Year Published
- 2008 (1) Apply 2008 filter
- (-) Remove 2009 filter 2009
- 2010 (6) Apply 2010 filter
- 2011 (4) Apply 2011 filter
- 2012 (0)
- 2013 (5) Apply 2013 filter
- 2014 (4) Apply 2014 filter
- 2015 (2) Apply 2015 filter
- 2016 (3) Apply 2016 filter
- 2017 (1) Apply 2017 filter
- (-) Remove 2018 filter 2018
- 2019 (0)
- 2020 (1) Apply 2020 filter
- 2021 (0)
Research Topics
Populations
- Countries/Governments (0)
- Rural Populations (0)
- Smallholder Farmers (1) Apply Smallholder Farmers filter
- Women (0)
Types of Research
- Data Analysis (0)
- Literature Review (2) Apply Literature Review filter
- Portfolio Review (0)
- Research Brief (0)
Geography
- East Africa Region and Selected Countries (2) Apply East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- Global (1) Apply Global filter
- South Asia Region and Selected Countries (0)
- Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries (1) Apply Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- (-) Remove Sub-Saharan Africa filter Sub-Saharan Africa
- West Africa Region and Selected Countries (0)
Dataset
- ASTI (0)
- FAOSTAT (0)
- Farmer First (0)
- LSMS & LSMS-ISA (0)
- Other Datasets (0)
Current search
- (-) Remove 2009 filter 2009
- (-) Remove 2018 filter 2018
- (-) Remove Sub-Saharan Africa filter Sub-Saharan Africa
- (-) Remove Household Well-Being & Equity filter Household Well-Being & Equity
- (-) Remove Agricultural Productivity, Yield, & Constraints filter Agricultural Productivity, Yield, & Constraints
Smallholder farmers in Africa are largely located in poor rural areas, are often geographically dispersed, and have limited access to road and communication infrastructure, thus raising the cost of market participation. This is especially true for farmers growing relatively low value staple crops. This literature review summarizes research on the challenges and innovations in linking smallholder producers of staple grains to markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on post-harvest issues including storage, aggregation, and transportation. For each post-harvest stage, we describe challenges faced by farmers and current efforts to address these challenges. In our review, we find a large amount of literature on the constraints to smallholder production and marketing but relatively few examples of innovative or novel technologies designed to improve storage and transportation for rural smallholder producers in Africa. Existing technologies have often been available for some time but have not seen widespread adoption, apparently due to high costs or inadequate funding for on-farm testing and extension. We conclude that the literature is somewhat divided as to whether interventions linking smallholder farmers to markets should be entirely market-driven and focus on linkages that can be profitable without subsidization, or whether NGO- and donor-driven interventions should play a role.
This report present a thorough review of relevant literature regarding labor constraints currently being faced in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The review focuses on the impacts of labor supply issues, particularly as they relate to the use of new technology and management techniques, off farm labor migration, and the impacts of HIV/AIDS. The review is provides a basic breakdown of the different kinds of agricultural labor in SSA, before presenting the evidence on the causes and impact of agricultural labor constraints. Though labor constraints can be relevant on both the demand and supply side, especially for certain groups such as women and youth, our review follows the literature by focusing on the supply side issues. The literature reviewed was written between 1990 and 2008, and includes a combination of reports from government organizations and highly cited journal articles.