Agricultural Investment and Productivity
Building Sustainability in East Africa
Environment for Development Series

Agricultural Investment and Productivity provides a deep and systematic look at the opportunities for and constraints to investments in sustainable agriculture in East Africa, offering important insights into what works and how to analyze agricultural investments in one of the poorest regions of the world.

The book critically examines the reasons behind East Africa's stagnant agricultural productivity over the past forty-five years, using the primary lens of investments in fertilizers, seeds, and sustainable land management technologies. These investments have a tremendous impact on production volume, ultimately affecting the income of millions of families throughout the region.

Contents

Contributors

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. Agricultural Production in East Africa: Stagnation, Investment and Poverty

Part I: Determinants of Sustainable Land Management Investments
2. Stimulating Smallholder Investments in Sustainable Land Management: Overcoming Market, Policy and Institutional Challenges

3. The Role of Social Capital in Sustainable Development: An Analysis of Soil Conservation in Rural Kenya

4. Tenure Security and Incentives for Sustainable Land Management: A Case Study from Kenya
Jane Kabubo-Mariara and Vincent Linderhof

Part II: The Effect of Risk on Investments
5. Risk Preferences and Technology Adoption: Case Studies from Ethiopian Highlands

6. Fertilizer Use by Smallholder Households in Northern Ethiopia: Does Risk Aversion Matter?

7. Crop Biodiversity and the Management of Production Risk on Degraded Lands: Some Evidence from the Highlands of Ethiopia

Part III: Returns to Sustainable Land Management Investments
8. Where does investment on Sustainable Land Management Technology Work? Empirical Evidence from the Ethiopian Highlands

9. Soil Conservation and Small Scale Food Production in Highland Ethiopia: A Stochastic Metafrontier Approach

Part IV: Public Policies and Sustainable Land Management Investments
10. Policy Instruments to Reduce Downstream Externalities of Soil Erosion and Surface Run-Off

11. Incentives for Sustainable Land Management in East African Countries

12. Conclusions and Key Lessons

Randall Bluffstone is Professor of Economics and Chair of the Department of Economics at Portland State University.

Gunnar Kohlin is Associate Professor with the Environmental Economics Unit in the Department of Economics at University of Gothenburg and Director of the Environment for Development Initiative.