Agricultural Commercialisation Pathways, Input Use, and Crop Productivity: Evidence from Smallholder Farmers in Zimbabwe || APRA Working Paper 28

Agricultural commercialisation is increasingly seen as an effective instrument for transforming smallholder production systems and thus increasing the smallholder farmer’s incomes, food security, and other welfare outcomes such as women’s empowerment and rural poverty reduction. However, there is a paucity of studies explaining the different pathways of agricultural commercialisation that different types of farmers can pursue, and how the choice of pathway will influence input utilisation and crop productivity. This paper focuses on explaining how two commercialisation pathways, evident among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, influence levels of crop input utilisation and general crop productivity.