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This study assessed an electronic wallet (e-wallet) system and determinants of cassava farmers’ participation in off-farm activities in Abuja, Nigeria. A sample of 67 cassava farmers was selected through a multi-stage sampling technique from six selected agricultural extension blocks. Primary data were used. Data were collected using a well-structured and well-designed questionnaire. The analytical tools used were descriptive statistics and maximum likelihood estimates using the logistic regression model. The results indicated that an electronic-wallet is an innovative, motivational mobile phone technology, the first in sub-Saharan Africa to distribute mobile phones to farmers which bring fertilizers, improved seeds, financial services, and agricultural information tips to farmers, and this increases yields and output. The electronic wallet system targeted 20 million farmers with an intention to distribute 10 million mobile phones to farmers in 4 years. In 2014, 1,000 agro-dealers and fourteen million five hundred farmers were registered on the electronic wallet system respectively. Also, one million two hundred farmers have also received inputs via the electronic-wallet system. The electronic-wallet system added an estimated 30-40 billion dollars to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product in 2014. Furthermore, the result shows that the age of most sampled cassava farmers fell between 36 and 50 years. About 94% of sampled cassava farmers were male. Off-farm income has the potential to improve the income of farmers. These types of activities undertaken by cassava farmers off the farms include: teaching, tailoring, hunting, pottery, blacksmithing, petty trading, etc. Farmers’ age, farming experience and number of off-farm activities were significant variables influencing farmers’ participation in off-farm activities at P ≤ 0.01; P ≤ 0.10; and P ≤ 0.01 respectively. The coefficient of Nagelkerke (R2) value was 0.751.This shows that the explanatory variables explain the level of participation of cassava farmers in off-farm activities at 75% level of confidence. The coefficient of Cox and Snell determinant (R2) value was 0.547. Off-farm employment is an alternative strategy and has potentials to improve the income and well-being of farmers. The study recommends that government and nongovernment organizations should introduce innovations, motivations, interventions, policies that improve crop production and support the off-farm sector in order to create job opportunities so that poor households can participate and benefit directly.

There is an increasing need to improve value addition in order to get maximum utility from agricultural systems. Using a retrospective panel data from 482 cassava farmers covering the years 2015&ndash, 2017, this study examined the effect of value addition on productivity of farmers in the cassava system in Nigeria. We analysed a non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis to examine productivity across cassava production systems over the three year period. We also examined the impact of value addition on productivity using an endogenous switching regression to account for unobservables that determine the decision to add value and productivity of the farmers. The study found that cost and revenue outlays increased with value addition. Cassava farmers in general operated below the efficiency frontier, with total productivity declining over the 2015&ndash, 2017 period. However, higher value addition farmers had better efficiency and non-reducing productivity in the periods studied. We found evidence of selection bias in the decision to add value and productivity of the farmers. The conditional and unconditional outcome estimates revealed positive gains in productivity with value addition, confirming the hypothesis that value addition increases farming households&rsquo, productivity. We recommend that essential services such as extension services, agricultural training, and ease of enterprise registration that drive agricultural value addition be made available to farmers.

The study analyzed the determinants of cassava farmers’ accessibility to microfinance services in Abia state, Nigeria. Specifically the study assessed the economic variables influencing cassava farmers’ accessibility to microfinance, the qualitative perception of farmers’ access and the empirical determinants of cassava farmers’ accessibility to microfinance. Multistage random sampling technique was used in selecting respondents who were beneficiaries of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) spread across the 3 agricultural zones in the state; from which primary data were collected using questionnaires. A total of 120 cassava farmers who are beneficiaries of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) were used in the study. Method of data analysis used were means, frequencies, percentages, likert scale analysis and the logit multiple regression model. The result revealed that gender, age, education, household size, farm size and farming experience are the socio-economic variables influencing cassava farmers’ access to MFIs. The varied level of accessibility enjoyed by cassava farmers were in terms of total amount of credit received, amount of credit used for cassava farming and distance to MFIs location. While the important significant determinants of accessibility are gender, age, education, farming experience, amount of loan repaid and ownership of house. It is therefore recommended that government policies can capitalize on the socio-economic variables in this study as veritable tools to encouraging accessibility to MFIs.

The study was conducted to determine farmers’ preferential choice decision of alternative cassava value chain strands and as well as factors behind such decisions in Morogoro rural District, Tanzania. Factor analysis was first used to reduce and identify the factors (variables for further analysis whereby the factors with highest eigen-value were applied to develop factor scores to measure the attitudinal variables. Results indicate that farmers have positive risk attitude towards participation in the alternative cassava value chain strands for commercialization. A count data model known as Poisson model was applied to determine the factors which influenced this attitude. Results indicated that farm size, experience, female-headed households and land-holding had influenced the farmers’ preferential choice decision. Recommendations for enhancing farmers’ participation in profitable cassava value chain strands are strengthening coordination, provision of improved cassava varieties and introduction of cassava processing technologies.