AbstractAdequate flow of appropriate information to farmers is vital for accelerating the uptake of modern agricultural technologies and improving access to markets, all of which are important for the transformation of African economies. Yet there is limited evidence regarding how information should be disseminated to farmers to achieve the needed impact. Should ICT‐based approaches be used together with traditional methods, or should they be used alone?

This paper uses panel data and qualitative interviews from southwestern Ghana to analyse farmers’ heterogeneous oil palm marketing decisions and the effect on household welfare. We show that despite the supposed benefits that smallholders could derive from participation in global agribusiness value chains via formal contracts, such arrangements are rare although two of Ghana’s ‘big four’ industrial oil palm companies are located in the study area. In the absence of formal contracts, farmers self-select into four main oil palm marketing channels (OPMCs).

AbstractThe field of artificial intelligence is seeing the increased application of satellite imagery to analyse poverty in its various manifestations. This nascent but rapidly growing intersection of scholarship holds the potential to help us better understand poverty by leveraging big data and recent advances in machine vision. In this study, we statistically analyse the literature in the expanding field of welfare and poverty predictions from the combination of machine learning and satellite imagery.

PurposeThe question of what level of public debt can increase inequality has become crucial in Africa. In this study, the authors examine the effect of public debt on inequality in Africa and estimate the debt-inequality threshold.

For centuries resource economists have persistently debated and discussed the potential of the green economy and how it should be protected and used sustainably. Most studies to date on the economic value of natural resources have thus concentrated on the green economy and how countries could harness its resources to achieve growth and development. However, perhaps the blue economy (i.e., ocean resources) could also help achieve growth and development. Studies on the blue economy are concept notes, reports and literature reviews on the evolving definition of the concept.

AbstractThis study complements the extant literature by assessing the role of governance dynamics in food security in Ghana for the period 1980–2019. The empirical evidence is based on the fully modified ordinary least squares technique and governance is categorized into political (entailing political stability and voice and accountability), economical (consisting of regulatory quality and government effectiveness), and institutional (entailing corruption‐control and the rule of law) governance dynamics. The study finds that the engaged governance dynamics improve food security in Ghana.

The promotion of cocoa farm productivity has necessitated the intensification of input use with ensuing loss of natural pollinators. Ghana Cocoa Board’s (COCOBOD) remedy to declining pollinator population is addressed in the rolling out of hand pollination in the 2016/17 crop year. Applying contingent valuation on field data covering 608 farmers in five cocoa growing regions, we estimate the value of pollinator services to the cocoa industry in Ghana and farmers willingness to pay for the service.

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AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic profoundly affected food security by disrupting supply chains through border closures Our study concentrates on South Asia and examines the interplay between COVID‐19, agri‐food trade, and inflation using monthly panel data spanning 2018–2021. Our findings demonstrate that the pandemic notably escalated food inflation in the region. Nevertheless, the robust interaction of agri‐food trade with COVID‐19 helped alleviate this effect. This underscores the significance of trade policies in controlling food inflation during the pandemic in South Asia.