Agriculture

A bundled farm programme in western Kenya boosted yields and profits for smallholders by jointly tackling credit, information, and risk constraints.

New technologies in Brazil increased agricultural productivity, but also reduced economic opportunities for women and increased fertility rates.

Pastoral regions of Africa are witnessing a sharp increase in armed civil conflict. Research has identified ‘mismatched’ agricultural development projects as one major factor driving this violence by displacing local pastoral groups. However, the evi...

Credit constraints prevent farmers from arbitraging seasonal price fluctuations; integrated financial solutions can enable grain storage, channel returns into forward-looking investments, and smooth seasonal prices, yielding benefits for the broader ...

There are fears that agricultural subsidies could attract farmers with low returns to use new technologies. Evidence from Bangladesh shows that without subsidies, the price of agricultural inputs is actually a barrier to adoption, highlighting that h...

An evaluation of six different text-message-based agricultural extension programmes, that collectively reached over 128,000 farmers in Kenya and Rwanda, shows that while the impacts of text messages are modest, they can be an extremely cost-effective...

Climate change is increasing the severity and incidence of extreme weather events. How can policymakers help build farmer resilience to these shocks?

Supervisors can nurture talent within organisations by passing on tacit production knowledge that improves workers’ performance. Evidence from Uganda shows that investments in supervisors as coaches can be a cost-effective way to boost worker product...