TICAD9 Series (1): Research on the Role of Agriculture in Africa’s Development

The international initiative “The Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD)”, launched at TICAD IV, is designed to help find medium- and long-term solutions to the problem of food availability in Africa and to reduce poverty by doubling the rice production. This study provides an empirical analysis of how the CARD initiative serves to increase rice productivity and reduce poverty.

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This open-access book seeks an effective strategy that can facilitate the realization of a green revolution in rice in sub-Saharan Africa. It demonstrates the substantial and sustained impact of rice cultivation training on productivity and the existence of spillover effects from trainees to other farmers. In addition to this it presents new assessments, including the importance of mechanization in the intensification of rice farming, and the modest returns of large-scale irrigation schemes.

Agricultural productivity in Africa is about one third of that of comparable Asian small holder farmers. Many factors affect agricultural productivity, and these differ by product and by country. In an attempt to find lasting solutions to help remedy low productivity and kickstart the transformation of the agricultural sector in Africa, this joint collaborative research between JICA and the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) aims at providing practical policy recommendations for transforming African economies.

The Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment and Promotion (SHEP) approach encourages farmers to change their mindset from “grow and sell" (cultivating crops without understanding how the agriculture products are sold in the market), to “grow to sell" (providing products based on the market demand). This project evaluates the impact of the SHEP approach on smallholder livelihoods using empirical and sociological methodologies.

Using a quasi-experimental sampling of 610 farmers, this study in Oromia, Ethiopia, shows that SHEP improves income and food security for smallholder horticulture farmers. The study also shows that the project’s gender equality training has led to more joint couple decision-making by beneficiary households, thereby contributing to better food security.

Since 2008, the JICA Ogata Research Institute has partnered with Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), led by Professor Joseph Stiglitz, to expand global research networks. Part III of this book discusses Africa’s economic transformation, including agricultural development.

This study discusses evaluation methods related to climate change adaptation measures in consideration of uncertainty. The methods are applied to Kenya’s Mwea Irrigation Development Project for validation.

This column series by Senior Research Fellow Amameishi Shinjiro discusses Africa’s sustainable development through food security and agricultural development from three perspectives: (1) future food security; (2) youth employment (forthcoming); and (3) gender equality and women’s empowerment in rural areas (forthcoming).