Year Published
- 2008 (3) Apply 2008 filter
- 2009 (6) Apply 2009 filter
- 2010 (11) Apply 2010 filter
- 2011 (9) Apply 2011 filter
- 2012 (1) Apply 2012 filter
- 2013 (5) Apply 2013 filter
- 2014 (3) Apply 2014 filter
- (-) Remove 2015 filter 2015
- 2016 (3) Apply 2016 filter
- 2017 (2) Apply 2017 filter
- 2018 (1) Apply 2018 filter
- 2019 (0)
- 2020 (0)
- 2021 (0)
Research Topics
Populations
- Countries/Governments (0)
- Rural Populations (0)
- Smallholder Farmers (2) Apply Smallholder Farmers filter
- Women (0)
Types of Research
- Data Analysis (2) Apply Data Analysis filter
- (-) Remove Literature Review filter Literature Review
- (-) Remove Portfolio Review filter Portfolio Review
- Research Brief (0)
Geography
- East Africa Region and Selected Countries (1) Apply East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- Global (0)
- South Asia Region and Selected Countries (1) Apply South Asia Region and Selected Countries filter
- Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries (0)
- Sub-Saharan Africa (2) Apply Sub-Saharan Africa filter
- 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 Household Well-Being & Equity filter Household Well-Being & Equity
- (-) Remove 2015 filter 2015
- (-) Remove Literature Review filter Literature Review
- (-) Remove Environment & Climate Change filter Environment & Climate Change
- (-) Remove Labor & Time Use filter Labor & Time Use
- (-) Remove Agricultural Productivity, Yield, & Constraints filter Agricultural Productivity, Yield, & Constraints
- (-) Remove Research & Development filter Research & Development
- (-) Remove Portfolio Review filter Portfolio Review
Cereal yield variability is influenced by initial conditions such as suitability of the farming system for cereal cultivation, current production quantities and yields, and zone-specific potential yields limited by water availability. However, exogenous factors such as national policies, climate, and international market conditions also impact farm-level yields directly or provide incentives or disincentives for farmers to intensify production. We conduct a selective literature review of policy-related drivers of maize yields in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda and pair the findings with FAOSTAT data on yield and productivity. This report presents our cumulative findings along with contextual evidence of the hypothesized drivers behind maize yield trends over the past 20 years for the focus countries.
We review the current body of literature exploring the theories behind holistic human development measurements and the tradeoffs of different methodologies for the construction of human development indices. Through a systematic review of published and grey literature in the fields of human, international, and economic development we identify 22 current indices that aggregate measures from multiple dimensions of human development. We then analyze these indices to identify tradeoffs related to their unique characteristics and construction methodologies, considering ease of calculation, coverage of different measures of human development, ease of interpretation, comparability, and novelty. The report is accompanied by an appendix of summary tables for each index with further details regarding background information, methodology, index components, and evaluation criteria addressed within the report.
This brief reviews the evidence of realized yield gains by smallholder farmers attributable to the use of high-quality seed and/or improved seed varieties. Our analysis suggests that in most cases, use of improved varieties and/or quality seed is associated with modest yield increases. In the sample of 395 trials reviewed, positive yield changes accompanied the use of improved variety or quality seed, on average, in 10 out of 12 crops, with rice and cassava as the two exceptions.
Cassava production is prone to many constraints throughout the production cycle, including biotic, abiotic, and management constraints. This brief reviews the literature on the production impacts of two key cassava stressors: cassava bacterial blight (CBB) and postharvest physiological deterioration (PPD). We summarize available estimates of the frequency and magnitude of these constraints relative to other drivers of cassava production losses that affect smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), review the control strategies proposed in the literature, report on the views of several experts in the field, and identify research gaps where relatively little appears to be known about CBB or PPD yield impacts or best practices for CBB or PPD management.