Challenges and opportunities for smallholder livestock production in post-conflict South Kivu, eastern DR Congo

A survey on smallholder livestock production with emphasis on monogastric animals was conducted in 20 villages of seven so-called ‘groupements’ of South Kivu province in DR Congo, situated along a north to south-west axis with the town of Bukavu in the center. This land adjacent to Lake Kivu is located at elevations ranging around 900–1900 m asl, experiencing tropical highland climate. A diagnostic survey helped to rapidly obtain in-depth knowledge of constraints and opportunities in this environment. Correspondence analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to investigate the association of production constraints with particular livestock species and to understand the factors that govern the number of livestock that people owned (converted to tropical livestock units [TLU]), respectively. Responses of 112 informants demonstrated that livestock is an integral part of the region’s mixed farming systems. Low livestock numbers per household at present reflect the poverty as a consequence of recent violent conflicts. Currently, farmers focus on small livestock, like poultry, swine, cavies (i.e., Guinea pigs) and rabbits. Families keep livestock to accumulate household reserves that are strongly invested in children’s education. Major issues of animal husbandry were related to animal diseases and lack of feed resources, particularly in the dry season. Lack of feed or forages were unrelated to a particular livestock species. Livestock holdings depended on animal diversity, location, land size available and respondents’ education level. The potential introduction of improved forages is challenged by their dry-season tolerance, compatibility with cropping on small farms; and people’s readiness to cultivate forages

Farmers’ Social Expenditures and Agricultural Productivity A state variables approach

With increasingly large shares of public expenditures going toward social sectors in agriculture-based economies, the issue becomes how to design a budget allocation scheme that maximizes agricultural productivity-enhancing effects of social expenditures. This study examines the impact of various subtypes of household health spending on agricultural labor productivity using data from 505 households in five Rwandan districts. Our findings confirm that change in agricultural productivity can be driven by change in marginal productivity of inputs induced by households’ health status. The latter are significantly impacted by households’ own social expenditures. This then suggests that there is a way to bundle social expenditures in order to compensate for the shortage of resources allocated to agriculture and therefore to harness their productivity-enhancing potential

Mutual accountability in African agricultural transformation

This chapter aims to deepen our understanding of both the conceptual framework of mutual accountability and its best practices in the context of agricultural transformation in Africa. We do so in three ways: documenting the need for and growth of mutual accountability mechanisms over time, discussing how mutual accountability processes contribute to agricultural transformation, and examining the effectiveness of the mutual accountability processes of choice— JSRs and the African agricultural BR. In the next section, we provide a brief review of the origins and theory of mutual accountability as well as its application in African agriculture. Following that, we discuss how mutual accountability is being operationalized through JSRs and the Malabo BR, and the effectiveness of the two processes. The section after empirically assesses the contribution of mutual accountability to agricultural transformation in Africa. The final section provides concluding remarks for driving agricultural transformation through mutual accountability processes

Public agriculture investment and food security and nutrition in ECOWAS

Public agriculture expenditure is a significant growth catalyst. However, evaluating the impact of public agriculture expenditure on food security remains scanty. This paper assessed the impact of public expenditure on food security in nine ECOWAS countries using four indicators of food security, one in each dimension (availability, access, utilization and stability). Using a fixed-effect generalized least squares model the study found that public agricultural expenditure has improved. However, this has not translated to an automatic improvement in food security. The levels of stunting and undernourishment were still high in the nine ECOWAS countries. A one-unit increase in public agriculture expenditure was associated with a 0.2% reduction in undernourishment andan improved average dietary energy supply adequacy between 2000 and 2016. The paper concluded that the nine ECOWAS countries have made considerable progress in improving food availability, that public agriculture expenditure by share has increased in the nine ECOWAS countries since the inception of CAADP, with several countries meeting the 10% target of spending on agriculture for several years and that public agricultural expenditure had a positive impact on food accessibility and availability. The analysis could be replicated in the design of national food security investment plans and help identify strategies to accelerate food security and nutrition improvements in African countries