An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia?

An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia? PDF

Author: Diao, Xinshen, ed.

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2020-12-07

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 0896293807

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Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.

Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization: A Framework for Africa

Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization: A Framework for Africa PDF

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2019-03-13

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 9251308713

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This framework presents ten interrelated principles/elements to guide Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization in Africa (SAMA). Further, it presents the technical issues to be considered under SAMA and the options to be analysed at the country and sub regional levels. The ten key elements required in a framework for SAMA are as follows: The analysis in the framework calls for a specific approach, involving learning from other parts of the world where significant transformation of the agricultural mechanization sector has already occurred within a three-to-four decade time frame, and developing policies and programmes to realize Africa’s aspirations of Zero Hunger by 2025. This approach entails the identification and prioritization of relevant and interrelated elements to help countries develop strategies and practical development plans that create synergies in line with their agricultural transformation plans. Given the unique characteristics of each country and the diverse needs of Africa due to the ecological heterogeneity and the wide range of farm sizes, the framework avoids being prescriptive.

An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia? Synopsis

An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia? Synopsis PDF

Author: Diao, Xinshen, ed.

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2020-12-07

Total Pages: 4

ISBN-13: 0896293823

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Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.

Agricultural Mechanization in Sub-Saharan Africa

Agricultural Mechanization in Sub-Saharan Africa PDF

Author: Karim Houmy

Publisher: Integrated Crop Management

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13:

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The manual work carried out by farmers and their families is often both arduous and time consuming and in many countries this is a major constraint to increasing agricultural production. Such day-to-day drudgery is a major contributoring factor in the migration of people, particularly the young, from the rural countryside to seek the prospect of a better life in the towns and cities. Farm production can be substantially increased through the use of mechanical technologies which both are labor-saving and directly increase yields and production. This document provides guidelines on the development and formulation of an agricultural mechanization strategy and forms part of FAO's approach on sustainable production intensification.

Agricultural Mechanization and the Evolution of Farming Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa

Agricultural Mechanization and the Evolution of Farming Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa PDF

Author: Prabhu L. Pingali

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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The slow pace of agricultural mechanization in Africa has long been a puzzle. This book begins to solve the puzzle by looking at the conditions in sub-Saharan Africa that have led to only sporadic use of the plow rather than the hand hoe, very limited use of tractors and even oxen, and the failure of many projects seeking to move directly from hand hoes to tractors. The authors interviewed farmers at fifty sites in ten countries. They found that the pace of mechanization has been slow in Africa because it often is not cost effective. Among the issues discussed in the book are : (a) the effect on yields of substituting plows for hoes; (b) the cost-effectiveness of using draft animals as opposed to tractors; (c) conditions under which tractors can be used more efficiently than oxen; and (d) the negative consequences of government interventions to encourage the use of tractors beyond what is economically justified.

Agricultural mechanization

Agricultural mechanization PDF

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2018-07-25

Total Pages: 55

ISBN-13: 9251093814

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This paper is specifically about agricultural mechanisation: the opportunities provided by mechanisation for intensifying production in a sustainable manner, in value addition and agri-food value chain development, as well as the inherent opportunities implied for improved local economies and livelihoods. The establishment of viable business enterprises agro-processors, transport services, and so forth as a result of increased agricultural mechanisation in rural areas, is crucial to creating employment and income opportunities and, thereby, enhancing the demand for farm produce. Mechanisation plays a key role in enabling the growth of commercial agri-food systems and the efficiency of post-harvest handling, processing and marketing operations, and as such can be a major determinant in the availability and accessibility of food, the food prices paid by urban and rural poor, as well as contributing to increased household food security.

Mechanization and Maize

Mechanization and Maize PDF

Author: Constance G. Anthony

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9780231065962

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This book explores the puzzling phenomenon of new veiling practices among lower middle class women in Cairo, Egypt. Although these women are part of a modernizing middle class, they also voluntarily adopt a traditional symbol of female subordination. How can this paradox be explained? An explanation emerges which reconceptualizes what appears to be reactionary behavior as a new style of political struggle--as accommodating protest. These women, most of them clerical workers in the large government bureaucracy, are ambivalent about working outside the home, considering it a change which brings new burdens as well as some important benefits. At the same time they realize that leaving home and family is creating an intolerable situation of the erosion of their social status and the loss of their traditional identity. The new veiling expresses women's protest against this. MacLeod argues that the symbolism of the new veiling emerges from this tense subcultural dilemma, involving elements of both resistance and acquiescence.

Sustainable Intensification

Sustainable Intensification PDF

Author: Jules N. Pretty

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-06-25

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1136529276

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Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.