Closing system-wide yield gaps to increase food production and mitigate GHGs among mixed crop-livestock smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa.

ABSTRACT: In this study we estimate yield gaps for mixed crop-livestock smallholder farmers in seven Sub-Saharan African sites covering six countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Senegal and Burkina Faso). We also assess their potential to increase food production and reduce the GHG emission intensity of their products, as a result of closing these yield gaps. We use stochastic frontier analysis to construct separate production frontiers for each site, based on 2012 survey data prepared by the International Livestock Research Institute for the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security program. Instead of relying on theoretically optimal yields-a common approach in yield gap assessments-our yield gaps are based on observed differences in technical efficiency among farms within each site. S

SUBMITTER: Henderson B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4767044 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature