West Africa: Assessing agricultural technology

Unfair competition from developed countries could have tragic effects and genuine globalization is required where everybody plays on a level playing field without double standards being adopted. This is one of the findings of a paper produced by the Global Development Network (GDN) that asks the question: Is agricultural technology able to lead to economic development through more productive techniques and can small-scale farmers efficiently and significantly improve their production, feed themselves and enter into competition in a free market? This paper looks at the adoption of technologies in three different countries in West Africa and analyses the impact on soil fertility, food security and market access.