Agricultural technology

A five-season field experiment with smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa shows that new agricultural technologies are hard to adopt not because farmers lack information, but because such technologies require multiple interdependent decisions that take years of costly trial and error to get right.

Nigeria’s agricultural productivity deficit stems from overlapping institutional failures across seed supply, credit, insurance, extension, market access, and land tenure that collectively prevent smallholder farmers from adopting or benefiting from ...

Despite contributing nearly a quarter of GDP and employing half the workforce, Nigeria's agricultural sector is trapped in low productivity by mutually reinforcing barriers: dysfunctional seed systems, credit market exclusion, absent farmer registrie...

Credit, subsidies, and cash transfers can improve yields and revenues for smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries, but translating these gains into higher profits proves far harder. The evidence suggests that credit works best not as a standalone intervention but when paired with new agricultural technologies that give farmers something genuinely worth investing in.

Despite a long decline in agriculture's share of Ghana's economy, the sector remains vital, yet productivity gains are undermined by partial and uneven adoption of modern technologies across seeds, fertiliser, mechanisation, irrigation, and digital s...

Ethiopia’s fertiliser blending initiative shifted farmers to new products but failed to boost yields or incomes – underscoring that fertiliser supply reforms must be paired with broader investments in seeds, water, soils, and markets to raise product...

Drawing on a randomised controlled trial among rice farmers in Nigeria, we introduce a new method for linking village-level interventions with high-resolution earth observation data – which captures spatial variation in how new technologies spread an...

Agricultural modernisation in Brazil has driven economic growth but also intensified land inequality and redistributive conflict. As capital-intensive farming expands, it displaces rural communities and fuels organised land occupations—highlighting t...

Despite decades of investment, innovation, and policy reform, yields on African small farms remain significantly below those in high-income countries—even when similar technologies are used. Which policies are most effective in boosting productivity in smallholder farms?