This paper describes urbanization processes in three intermediate urban centres, two in Mozambique and one in Angola. Both countries have suffered major social strife, and the rural livelihood base that existed before and after Independence has been severely affected. The lack of national and local infrastructure, combined with limited market opportunities and competition from cheap agricultura...

Resistance to trypanocidal drugs has been detected in various African countries and is a serious impediment to the control of livestock trypanosomosis. To determine whether drug resistant trypanosome strains are present in the Zambézia Province of Mozambique a study was initiated. To assess the effect of the farming system and the drug-use regimen on the development of drug resistance, trypanos...

Seed of improved varieties and other inputs are imperative to the transformation of the agricultural sector from subsistence farming to small-scale commercial agriculture in developing countries. This paper analyzes the adoption and diffusion process of improved seed by farmers in West Africa. The literature about farmers’ adoption of new agricultural technology is abundant, yet it gives no int...

Members of the genus Dioscorea, food yams, were introduced to Jamaica from Africa during the slave era and have remained a staple in local diets and national cuisine. Yam cultivation has also been an important economic activity providing employment for thousands of rural Jamaicans. Until the 1960s yams were grown for local use by subsistence growers for home consumption or by commercial growers...

WETLAND BENEFITS TO PEOPLE Wetlands provide a large array of ecosystem services— defi ned as the benefi ts people derive from nature—to Ugandans in urban and rural areas (see Table 1). They are used for farming, fi shing, and livestock grazing. They supply families with basic needs such as water, construction material, and fuel. In addition to these local uses, the system of interconnected wetl...

This paper investigates the impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm productivity, a key element for poverty alleviation, in rural Zambia. The reforms comprised the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board that was in place since 1977. Following liberalization, the sector adopted an outgrower scheme, whereby firms provided extension services to farmers and sold inputs on loans that ...

Since 1981, through structural adjustment programme, the agricultural sector has undergone several reforms which were expected to raise the incomes of smallholder farmers and hence increase their entitlement to food through the market. Data from the national household survey, however, show that most of smallholder farming remains subsistence. Only 10 percent of households sold their maize while...

Semi-subsistence farms that predominate in developing countries have more complex goals than the strict profit motives of corporate farms. Small farm management decisions are commonly based on a desire to increase production while avoiding risks and reducing labor demands and operating costs. Enterprise budgets are a valuable tool for understanding diverse farming systems and farmers' decisionm...

The emergence of agriculture in West-Central Africa approximately 5,000 years ago, profoundly modified the cultural landscape and mode of subsistence of most sub-Saharan populations. How this major innovation has had an impact on the genetic history of rainforest hunter-gatherers-historically referred to as 'pygmies'-and agriculturalists, however, remains poorly understood. Here we report genom...

Epidemiology Kwashiorkor is almost never seen in the developed world. Widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and common in Southeast Asia and Central America, kwashiorkor occurs in young children living in areas with endemic food insecurity or famine; prevalence varies by geographic area, with reported levels ranging up to 6% in some chronic foodinsecure communities and occasionally to one quarter of...