Effect of transaction costs on market participation among smallholder cassava farmers in Central Madagascar

High transaction costs deter entry of small farmers into the market. With the data from 240 smallholder cassava farmers in Central Madagascar, this study identified strategies to promote successful smallholder commercialization. The coefficients for membership of cooperatives, native of community and farming experience, have a direct relationship with decision to participate in the market and which is significant at 1% level and road condition to the nearest town is good at 10% level. The coefficients for age, distance to the nearest town and distance from the farm to the market have an indirect relationship with decision to participate in the market and significant at 5, 10 and 1% levels, respectively. The results also show that the coefficients for personal means of transportation and marketing experience have a direct relationship with decision to sell cassava off-farm and at 10 and 1% level of significance, respectively, while distance to the nearest town and distance from the farm to the market had an indirect relationship with decision to sell off-farm at 5% level of significance each and cost of transportation at 1% level. The study raises policy issues which might reduce these transaction costs by providing more market outlets, better rural infrastructure and also bulking centres

Analyses of labour productivity among small-holder cassava farmers for food security and empowerment in central Madagascar

Open Access JournalLabour productivity affects food security, but quantifying this relationship has been scarce with respect to empirical literature. The Central Madagascar dataset explores the influence of labour productivity and related variables on the food security status of cassava farmers. Drawing on both theory and empirical evidence, this paper argues that fundamental effects of links between labour productivity and food security are most times often overlooked currently in policy analyses. The study used a probit regression analytical procedure to explain the effect of labour productivity on food security of 180 Malagasy smallholder cassava farmers selected through a multi-stage random sampling technique. Results showed that 25% of the cassava farmers were food in-secure. Labour productivity had a direct relationship with food security status of farmers at 1% level of probability as well as membership of cooperatives and farm size. Aged farmers were more food insecure at 10% level of probability than their younger counterparts. Households with high dependency ratio and family labour tend to be food insecure at 1% and 10% level of probability respectively among the farmers sampled. The results therefore call for land re-distribution and re-form policies aimed at encouraging younger farmers who seem to be more labour productive by allocating more land to these group (as cooperatives) to increase cassava cultivation thereby giving a boost to food security

Differentials in technical efficiency among smallholder cassava farmers in Central Madagascar: a Cobb Douglas stochastic frontier production approach

Open Access JournalThis study employed the Cobb–Douglas stochastic frontier production function to measure the level of technical efficiency among smallholder cassava farmers in Central Madagascar. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 180 cassava farmers in the region and from this sample, input–output data were obtained using the cost route approach. The parameters of the stochastic frontier production function were estimated using the maximum likelihood method. The results of the analysis showed that individual farm-level technical efficiency was about 79%. The study found education, gender and age to be indirectly and significantly related to technical efficiency at a 1% level of probability, and to household size at a 5% level. The coefficient for occupational status was positive and highly significant at a 1% level. The results show that the study’s cassava farmers are not fully technically efficient, showing a mean score of .79%, and suggesting that opportunities still exist for increasing efficiency among the farmers. There is a need, therefore, to ensure that these farmers have access to the appropriate inputs, especially land and capital. The results also call for land reform policies to be introduced, aimed at making more land available, especially to the younger and full-time female farmers

A Moving Boundary Flux Stabilization Method for Cartesian Cut-Cell Grids using Directional Operator Splitting

An explicit moving boundary method for the numerical solution of time-dependent hyperbolic conservation laws on grids produced by the intersection of complex geometries with a regular Cartesian grid is presented. As it employs directional operator splitting, implementation of the scheme is rather straightforward. Extending the method for static walls from Klein et al., Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., A367, no. 1907, 4559-4575 (2009), the scheme calculates fluxes needed for a conservative update of the near-wall cut-cells as linear combinations of standard fluxes from a one-dimensional extended stencil. Here the standard fluxes are those obtained without regard to the small sub-cell problem, and the linear combination weights involve detailed information regarding the cut-cell geometry. This linear combination of standard fluxes stabilizes the updates such that the time-step yielding marginal stability for arbitrarily small cut-cells is of the same order as that for regular cells. Moreover, it renders the approach compatible with a wide range of existing numerical flux-approximation methods. The scheme is extended here to time dependent rigid boundaries by reformulating the linear combination weights of the stabilizing flux stencil to account for the time dependence of cut-cell volume and interface area fractions. The two-dimensional tests discussed include advection in a channel oriented at an oblique angle to the Cartesian computational mesh, cylinders with circular and triangular cross-section passing through a stationary shock wave, a piston moving through an open-ended shock tube, and the flow around an oscillating NACA 0012 aerofoil profile.Comment: 30 pages, 27 figures, 3 table

High quality cassava flour, promising raw material for bread, biscuit and pastry industries: lessons from a pilot study in Madagascar

Cassava is the second most important staple crop in Madagascar after rice, in term of production volume and area cultivated. Traditional cassava processing techniques are rudimentary and provide insignificant market opportunities to the smallholder cassava farmers. On the other hand, market survey showed that the high price of wheat flour in the retail market high, 0.9 to 1.08 US$per kg, and bakers desired a substitute raw material. The potential market demand for High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) by local bakeries, a biscuit factory, and the caterers in Antananarivo was about 9,400 tons a year. A project to vertically integrate the cassava sector through the processing and supply of HQCF to bakers was implemented in Madagascar from 2003 to 2007. The HQCF technology was introduced at pilot-scale to farmers in Ambatomanoina locality of Madagascar. The technology introduction was accompanied with training of farmers in all aspects of business enterprise management. The pilot farmers produced 24.3 tons of high quality cassava flour a month from the first year. Annual cost of production for HQCF was estimated at US$ 17,328. Profitability analysis revealed profit about US$ 18,783

Accurate estimate of drag forces using particle-resolved direct numerical simulations

An accurate force estimate for finite-size particle simulations is proposed based on Lagrange extrapolation of third order, coupled with a Taylor interpolation of the same order, to estimate pressure and viscous constraints on the surface of particles. The main point of our approach is to upwind the interpolation support in the normal direction to the fluid/solid interface so as to use only fluid values to estimate forces. Also, detailed validations of forces are considered for estimating accuracy and convergence order of the method on various incompressible motions such as the flow around an isolated particle at various Reynolds numbers and flows across packed spheres under faced-centered cubic, random, and bidisperse arrangements