Year Published
- 2008 (0)
- 2009 (0)
- 2010 (0)
- 2011 (0)
- 2012 (0)
- 2013 (0)
- 2014 (0)
- 2015 (0)
- (-) Remove 2016 filter 2016
- (-) Remove 2017 filter 2017
- 2018 (0)
- 2019 (1) Apply 2019 filter
- 2020 (0)
- 2021 (0)
Research Topics
Populations
Types of Research
- (-) Remove Data Analysis filter Data Analysis
- Literature Review (0)
- Portfolio Review (0)
- Research Brief (0)
Geography
- (-) Remove East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter East Africa Region and Selected Countries
- Global (1) Apply Global filter
- South Asia Region and Selected Countries (1) Apply South Asia Region and Selected Countries filter
- Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries (0)
- (-) Remove Sub-Saharan Africa filter Sub-Saharan Africa
- West Africa Region and Selected Countries (1) Apply West Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
Dataset
- (-) Remove ASTI filter ASTI
- (-) Remove FAOSTAT filter FAOSTAT
- Farmer First (0)
- LSMS & LSMS-ISA (6) Apply LSMS & LSMS-ISA filter
- (-) Remove Other Datasets filter Other Datasets
Current search
- (-) Remove East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter East Africa Region and Selected Countries
- (-) Remove Sub-Saharan Africa filter Sub-Saharan Africa
- (-) Remove ASTI filter ASTI
- (-) Remove Data Analysis filter Data Analysis
- (-) Remove FAOSTAT filter FAOSTAT
- (-) Remove Research & Development filter Research & Development
- (-) Remove Agricultural Productivity, Yield, & Constraints filter Agricultural Productivity, Yield, & Constraints
- (-) Remove 2017 filter 2017
- (-) Remove Other Datasets filter Other Datasets
- (-) Remove 2016 filter 2016
An ongoing stream of EPAR research considers how public good characteristics of different types of research and development (R&D) and the motivations of different providers of R&D funding affect the relative advantages of alternative funding sources. For this project, we seek to summarize the key public good characteristics of R&D investment for agriculture in general and for different subsets of crops, and hypothesize how these characteristics might be expected to affect public, private, or philanthropic funders’ investment decisions.
There is a wide gap between realized and potential yields for many crops in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Experts identify poor soil quality as a primary constraint to increased agricultural productivity. Therefore, increasing agricultural productivity by improving soil quality is seen as a viable strategy to enhance food security. Yet adoption rates of programs focused on improving soil quality have generally been lower than expected. We explore a seldom considered factor that may limit farmers’ demand for improved soil quality, namely, whether farmers’ self-assessments of their soil quality match soil scientists’ assessments. In this paper, using Tanzania National Panel Survey (TZNPS) data, part of the Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), we compare farmers’ own assessments of soil quality with scientific measurements of soil quality from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). We find a considerable “mismatch” and most notably, that 11.5 percent of survey households that reported having “good” soil quality are measured by scientific standards to have severely constrained nutrient availability. Mismatches between scientific measurements and farmer assessments of soil quality may highlight a potential barrier for programs seeking to encourage farmers to adopt soil quality improvement activities.