Many people in African countries derive their livelihoods from agriculture. Therefore, unfavourable environmental and climatic conditions render them more vulnerable to increasing food insecurity and poverty rates. However, few studies have investigated how farmers’ adaptation strategies affect farm productivity and household food security in the Sahelian region, notably Mali. We analyse factors that influence adaptation strategies to climate change and the impacts of the adaptation strategies on maize productivity and household food security in southern Mali. Farmers use adaptation strategies such as organic fertilizers, changing planting dates and growing of short duration maize varieties to mitigate against the negative effects of climate change. We find that farmer experience, number of livestock owned, off-farm employment, access to credit, farmer association and technical training exert positive effects on the use of planting short-duration maize varieties as an adaptation strategy, while distance to the farm shows a negative effect. We observe that household size, experience in maize farming, number of livestock owned and technical training positively influence farmers to change planting dates as an adaptation strategy. The use of organic fertilizers and short-duration maize varieties promote maize productivity and food security. We conclude that building farmers’ adaptive capacity tends to reduce their vulnerability to climate change by increasing crop yields and food security.

This paper investigates the economic impacts of climate change on cereal crop production in Northern Ghana using 240 households comprising maize and sorghum farmers. The Ricardian regression approach was used to examine the economic impacts of climate change based on data generated from a survey conducted in the 2013/2014 farming seasons. Forty-year time-series data of rainfall and temperature from 1974 to 2013, together with cross-sectional data, were used for the empirical analysis. The Ricardian regression estimates for both maize and sorghum showed varying degrees of climate change impacts on net revenues. The results indicated that early season precipitation was beneficial for sorghum, but harmful for maize. However, mid-season precipitation tended to promote maize production. Temperature levels for all seasons impacted negatively on net revenue for both crops, except during the mid-season, when temperature exerted a positive effect on net revenue for sorghum. Our findings suggest that appropriate adaptation strategies should be promoted to reduce the negative impacts of prevailing climate change on cereal crop production.

HIGHLIGHTS. Surface water are mainly used for crop production in the Pra River Basin.Mercury, Copper, Arsenic and Iron concentration levels exceed the permissib

Enhancing smallholder farmers’ access to reliable, ready, and direct marketing channels is a prerequisite for sustainable food supply and poverty reduction in the developing countries including Ghana. However, it is a great challenge for smallholder farmers to access direct marketing channels in Ghana. This paper analyzes the factors that influence smallholder rice farmers’ participation, and the intensity of participation, in direct marketing channels using primary data from 199 farmers in three rice-growing districts in the Northern Region of Ghana. A double hurdle model was used in the empirical analysis. The study findings show that a lower percentage of farmers sold their rice output to processors (direct marketing). Farm size, the price of rice output per 85 kg bag, access to market information, and access to credit increased farmers’ participation in direct marketing channels, whereas payment period and ownership of a bicycle reduced their participation. The study concludes that improving farmers’ access to market information and credit availability would enhance participation in direct marketing channels.

In this era of rapidly increasing food demand, a sustainable food supply is required to meet such demand. This suggests that capital investment through adequate access to credit is needed to develop the agricultural sector in developing countries including Lesotho. Therefore, this paper examined farmers’ access to credit and its impact on farm income using a three-stage model, namely: Probit, Tobit, and propensity score matching. The study was conducted in Lesotho with a sample size of 100 farmers. The empirical results reveal that access to credit increases net farm revenues by US$116.608 to US$136.894. Furthermore, savings, scale of production, membership of farmer associations and financial record keeping exert significant positive effects on access to credit, while higher interest rates reduce farmers’ likelihood of securing credit from a financial institution. We conclude that adequate access to credit is necessary to promote a sustainable agricultural development and the livelihoods of rural farmers in Africa.