Resources, Policies, and Agricultural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Keith Fuglie (keith.fuglie@usda.gov) and Nicholas Rada

No 145368, Economic Research Report from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: Agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains low and is falling farther behind other regions of the world. Although agricultural output growth in the region has accelerated since the 1990s, this has been primarily due to resource expansion rather than to higher productivity. Yet there is evidence that agricultural productivity growth has improved in some countries. Enhanced productivity is correlated with investments in agricultural research, wider adoption of new technologies, and policy reforms that have strengthened economic incentives to farmers. Many of the technological improvements have come from the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centers. Benefits from the CGIAR in SSA are estimated to be over $6 for each $1 invested. Returns to national agricultural research are also robust, at least for large countries. But overall investment in agricultural research has remained low, and increases in research capacity will likely be necessary to significantly accelerate agricultural growth in the region. Other constraints to agricultural productivity include government policies that reduce earnings in the farm sector, the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus, and armed conflict within and between countries.

Keywords: International; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 78
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-eff
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (55)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/145368/files/err145.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uersrr:145368

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.145368

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economic Research Report from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search (aesearch@umn.edu).