There is great untapped potential for farm mechanization to support rural development initiatives in low- and middle-income countries. As technology transfer of large machinery from high-income countries was ineffective during the 1980s and 90s, …
This paper reviews agricultural mechanization and reduced tillage use in the context of sustainable intensification in developing country agriculture. The scoping review includes selected and contrasting cases - including Zimbabwe (manual systems), …
The increasingly complex challenges facing agricultural systems require problem-solving processes and systems analysis (SA) tools that engage multiple actors across disciplines. In this article, we employ the theory of affordances to unravel what …
Conservation agriculture (CA) 'the simultaneous application of minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention, and crop diversification' is a key approach to address declining soil fertility and the adverse effects of climate change in southern …
The debate on future global food security is centered on increasing yields. This focus on availability of food is overshadowing access and utilization of food, and the stability of these over time. In addition, pleas for increasing yields across the …
Since the paper by Giller et al. (2009), the debate surrounding the suitability of conservation agriculture (CA) for African smallholders has remained polarized between proponents and opponents. The debate also gave rise to a few studies that …
Conservation agriculture (CA) is increasingly promoted in Africa as analternative for coping with the need to increase food production on the basis of more sustainable farming practices. Success with adopting CA on farms in Africa has been limited, …
Agricultural intensification, or increasing yield, has been a persistent theme in policy interventions in African smallholder agriculture. This article focuses on two hegemonic policy models of such intensification; (1) the 'Alvord model' of …