Climate forecasting is a crucial tool for managing risks in climate-sensitive economic sectors like agriculture. Although rainfed subsistence farming dominates livelihoods in Africa, information on access, integration in farm decisions and impact of improved seasonal climate forecasting remains scanty. This paper addresses this gap using representative data of 653 households across three regions in North-Central Namibia.

In the context of climate change and its effects, production and consumption of orphaned crops such as sweet potato has been promoted as alternative food diets in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, sustainable production of these crops is hampered by poor access to seed. This paper assesses seed security among smallholder sweet potato producers in Kenya and its implications on household food security. Data for the paper were collected through a survey of 383 sweet potato producing households in Kirinyaga and Homabay Counties of Kenya.

Why do many smallholder farmers fail to adopt what appear to be relatively simple agronomic or management practices which can help them cope with climate-induced stressors?

In this paper we study the impact of tenure security on rural to urban migration of household members over the age of 15. Using three waves of the Tanzanian National Panel Survey (NPS) data, we show that tenure security is associated with lower probability of migration in rural Tanzania. This result is consistent with the idea that better property rights over agricultural land in rural Tanzania, by easing the fear of expropriation of land holdings, can induce households to retain more of their members. The result is found to be robust to different specifications and estimation techniques.

The context of Tanzania is such that there is close link between achieving industrialization and achieving agricultural transformation. Increased growth in agricultural productivity, output and income contributes to a rapid reduction in rural poverty, supplies raw materials to industries and makes agriculture a market for industrial outputs. Policies that fail to take into account this nexus are bound to have little if any, impact in the overall national development.

Limited non-farm opportunities in the rural areas of the developing world, coupled with population growth, means agriculture will continue to play a dominant role as a source of livelihood in these areas. Thus, while rural transformation has dominated recent literature as a way of improving welfare through diversifying into non-farm sectors, improving productivity and resilience to shocks in smallholder agricultural production cannot be downplayed.