Focus 19, brief 16

Agriculture is the largest economic sector in most African countries and remains the best opportunity for economic growth and poverty alleviation on the continent.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a climate event associated with warming sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. In years of extreme El Niño events, areas in northern Peru experience catastrophic flooding.

Identity theft is a common crime the world over.

Over the past three years, payment strategies for emerging markets have been revolutionized by the advent of a simple cell-phone-based payment service in Kenya called M-PESA (“M” for “mobile” and “pesa” for “money”).

Agriculture is an inherently risky economic activity. A large array of uncontrollable elements can affect output production and prices, resulting in highly variable economic returns to farm households.

Poor people in developing countries are vulnerable to a broad range of shocks that affect their livelihoods, including illness, accidents, and death as well as loss of assets such as animals, crops, and machinery.

India has nearly 90 million farm households. More than 80 percent of these farmers operate on a small or marginal scale, farming less than two hectares of land. They also usually have one or two buffaloes or cows, reared for milk and dung.

Despite their compelling logic, index insurance contracts that transfer risk from smallholder farmers and pastoralists have met with sometimes indifferent demand and low uptake by the intended beneficiaries.

Agriculture in Ethiopia is almost entirely rainfed and highly prone to droughts and floods. Given that 85 percent of the population depends on smallholder agriculture, these weather shocks severely affect many Ethiopians.

The author describes a successful case study as follows: "Dairy production in Kenya has grown at 2.8 percent per year over the past two decades, resulting in per capita production levels double those found anywhere else on the continent.

During the first half of the 20th century, African farmers transformed maize from a minor imported foodcrop into the continent's principal staple food.

The authors describe the case study as follows: "Kenyan horticultural exports have grown at over 6 percent per year for the past 30 years.

One of the pillars of rural development in francophone Africa, the cotton sector serves as a principal motor of economic development, generating benefits to farmers, rural communities, private traders, cotton companies, and national governments...

The authors state that governments and research and development organizations are increasingly interested in understanding and promoting rural agroenterprises as a way to combat rural poverty.