Large-scale agricultural land investments in Africa are often considered solely from the land perspective. Yet land, water and other natural resources are closely interlinked in agricultural production and in sustaining rural livelihoods. Such investments involving irrigation will potentially have implications for water availability and utilization by other users, making it imperative to regard water as an economic rather than a free good.

Reliance on rainfall for agriculture and increased climate change and variability pose growing production risks in developing countries. Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by smallholder farmers who depend mainly on rain-fed agriculture, putting food security at both household and national levels at risk, especially in the event of drought. Investment in smallholder irrigation becomes a priority in developing countries if food security and national development goals are to be met, as their economies are agro-based.

This study elicits the risk preferences of rural households through a field experiment conducted in Shaanxi Province using the Holt-Laury mechanism that considers the effects of implementing the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) on the risk preferences of farmers. The program has significantly changed the structure of farmers' productive property, which may further influence their risk attitudes. This study reveals that household geographic and demographic characteristics have a significant effect on the risk preferences of participants in the experiment.

Groundwater irrigation for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa is growing in extent and importance. This growth is primarily driven spontaneously by the farmers themselves, spurred by improved access to low-cost technologies for pumps and drilling services as well as market opportunities for produce. This paper presents a review of the current status and knowledge of the prospects and constraints for sustainable and pro-poor groundwater irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Stochastic frontier analysis was used to examine input demand elasticities and determinants of technical inefficiency of rainfed farmers in Nigeria. Allocative efficiency of the factor inputs was computed using the marginal value product. Our results show that herbicide has the highest elasticities. It is followed by seeds, fertilizers and land. Labour has the least contribution to the output. None of the respondents optimally allocated the inputs. A large number of the farmers underutilized the variables land, seeds, fertilizer and herbicide, whereas numerous farmers over-utilized labour.