Göran Djurfeldt

• Senior adviser for the Afrint project.
• Project leader for "Combining geospatial and survey data in assessing the prospects of smallholder agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa ".

To cope with projected population and income growth the agricultural sector needs to increase production and productivity without compromising sustainability. Recent research provides evidence of stagnating crop yields and regionally heterogeneous crop yield patterns. It is essential to identify underperforming regions and understand key causes of poor productivity. Regions where the yield gaps are large hold promise for increased production and food security. This focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa with large gaps between actual and potential yields. The aim is to understand the causes of large yield gaps and to integrate geophysical and socio-economic explanations for these. Yield maps will be created to study variations within and between villages, spatially and temporally. Socio-economic panel data will be combined with remote sensing and investigations in eight villages in Kenya and Ghana with focus on geophysical, socio-economic and political aspects. Thus we link geo-spatial data to socio-economic characteristics, combining detailed investigations with large spatial coverage, and thus progressing beyond site-specific observations and conclusions.