The Impacts and Causes of Land Fragmentation on Farm Productivity: Case Review of East African Countries

This report provides an overall assessment of land fragmentation problems in East Africa. Many parts of East Africa have become highly fragmented, putting development systems and activities in these areas at risk of complete collapse. Land fragmentation occurs when land gets converted for agriculture, industrialization, or urbanization, invaded by non-local plants, or enclosed for individual use and by subdividing farmlands into subsequent smaller units called parcels with varying average farm sizes. Fragmentation results from inappropriate agricultural development processes and ineffective land use planning that fails to recognize how farmland is used, and the importance of its interconnected areas. Insecurity of tenure and resource rights are key factors in making this possible. Land fragmentation is one of the key reasons why the ability of most resources in East Africa becomes scarcer, and those remaining become “privatized” by more powerful community members—keen to maintain their access to them. Such individualistic attitudes are new and disadvantage the poorest even further by affecting the traditional customary safety nets and agricultural outputs. Neither the government nor customary governance systems effectively protect resource access for the poorest. This review summary report identifies the key causes, measures, and implications, government interventions, and the common remedies to land fragmentation problems in the East African Countries of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania including neighboring Ethiopia, and the Sudan. The findings indicated from 2005 to 2015, the population kept increasing for all the named countries in East Africa with Rwanda and Uganda having a substantial increase in population density. The study review further explores the trend in the performance of agriculture by average farm sizes within the intervals of five years by highlighting their strong linkages and found that the average farm size has declined drastically, especially for Kenya. This can only mean that small farms kept becoming smaller and smaller and that there were more small-scale farmers. The results further depicted that the major and commonly cultivated food crops among the East African countries include maize, sorghum, rice, cassava, sweet potatoes, bananas, Irish potatoes, beans, peas, etc., with maize yields (Mt/ha) in 2003 for Uganda being the highest (1.79 Mt/ha) and the lowest in Rwanda (0.77 Mt/ha) respectively. Therefore, from the review results, recommendations are being made as to how the negative impacts of land fragmentation on agricultural productivity can be reduced or mitigated. One way is by community sensitization and awareness about the importance of land consolidation and its proposition on farm productivity.

The Output of Major Farm Products and Growth Rate in 1995

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Study on Storage Facilities of Agricultural Products in Courtyard in China

Mini storage facilities applicable in rural areas in China have been developed after nine years of research. Optimal design of structure and refrigeration system, facilities optimization, computer control and management technology are studied and developed.

Farm Production Growth in the Upper and Middle Parts of the Yellow River Basin,China,During 1980-1999

The impact of inputs on farm production growth was evaluated by analyzing the economic data of the upper and middle parts of the Yellow River basin, China for the period of 1980-1999. Descriptive statistics were employed to characterize the temporal trends and spatial patterns in farm production and five pertinent inputs of cultivated cropland, irrigation ratio, agricultural labor, machinery power and chemical fertilizer. Stochastic frontier production function was applied to quantify the dependence of the farm production on these inputs. The growth of farm production was decomposed to reflect the contributions by input growths and change in total factor productivity.. The change in total factor productivity was further decomposed into the changes in technology and in technical efficiency. The gross value of farm production in the region of study increased by 1.6 fold during 1980-1999. Among the five selected farm inputs, machinery power and chemical fertilizer increased by 1.8 and 2.8 fold, respectively. The increases in cultivated cropland, irrigated cropland, and agricultural labor were all less than 0.16 fold. The growth in the farm production was primarily contributed by the increase in the total factor productivity during 1980-1985, and by input growths after 1985. More than 80% of the contributions by input growths were attributed to the increased application of fertilizer and machinery. In the change of total factor productivity, the technology change dominated over the technical efficiency change in the study period except in the period of 1985-1990, implying that institution and investment played important roles in farm production growth. There was a decreasing trend in the technical efficiency in the region of study, indicating a potential to increase farm production by improving the technical efficiency in farm activities. Given the limited natural resources in the basin, the results of this study suggested that, for a sustainable growth of farm production in the area, efforts should be directed to technology progress and improvement in technical efficiency in the use of available resources.

Dissemination paradox:how contextual realities influence smallholder farmers'modifications of agroforestry technologies in Uganda's Mt.Elgon region

This study was intended to understand how smallholder farmers’modifications improved agroforestry technologies’usability in Uganda’s Mt.Elgon region.We used a case study approach to understand how smallholder farmers’contextual realities informed their modifications and enhanced the usability of agroforestry technologies.Data was collected over four months of frequent and regular interaction with the cases using formal and informal methods that included in-depth interviews,conversations,discussions,and direct observations.Emerging themes and patterns were identified from the comprehensively reduced data.In addition,respondents’direct quotes were used to emphasize the reasons for the modifications.The findings showed that smallholder farmers modified the recommended technologies to suit their biophysical and socio-economic realities.Differences and similarities in modifications existed among cases across the agroforestry technologies.The modifications were mainly done to diversify tree uses,optimize space utilization,and minimize production costs for farming households.These findings imply a need to critically examine the smallholder farmers’modifications to make agroforestry technologies applicable and compliant to their contexts.This will inform the re-invention of technologies that will quickly diffuse into the community for broader impact.Findings also emphasize the need to rethink the linear model of technology transfer mainly applied in agroforestry technology development and dissemination because it offers limited space for the much-needed feedback from smallholder farmers.

Developing Agricultural Logistics Based on Agricultural Industrialization

Developing agricultural logistics is important to farm products circulation and it is helpful to solve the problems about agriculture, rural areas and peasantry of China. It is not a negligible countermeasure to increase peasants＇ incomes and enhance the capability of agriculture development in agricultural industrialization, meanwhile it can also raise the efficiency of farm products circulation. This paper firstly expounded that agricultural industrialization should include agricultural logistics, then analyzed the present problems of agricultural logistics and the significance of developing modem agricultural logistics which based on agricultural industrialization in China. Lastly, it put forward the countermeasures to develop agricultural logistics based on agricultural industrialization.

Understanding the impact of sustainable land-scape management practices on farm productivity under intensifying tropical cyclones: Evidence from Southern Malawi

Southern Malawi is continuously affected by tropical cyclone-related floods(TCRFs),which have negative consequences on households'livelihoods,thereby displacing most households to neighbouring communities of Mozambique.The TCRFs have further threatened national,regional,community,and household food security agenda,which is already constrained by poverty,poor agricultural practices,low use of improved varieties,unaffordable inorganic fertilizers,and fragmenting landholding sizes.Accordingly,households have indigenously engineered resilience-based Sustainable Landscape Management(SLM)practices,like intercropping,agroforestry,cover cropping,and soil and water conservation practices,against the adverse effects of TCRFs on-farm productivity.Hence,this study examines the effect of TCRFs and SLM adoption on-farm productivity.While using rigorous endogenous switching regression econometric tools,the study finds TCRFs reducing farm productivity by 27 percent.After SLM adoption,the study observes farm productivity enhancement by 29-126 percent when households adopt at least one SLM practices under varying degrees of TCRFs.Despite the highlighted advantages of SLM adoption,female farmers are less likely to adopt SLM practices because they do not have access to productive resources.Hence,the study proposes the need of gender targeted extension services,accompanied by some seed capital for SLM adoption.Besides,there is need to sensitize farmers on the complementarities between inorganic fertilizer and SLM practices.Lastly,future studies should assess the effect of sustained SLM adoption or dis-adoption and input intensification on farm productivity.