APRA blog

Top Tips from APRA’s Policy friends

January 16, 2020

During APRA’s recent annual meeting in Naivasha from 2-6 December 2019, a panel of distinguished policy voices made up of representatives from Department for International Development (DFID), African Union (AU), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Tegemeo Institute, Agricultural Non-State Actors Forum (ANSAF), and independent consultants shared their perspectives and offered advice on how to guarantee… Read more »

Rural transformation in Ethiopia: the right or wrong end of the stick?

January 9, 2020

The underlying causes of the ethnic and religious conflicts in Ethiopia have had little space for discourse. This blog [1] is aimed at reminding academics, researchers, extension workers and other development practitioners not to be distracted by the on-going events and to continue to foster dialogue around agricultural and rural development issues.[2] Rural transformation in… Read more »

APRA Annual Workshop 2019 hosted by CABE

December 19, 2019

The Centre for African Bio-Entrepreneurship (CABE) successfully hosted the APRA Annual Review and Planning Workshop in Naivasha, Kenya from 2-6 December 2019. Members of the three APRA work streams and APRA Consortium, stationed at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), also participated. The theme of this year’s workshop was Impact, Communications and Engagement (ICE). It… Read more »

Unattractive bride – the case of government extension services in Central Malawi

December 5, 2019

In 2000, Malawi adopted a pluralistic and demand-driven agricultural extension policy which liberalised agricultural extension provision, allowing multiple stakeholders to freely provide extension services that are coordinated and regulated by the government. This policy is anchored by an implementation system called District Agricultural Extension Services System (DAESS) that has established structures at District, and community… Read more »

Livelihood trajectories in the Nigerian cocoa industry: An exploratory study of smallholder cocoa farmers in Ondo State

November 28, 2019

The Nigerian cocoa industry has seen a resurgence with the recognition of agriculture in national economic development. However, its level of growth, especially with regards to commercialisation has been limited. There have been reported cases of cocoa farms being sold to give way to other enterprises; at the same time, there have been reports of… Read more »

Closing the cocoa frontier in western Ghana. Time to intensify?

November 13, 2019

Ever since the 1880s when cocoa began to be planted in southern Ghana, new land has been acquired for cocoa trees. These have expanded westwards from the first lands planted below the Akwapim ridge, just north of Accra, 130 years ago. The driver for this expansion has often been older groves being lost to disease, including… Read more »

The future of cocoa production in south western Nigeria: Stakeholder insights

November 4, 2019

Background Agricultural enterprise in Nigeria’s economy has played a key participatory role by addressing the issues of poverty, food insecurity, unemployment and foreign revenue acquisition. Cocoa has been integral to championing the agricultural economy as it remains the top most exported cash crop, alongside oil palm and rubber, accounting for 58.4 per cent of Nigerian… Read more »

APRA presents at AAAE conference

October 14, 2019

“Rising to meet new challenges: Africa’s agricultural development beyond 2020 Vision” was the theme for the 6th African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE) triennial conference, which took place on the 23-26th September 2019 at the Sheraton Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria. Professor G. B. Ayoola, the President at Farm & Infrastructure Foundation (FIF) chaired the 6th AAAE Conference Local Organising Committee. In… Read more »

Oil Palm Processing in Ghana: Hanging In, Stepping Up and Stepping Out

October 3, 2019

Oil palm production has been a lifelong activity for many farmers in south-western Ghana. Although oil palm could be harvested throughout the year, production peaks from January to May. Like other crops of this nature, one would expect prices to fall or rise with production quantities. However, this is not always the case, as the… Read more »

The contemporary agrarian question in West Africa

September 25, 2019

The agrarian question in West Africa is dominated by the integration of peasant agriculture or smallholder farming into agribusiness markets, which includes contract farming, but also other mechanisms to encourage uptake of inputs and the incorporation of farmers into corporate controlled food processing. Although there is a growing presence of medium-scale farms and acquisition of… Read more »

Ethiopia’s incentives to agribusiness investment require a serious rethink

September 19, 2019

Primarily through its investment promotion agency, Ethiopia has been encouraging business investment for decades. It uses incentives such as import, export and income tax reduction or exemption, and provides investors with access to land. In a recent study, we explored the effectiveness of these incentives on agribusiness investment and found that – comparable to other… Read more »

Promoting Agribusiness Investment in Ghana: Rethinking Policy Incentives

September 12, 2019

Agriculture is a major economic activity in Ghana, contributing 20 per cent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In recognition that increased investment can help transform the largely subsistence-based agricultural sector, the government of Ghana and its development partners have implemented a number of programmes, including fiscal incentives, to attract private investors into the sector. As… Read more »

Value Chain Participants in Smallholder Commercialisation in Mvurwi: Emerging Business Relations

September 3, 2019

Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector has experienced radical transformation following a series of land reform programs and an economic meltdown that started in 2000. The implementation of the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) led to widespread disruptions in the sophisticated input supply system, altered agrarian relations and generally caused changes in the functioning of input and… Read more »

Social Dynamics of Agricultural Commercialisation: What are the Community Perceptions?

August 14, 2019

Agricultural commercialisation is seen by smallholder farmers as a potent means of improving their livelihoods and transforming rural communities. However, the commercialisation-induced rural transformation has the potential to alter both social relations and gender-based power dynamics within rural communities. As communities commercialise and realign production practices with the demands of the markets, they increasingly embrace… Read more »

The Future of Cocoa Production in Nigeria: An Account of Adegeye’s Extensive Research Experiences

August 1, 2019

Cocoa farming is a profitable cash crop due to its economically diverse value chain products, as well as the international acceptance of that. Players and actors in cocoa value chain are the direct beneficiaries of this venture. Nonetheless, Nigerian cocoa farmers have not fully utilized its inherent potentials, as majority of farmers concentrate only on… Read more »

Can smallholders farm themselves into commercialised agriculture?

July 16, 2019

This blog is based on Working Paper 26. Smallholder farmers form the bulk of agricultural producers in sub-Saharan Africa, constituting more than 90 percent of the farming community in this region, but they are mostly poor and face food insecurity. Reducing poverty and hunger among smallholder farmers has been a critical policy concern in sub-Saharan… Read more »

Collective Action within Poor Farming Communities in Western Ghana

July 10, 2019

Attempts to improve rural livelihoods tend to emphasise private sector and informal economic arrangements or social protection mechanisms, in the hope that these would spur local self-help initiatives among the poor. Underlying such thinking is the assumption that success in these initiatives would mobilise the rural poor towards the solution of larger collective action problems.… Read more »

Evidence uptake and use to transform Africa: Lessons from the “Utafiti Sera” model

May 29, 2019

APRA members from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria attended a two-day convening meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, which was organised by Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR). The main objective of the meeting was to bring together 120 participants from 20 countries and diverse disciplines (including practitioners, researchers, scientists, activists, government officials and policy… Read more »

Youth engagement with commercialisation hotspots in Zimbabwe

May 23, 2019

My interest in youth and agriculture commercialisation stemmed from two pivotal moments in the past decade. One from an ‘accidental finding’ from a 10-year longitudinal study of land beneficiaries of the Fast Track Land Reform (FTLRP) in Sanyati District, Zimbabwe for my doctoral study. Here, young people (children of the first settlers and those from… Read more »

A lever for agricultural commercialisation? A critical look at the agricultural extension system in Malawi.

May 20, 2019

In this assessment, we ask the question: is the extension services system in Malawi doing enough to facilitate agricultural commercialisation among smallholder farmers? This question arrives amidst concerns that commercial agriculture in Malawi, especially among small-scale farmers, has not really taken off as farmers struggle to produce and sell their produce. That situation occurred despite… Read more »

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative: what’s in it for Africa?

May 15, 2019

The huge Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Forum recently concluded in Beijing. 37 heads of state attended, along with droves of policy advisors and numerous thinktanks and research institutes, including IDS where I work. Monica Mutsvanga, Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, attended on behalf of the Zimbabwe government. By all accounts it was a lavish affair,… Read more »

It is impossible to commercialise agriculture in Malawi: A quick political economy audit

May 3, 2019

Introduction Agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy; it contributes between 30 to 40 % of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP); employs 85 % of the workforce; accounts for about 60 % of rural income; and, contributes about 90 % of total export earnings. The main challenge however, is that the agricultural sector is not… Read more »

Cyclone Idai hits Agriculture in Beira Corridor: Preparing for the Future

May 1, 2019

ESA: “This Copernicus Sentinel-1 image indicates where the flood waters are finally beginning to recede west of the port city of Beira in Mozambique. The image merges three separate satellite radar images from before the storm on 13 March, from one of the days when the floods were at their worst on 19 March, and… Read more »

PLAAS hosting new roundtable: ‘What is the character of the Agrarian Question in contemporary Africa?’

April 30, 2019

The APRA South Africa Hub at the Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) is hosting a roundtable on the question: ‘What is the character of the Agrarian Question in contemporary Africa? Perspectives from East, West and Southern Africa’? The event shall be attended by renowned scholars of the field: Professor Issa Shivji, the… Read more »

Building Livelihoods: Young People and Agricultural Commercialisation – Tanzania Country Study

April 18, 2019

With many African young people living in rural areas, their economies are characterised by small manufacturers and high rates of youth unemployment. Unemployment has been a major concern especially for graduates who seek formal employment in the urban areas. However, realities support the proposition that only the rural economy – built around agriculture, but encompassing… Read more »

The Changing Face of African Agriculture: Farm Size Distributions in Sub-Saharan Africa

April 10, 2019

In Jeffrey Herbst’s seminal book, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, African states and local traditional authorities are struggling over control of land. Herbst’s prescient observation, written in 2000, continues to unfold in dramatic ways today. Traditional authorities, historically the custodians of customary land, are selling it to those with… Read more »

Agricultural Commercialisation Pathways and Household Outcomes: The Tale of Four Oil Palm Output Sales Arrangements in South-Western Ghana

April 3, 2019

The availability of well-developed markets for agricultural output is crucial for boosting commercialisation and reducing poverty in rural sub-Saharan Africa. Oil palm, Ghana’s most important traditional export crop besides cocoa is widely produced in south-western Ghana, particularly the Ahanta West and Mpohor (Wassa East) districts. Consequently, various oil palm output marketing arrangements have emerged over… Read more »

Youth engagement with commercialisation hotspots in Ghana

March 21, 2019

Youth unemployment and underemployment are key development challenges facing many developing countries, especially in Africa. In working to address these challenges, there is a belief among policymakers and development practitioners that the rural economy – built around agriculture, but encompassing much more – will be able to provide income-earning opportunities for many millions of young… Read more »

Animal vs tractor power: emerging mechanisation dynamics in Mvurwi

March 15, 2019

Debate on agricultural mechanisation has largely been framed as policy choices between markets versus state intervention. Within the market conceptualization, adoption of tractors is seen as a derivative of changes in the costs within factors of production such as land, labour and capital. A rise in labour costs and/or shortage leads to the adoption of… Read more »

An Invisible Sugar Subsidy: Distress Cattle Sales by Bodi Agro-Pastoralists in Southern Ethiopia

March 7, 2019

In South Omo in 2011, the Ethiopian government commenced its flagship sugar industrialisation project – one of the most controversial elements of its broader ambitions to build a developmental state. The plantations were planned to cover about 175,000 hectares of land, directly impacting the Bodi, the Mursi, and the Nyangatom of South Omo. The Bodi,… Read more »

Ghana, cocoa, farming, agriculture, commercialisation, APRA

Cocoa Commercialisation in Ghana: History and Social Values

March 1, 2019

Agricultural commercialisation is by no means new to Africa and emerged in the early 19th century, with the development of export crops for the European market. Since the cocoa industry has developed across various policy epochs, this history can provide useful insights into the impacts of different policies and relations between markets, states and farmers. This provides a useful long-term perspective in which to examine models of stepping-up, stepping-out and hanging-in.

Injera: Is Rice Commercialisation Changing Traditional Ethiopian Recipes?

February 21, 2019

The most traditional food item commonly found on the table of Ethiopians for breakfast, lunch and dinner is injera, which is made from teff. However, there appears to be a change occurring – and not only in the extent of injera consumption, but also in its composition. With globalisation, increased investment in agriculture research and… Read more »

Corridors Mini-Series: Accumulation and Contested Commercialisation in Tanzania

February 13, 2019

Tanzania, like many other African countries, needs significant investment in agriculture to achieve key development goals – poverty alleviation, economic growth and industrialisation, food security and improved nutrition. Since the late 2000s, the Tanzanian government, in partnership with donor agencies and the private sector, launched several initiatives, including the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania… Read more »

Corridors Mini-Series: Anticipating Lamu’s New Corridor on Kenya’s Coast

February 12, 2019

The day starts early in Lamu, an ancient archipelago on Kenya’s northern coast. Fishermen, sailors and boat makers can be seen striding towards the sea, where moon-powered tides and sea waves are the undisputed masters. Hours later, their skiffs return from the shallow waters surrounding the mouth of the archipelago on Manda and Pate islands.… Read more »

Corridors Mini-Series: The Political Economy of Agricultural Growth Corridors in Eastern Africa

February 11, 2019

A new wave of agricultural commercialisation is being promoted across Africa’s eastern seaboard, by a broad range of influential actors – from international corporations to domestic political and business elites. Growth corridors, linking infrastructure development, mining and agriculture for export, are central to this, and are generating a new spatial politics as formerly remote borders… Read more »

Waste to Wealth: Indigenous Cocoa Farmers in Nigeria

January 17, 2019

The subject of poverty, particularly among rural households, has been a dominant discourse among academics in Nigeria for over three decades – despite the economic potential that abounds in the country’s agricultural sector, and the cocoa sector in particular. Often, cocoa farmers concentrate mainly on the bean seed because of the ‘cash’ associated with the… Read more »

APRA Annual Review Workshop 2018

January 11, 2019

From 3–6 December 2018, APRA staff met in Accra, Ghana for the annual APRA review workshop. With the broad scope of the APRA programme – comprising studies being undertaken across six African countries within three work streams – the annual review workshop provides a critical opportunity for APRA researchers to come together to share the… Read more »

Journal of Peasant Studies 2019 Summer Writeshop-Workshop in Critical Agrarian Studies and Scholar-Activism: Call for Application

January 9, 2019

Call for Application The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS), College of Humanities and Development Studies (COHD) of China Agricultural University (Beijing), and Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC) are jointly organizing a new initiative: JPS Annual Summer Writeshop-Workshop in Critical Agrarian Studies and Scholar-Activism for PhD students and young researchers (up to 5 years from PhD completion)… Read more »

Can Rice Commercialisation Transform Agrarian Society in Ethiopia?

November 27, 2018

Driving through the Fogera Plain on a sunny September morning, lush paddy fields strewn out in front of us, it is hard to imagine we are in Ethiopia – the land of teff, a native grain crop which has been used for centuries to make injera, the country’s traditional flatbread. Arriving in Woreta town of… Read more »

Nigeria: Vieiwing Iwara’s Cocoa Sector Through a Gendered Lens

November 22, 2018

The commercialisation of agriculture is pivotal in the development of rural economies, and ultimately helping farmers to escape poverty. In Nigeria, cocoa production is paramount for raising farmers’ income and economic status. The commercialisation of subsistence agriculture can help to improve the capacity of actors along the value chain to participate profitably in the cocoa… Read more »

Isene Village, Tanzania: A Story of Sunflowers and Empowerment

November 12, 2018

It is often the case that when crops or enterprises become commercialised, women lose out as men step in and take control of resources as well as selling produce. Unless such practices are addressed, emerging opportunities for female empowerment will almost always be taken over by men, even if women were the initial beneficiaries of… Read more »

Malawi Tracker Study: Experiences from the Field

October 22, 2018

The APRA Malawi team is finally in the field after months of meticulous preparations to get the ‘tracker’ study going. The subject of this tracker is groundnut commercialisation in Malawi’s central districts of Ntchisi and Mchinji. The goal is to understand the drivers of groundnut commercialisation in these two districts, from both a historical and… Read more »

Ethiopia: enriching livelihoods with rice research

October 5, 2018

The history of rice in Ethiopia Beginning in the 1970s, the production of rice in Ethiopian agriculture has expanded steadily across the country, with the total land area under rice cultivation rising from about 10,000 ha in 2006, to over 50,000 ha in 2018. Rice is a strategic food security commodity in Ethiopia, and its… Read more »

Failed Promises: the Decline of Cooperative Membership in Malawi

September 27, 2018

Most smallholder farmers in Malawi are seeing their livelihoods and overall social-economic status getting worse. The reasons for this regrettable trend are many and are well documented. However, one of the main reasons that has been given more attention is that the smallholder farmers are disadvantaged participants – or competitors – on the agricultural market.… Read more »

Groundnut commercialisation trends in Malawi

September 6, 2018

According to World Atlas, 2017, Malawi is one of the major exporters of groundnuts in Africa. Malawi has a history of supplying groundnuts to the global market and its yields compete with regional competitors. Groundnut is the most important legume crop produced in Malawi – both in terms of production area and volume – and… Read more »

Reinvestment of agricultural proceeds shaping mechanisation in Zimbabwe

July 25, 2018

Historically, Zimbabwe’s agricultural mechanisation efforts have been shaped by state-capital relations, in which powerful and connected groups tended to benefit. After the Fast Track Land Reform, technological innovation is now being reconfigured by accumulation from below on the back of expanding medium- and small-scale farming sectors. The APRA survey held in 2017/18 shows that the… Read more »

APRA Nigeria: Experiences and voices from Ogun and Kaduna States

July 18, 2018

The household survey for APRA-Nigeria work stream (WS) 1 and 3 ran between April 9 and May 25, 2018. In Ogun State, the survey was carried out in three Local Government Areas (LGAs): Ijebu East, Imeko Afon, and Obafemi Owondo. In Kaduna State, the survey was carried out in Kachia, Chikun, and Soba. Due to… Read more »

Rural electrification in Tanzania

July 4, 2018

Until recently, the quality of rice milling in Mngeta division, Tanzania was very poor, equating to extremely low shares of revenue for farmers selling rice in the local market. Traders often bought paddy directly at the farm gate, to be sold to – and later milled in – urban centers in Ifakara town, Morogoro, Dar-es-Salaam… Read more »

Navigating Fast Track: From Bust to Boom in Mvurwi, Zimbabwe

June 28, 2018

Background Commercial farming in the Mvurwi farming area in Zimbabwe – one of the hotspots for white-led commercial agriculture dating back to the 1930s – was expected to go bust after the implementation of Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) in 2000. The FTLRP resulted in major agrarian transformation in Zimbabwe’s rural landscape, where… Read more »

Combining capital and labour to help farmers commercialise in Mvurwi, Zimbabwe

June 25, 2018

Written by Toendepi Shonhe Patterns of agricultural commercialisation have changed over time in Zimbabwe – as the APRA Zimbabwe team observed during field studies in 2017, family farming in subdivided farms is on the increase across differentiated settlement models in the Mvurwi farming area, Mazowe District. Mvurwi comprises remaining large-scale commercial farms (LSCF), some medium-scale farms… Read more »