Farm Household Production Efficiency in Southern Malawi: An Efficiency Decomposition Approach

The present study was set out to estimate production efficiency of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L) farmers in the southern region of Malawi’s through efficiency decomposition. A random sample of 72 small-scale farmers was drawn from Balaka district. The findings revealed that farmers in Balaka district have opportunity for productivity gains and cost saving. Mean technical, economic and allocated efficiency were found to be 0.70, 0.57 and 0.82, respectively. Factors like education and credit access augment technical efficiency while credit access, farmer group membership and gender (being male) augment economic and allocative efficiency. Policy thrust like linking small scale farmers to micro-finance institutions for credit access, intensifying family planning programs to reduce family sizes, organizing small scale farmers into groups (cooperatives) and  integrating women into training and extension programs would increase production efficiency of small-scale tomato farming in southern Malawi. Keywords: Decomposition, Malawi, production efficiency, production frontier, tomat

Socioeconomic status connected imbalances in arable land size holding and utilization in smallholder farming in Zimbabwe: Implications for a sustainable rural development

Access to land and other natural resources are key means of driving rural people out of abject poverty. Inequalities in access to land and supportive services that ensure full utilization of land are therefore hurting in rural societies. This article enumerates and explain wealth-related imbalances in land size holding and utilization in Zimbabwe’s smallholder farming sector. It relies on cross-sectional household level data collected from 601 smallholder farming households randomly sampled from four districts. Disparities in land size holding and utilization are measured using the Erreygers corrected concentration index. A decomposition exploration is performed to determine the contributing factors to enumerated inequalities in land size holding and utilization. Results reveal a pro-poor distribution of inequalities in low and very low arable land size holding and also in low land utilization. Conversely, a pro-rich distribution of inequalities is observed in high land size holding and high land utilization. Wealth-related inequalities are evident in both men and women farmer groups, youth and non-youth farmer groups and in different geographic regions. A decomposition analysis show that observed inequalities in both land size holding and utilization are hugely explained by asset wealth. Other factors including access to extension, age of farmer, fulltime-farming status and geographic location were also found to minimally explain measured inequalities. In conclusion, low land size holding and low land utilization are phenomenon highly concentrated within the poorest segments of society in Zimbabwe whilst high land size holding and utilization are found within the more affluent population. Asset holding chiefly explain the disparities. Results suggest the need for decision makers in land allocation, distribution, re-distribution, and agrarian transformation in general, to deliberately concentrate on the most vulnerable and poorer segments of society. Such will have far reaching implications for rural transformation and development

Synergistic impacts of agricultural credit and extension on adoption of climate-smart agricultural technologies in southern Africa

Institutional credit and extension services are critical inputs that can reduce scaling challenges in agricultural development interventions if accessed by farmers. Using household level survey data from Zimbabwe and Malawi, this article seeks to contribute to the existing literature by examining impacts of separate and joint access to credit and extension services on climate-smart agricultural (CSA) technologies adoption. Using inverse-probability weighting regression adjustment and propensity score matching this study found out that access to either extension or credit significantly progresses CSA technology adoption. However, access to extension services only proved to be more effective in enhancing CSA technology adoption than access to credit alone. More importantly, results show enhanced collective impact of simultaneous access to credit and extension on CSA technology adoption. Further, joint impacts of credit and extension on adoption were found to be less pronounced in youthful and women farmer groups compared to their old and male farmer group counterparts respectively. Results call for prudent policy and institutional strategies in improving access to credit and extension services in Malawian and Zimbabwean smallholder farming that are mindful of disadvantaged groups such as youth and women farmer groups in order to improve adoption and upscaling of CSA technologies. Possible options include; improving number of extension workers at village level, increasing youth and women extension agent numbers, capacity building of extension personnel and institutions, and increasing financial support to national extension programs

Climate change mitigation beyond agriculture: A review of food system opportunities and implications

A large body of research has explored opportunities to mitigate climate change in agricultural systems; however, less research has explored opportunities across the food system. Here we expand the existing research with a review of potential mitigation opportunities across the entire food system, including in pre-production, production, processing, transport, consumption and loss and waste. We detail and synthesize recent research on the topic, and explore the applicability of different climate mitigation strategies in varying country contexts with different economic and agricultural systems. Further, we highlight some potential adaptation co-benefits of food system mitigation strategies and explore the potential implications of such strategies on food systems as a whole. We suggest that a food systems research approach is greatly needed to capture such potential synergies, and highlight key areas of additional research including a greater focus on low- and middle-income countries in particular. We conclude by discussing the policy and finance opportunities needed to advance mitigation strategies in food systems

The Caenorhabditis elegans HNF4α Homolog, NHR-31, Mediates Excretory Tube Growth and Function through Coordinate Regulation of the Vacuolar ATPase

Nuclear receptors of the Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor-4 (HNF4) subtype have been linked to a host of developmental and metabolic functions in animals ranging from worms to humans; however, the full spectrum of physiological activities carried out by this nuclear receptor subfamily is far from established. We have found that the Caenorhabditis elegans nuclear receptor NHR-31, a homolog of mammalian HNF4 receptors, is required for controlling the growth and function of the nematode excretory cell, a multi-branched tubular cell that acts as the C. elegans renal system. Larval specific RNAi knockdown of nhr-31 led to significant structural abnormalities along the length of the excretory cell canal, including numerous regions of uncontrolled growth at sites near to and distant from the cell nucleus. nhr-31 RNAi animals were sensitive to acute challenge with ionic stress, implying that the osmoregulatory function of the excretory cell was also compromised. Gene expression profiling revealed a surprisingly specific role for nhr-31 in the control of multiple genes that encode subunits of the vacuolar ATPase (vATPase). RNAi of these vATPase genes resulted in excretory cell defects similar to those observed in nhr-31 RNAi animals, demonstrating that the influence of nhr-31 on excretory cell growth is mediated, at least in part, through coordinate regulation of the vATPase. Sequence analysis revealed a stunning enrichment of HNF4α type binding sites in the promoters of both C. elegans and mouse vATPase genes, arguing that coordinate regulation of the vATPase by HNF4 receptors is likely to be conserved in mammals. Our study establishes a new pathway for regulation of excretory cell growth and reveals a novel role for HNF4-type nuclear receptors in the development and function of a renal system