Abstract
The level of agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa remains far below the global average. This is partly due to the scarce use of production- and process-enhancing technologies. This study aims to explore the driving forces and effects of adopting innovative agricultural technologies in food value chains (FVC). These enhancing FVC technologies are referred to as upgrading strategies (UPS) and are designed to improve specific aspects of crop production, postharvest processing, market interaction, and consumption. Based on cross-sectional data collected from 820 Tanzanian farm households, this study utilized the adaptive lasso to analyse the determinants of UPS. To measure the impact of their adoption on well-being, this study applied the propensity score matching approach (PSM). Results from the adaptive lasso suggested that access to credit, experience of environmental shocks and social capital were the main drivers of UPS adoption. In contrast, the engagement in off-farm wage employment impeded adoption. The results from the PSM suggested that UPS adoption has a positive and significant impact on well-being among sampled households, especially with respect to their total value of durable goods and commercialization. The paper suggests that the promotion of social capital and access to financial capital is pivotal in enhancing the adoption of innovative UPS in the farming sector.
Highlights
Over the last decades, many technological improvements were promoted to increase productivity in the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
About 70% of the economic value is derived from agriculture and most of the population lives in rural areas and their main source of livelihood is linked to food value chains (FVCs) [2]
FVCs link participants and activities that bring an agricultural product from production at the farm gate to final consumption, with value being added at each stage [3]
Summary
Many technological improvements were promoted to increase productivity in the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). About 70% of the economic value is derived from agriculture and most of the population lives in rural areas and their main source of livelihood is linked to food value chains (FVCs) [2]. FVCs link participants and activities that bring an agricultural product from production at the farm gate to final consumption, with value being added at each stage [3]. Huge portions of what rural farmers produce is consumed within the households, which point at short subsistence-oriented FVCs [4]. Due to the absence of agricultural technologies and sustainable storage facilities, estimated output losses amount to 30% and more throughout FVCs [5,6]
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