeria. JEL Classifications: B12, B23, C87, E63, I31 Keywords: Left-behind, Migration, Secondary data, Propensity Score matching, well being, INTRODUCTION Migration has been identified as one of the pathways out of the cycle poverty and plays significant role in the economic growth and development processes in developing countries (Khan, [...]

Maximum Likelihood Estimate (MLE) of efficiency in agricultural production, specifically crop sub-sector, determines the efficiency level of households in their farming activities. If accessible, farmers in developing countries like Nigeria do not use all potential technological resources, thus making inefficient decisions in their agricultural activities. This paper therefore made effort to measure the technical efficiency (TE) of cassava production, identified drivers of technical efficiency and production constraints facing cassava farmers in Nigeria. Using cross sectional farm level data from cassava farming households in Nigeria, the study employed Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) in the Cobb-Douglas production function, Tobit regression, Benefit-cost ratio to achieve the objectives of the study. The calculated technical efficiency in the study was around 65.1 percent. The estimated variance parameter of the model ([gamma]) was 0.92 which implies that about 92 per cent of the variation in cassava output was due to farmers' practices which comprise all variables. The study showed that there was gross inefficiency in the allocation of productive resources among cassava farmers in Oyo state. Most of these resources are over-utilized implying a sub-optimal utilization of resources. The study demonstrated that the key factors significantly influencing technical efficiency levels are years of production, size of land cultivated, household size, variety of cassava planted, total number of stem cutting used for planting and quantity of agrochemicals used per hectare. The allocative efficiency measurement shows that most of the resources were sub-optimally utilized. Meanwhile, high cost of inputs (such as labor) were identified as key constraints for cassava production in the study area. This study therefore suggest that economic efficiency and enterprise productivity will improve if government broadens the scope on provision of soft loans, adequate subsidized farm inputs (like agro- chemicals). This will improve increase income, food and nutrition security for the cassava farming households in Nigeria. Additionally, in order to achieve optimality in resource allocation, there is need introduce and encourage usage of technologies that can replace or reduce the use of inputs with high cost in the cassava production process. Hence, this will raise the productivity of resources, increase output and consequently improve revenue and net returns. JEL Classifications: C10, C49, C50, D13, D20, D24, G00 Keywords: Cassava Farmers, Economic Efficiency, Stochastic Frontier, Production, Cost Efficiency, INTRODUCTION Cassava is a drought-tolerant tropical crop which is usually available all-year-round thus guaranteeing food security, employment and income for actors involved along its value-chain. Its role as an important [...]