The purpose of the study was to identify and document technical knowledge and information gaps that can inform development of appropriate training programs for cane farmers. The study employed a survey research design; involving 105 small scale farmers in selected from eight Sub-counties of Kakamega County. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearson’s product m...

Limitation in crop yield productivity significantly contributes to the pressing problem of food security and malnutrition worldwide. [...].

Many developing countries implement programs and policies to increase or maintain soil fertility, with the objectives of increased crop yields and decreased poverty. However, few countries give emphasis to the biological management of soil fertility (BMSF) compared to more traditional approaches. Ethiopia emphasizes the use synthetic fertilizers to increase food security and reduce poverty, wit...

In a semi-arid environment, the main challenge for crop production is water limitation in space and in time. Considered as appropriate tools, models are used to evaluate the effects of water deficit on crop productivity for better irrigation planning and sustainable yield. The AquaCrop model was tested using data collected during a 4-year experiment on soybean (Glycine max L. Merril) and s...

Managing production environments in ways that promote weed community diversity may enhance both crop production and the development of a more sustainable agriculture. This study analyzed data of productivity of maize (corn) and soybean in plots in the Main Cropping System Experiment (MCSE) at the W. K. Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research (KBS-LTER) in Michigan, USA, from 19...

The overarching goal of this paper was to espouse methods and protocols for water productivity mapping (WPM) using high spatial resolution Landsat remote sensing data. In a world where land and water for agriculture are becoming increasingly scarce, growing "more crop per drop" (increasing water productivity) becomes crucial for food security of future generations. The study used time-series La...

The great challenge of the agricultural sector is to produce more crop from less water, which can be achieved by increasing crop water productivity. The modernization of the irrigation systems offers a number of possibilities to expand the economic productivity of water and improve the virtual water status. The objective of the present study is to assess the global water productivity (GWP) with...

This paper investigates the impact of climate change on the productivity of crop production using U.S. county-level yield and weather data between 1950 and 2015. It finds that the pooled estimators used in previous studies underestimate the sensitivity of crops to high temperatures by ignoring slope heterogeneity, and underestimate the damage of future climate change on yield. Furthermore, expl...

We summarize the findings of a recently completed study of the productivity impacts of international crop genetic improvement research in developing countries. Over the period 1960 to 2000, international agricultural research centers, in collaboration with national research programs, contributed to the development of "modern varieties" for many crops. These varieties have contributed to large i...

Cover crops provide a variety of important agroecological services within cropping systems. Typically these crops are grown as monocultures or simple graminoid-legume bicultures; however, ecological theory and empirical evidence suggest that agroecosystem services could be enhanced by growing cover crops in species-rich mixtures. We examined cover crop productivity, weed suppression, stability,...