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Access to food through retail supply chain distribution can vary significantly among the urban poor and leads to household food insecurity. The paper explores this sustainable supply chain phenomenon through a field study among South Africa's urban poor.

Urban metabolic flows is the theoretical basis in the context of supply chain management (SCM). The field study comprised 59 semi-structured interviews in one South African township. Data were recorded, transcribed and translated, and coded using NVivo 12 to provide an inventory of eight themes categorized and patterned from the analysis.

Findings indicate societal factors play a significant role affecting food distribution, access and security from a spatial perspective of retail outlet locations and a nutritional standpoint regarding quality and quantity of food.

The study is exploratory in one township, and while rigorously conducted, the generalizability of findings is limited to this context.

The study practically contributes by providing guidance for food retailers and policymakers to include nutritional guidelines in their distribution planning, as well as the dynamics of diverse neighbourhoods that exist in modern urban contexts.

New forms of retail food distribution can provide better security and access to food for the urban poor, contributing to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2 Zero Hunger and 11 Liveable Cities.

The study is interdisciplinary and contributes by linking UN SDGs and SCM through urban metabolic flows from development studies as an overarching framework to enable analysis of relationships between physical, social and economic factors in the urban environment.

This study aims to examine determinants of farmers’ use of climate-smart agricultural practices, specifically improved crop varieties, intercropping, improved livestock breeds and rainwater harvesting in Wadla district, northeast Ethiopia.

A cross-sectional household survey was used. A structured interview schedule for respondent households and checklists for key informants and focus group discussants were used. This study used both descriptive statistics and a multivariate probit econometric model to analyze the collected data. The model was used to compute factors influencing the use of climate-smart agricultural practices in the study area.

The results revealed that households adopted selected practices. The likelihood of farmers’ decisions to use improved crop varieties, intercropping, improved livestock breeds and rainwater harvesting was 85%, 52%, 69% and 59%, respectively. The joint probability of using these climate-smart agricultural practices was 23.7%. The model results confirmed that sex, level of education, livestock holding, access to credit, farm distance, market distance and training were significant factors that affected the use of climate-smart agricultural practices in the study area.

The present study used the most selected locally practiced interventions for climate-smart agriculture.

In this study, the impact of access to electricity on poverty reduction for Botswana is examined using the annual data from 1990 to 2021. The study was motivated by the need to establish if access to electricity could be a panacea on poverty reduction in Botswana. Given that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals deadline is fast approaching, and Botswana being one of the signatories, is expected to end poverty in all its forms – Goal 1. Establishing the role that electrification plays in poverty alleviation, helps in refocusing Botswana’s poverty alleviation strategies on factors that have high impact on poverty. The main objective of this study, therefore, is to investigate the relationship between poverty alleviation and access to electricity in Botswana.

The study uses the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to investigate the nature of the relations. Two poverty proxies were used in this study namely, household consumption expenditure and life expectancy.

The study found access to electricity to reduce poverty in the long run and in the short run, regardless of the poverty measure used. Thus, access to electricity plays an important role in poverty alleviation and Botswana is recommended to continue with the rural and urban electrification initiatives.

The study explores the impact of access to electricity on poverty reduction in Botswana, a departure from the current studies that examined the same relationship using energy consumption in general. This is on the back of increasing dependence of economic activities on electricity as a major source of energy.

This study analyses income inequality and distribution patterns among key actors in the cassava value chain. The study also identifies factors that influence profit of key actors in the cassava value chain.

The study was conducted in Oyo State, Nigeria, using primary data from 620 actors, consisting of 400 farmers, 120 processors and 100 traders in the cassava value chain. The Gini coefficient was used to estimate income inequalities within and between actors. Multiple linear regression was applied to identify factors that influence the profit of the actors in the cassava value chain.

The result shows a gender pattern in the participation in the cassava value chain: men dominate in the production, whereas women mostly engage in processing and marketing of processed cassava products. We also find that incomes are unequally distributed among actors, favouring traders and processors more than farmers in the value chain. Women are better off in processing and trading of value-added products than in the raw cassava production. Spatial differences also contribute to income inequality among farmers in the cassava value chain. An increase in farmers and processors’ incomes reduces inequality in the value chain while an increase in traders’ income widens inequality. Age is significantly negatively correlated with actors’ profit at 1%, while educational level significantly increases their profit at 5%. Processors and traders with large households have a higher profit. We also find that farm size, experience and labour input have significant positive effects on farmers’ profit only at 5%. Membership in an association increases farmers and processors’ profit at 1 and 10%, respectively.

The study recommends that agricultural policies that promote agrifood value chains should aim at minimizing income inequality by targeting vulnerable groups, particularly female farmers to achieve sustainable development in rural communities.

Existing studies recognise income inequality in agricultural value chains in sub-Saharan Africa. However, there are few rigorous quantitative studies that address this pressing issue. Our paper fills this knowledge gap and suggests ways to minimise income inequality in the agri-food value chain, using the example of the cassava value chain in Nigeria.

This study aims to develop an econometric analysis of how modern agriculture can be a fundamental instrument for reducing the levels of multidimensional poverty in Uganda. It demonstrates the importance of agriculture in reducing inequalities amongst the poor while focusing on the relationship between increasing productions from modern agricultural practices and the poverty level across the country.

The study explores Box–Jenkins approach to cereal production data with the use of econometric analysis as the main tool to determine the implications of modern agricultural practices in Uganda. Most poor people around the world are in marginalized rural environments, and agriculture provides for their livelihoods. This makes agricultural development crucial for reducing multidimensional poverty on a large scale and needs development within agriculture to be enhanced. Education, health and standard of living are the three dimensions considered from the weighted indicators, amounting to 30%, to be categorized poor in the three dimensions.

Modernization of agriculture is an ultimate solution to multidimensional poverty reduction in Uganda through employment generation and the effects of food prices. Shreds of evidence support the theories that agricultural incomes together with the actual wages increase with a general rise in the rural non-agricultural economy. Results depict a close correlation between national income and GDP per capita which is a very significant indication that more application of agricultural technology would lead to a sub sequential improvement of livelihoods engaged in agricultural practices.

Agriculture remains a vital sector that employs a greater portion of the population in Uganda’s economy. Major roles have been played by the sector in the economy including employment opportunities, rural household incomes, food supplies and a reduction in poverty from a multidimensional front. Exploring the behavior of poverty level using modern agriculture as an indicator and its relationship with the poverty level arising from improved agricultural practices could provide a meaningful display of variation in poverty across the regions at the country level.

In the ever fast-changing modern world, through the use of digital banking services (DBS), the old concept of banking in a traditional way has been completely changed. It was made possible through the use of modern artificial intelligence embedded technologies. It was done to meet the ever-growing demands of customers through more user-friendly and time-saving uses of technologies. This paper aims to uncover and analyse the factors affecting the adoption of digital banking services by rural micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). MSME is one of the most active sectors in India. It plays an important role in the economic development of the country through exports and domestic supplies and by creating employment opportunities.

The study was conducted using a questionnaire survey. In total, 148 rural MSME owners were considered for the analysis in this study. Rural MSMEs in India are way behind in using digital banking services than their urban counterparts. The present study uses IBM SPSS and AMOS to shed light on the prevalent factors that influence the attitude to use digital banking services.

It is found out that convenience (which includes perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use), perceived self-efficacy, demonetization, performance expectancy and pandemic effect have a significant effect on the attitude to adopt DBS. The findings of the study will provide deeper insights for the banks as well as different government agencies to revamp their strategies in changing the financial landscape of the country through a “cashless economy”.

Demonetization, a boom in eCommerce in India, pandemic-related lockdowns or restrictions and the government’s push for the digital economy will aid the use of DBS at a faster pace. The outcome of the study will help both the government and the financial institutions to chalk out strategies to cater to the rural MSMEs in embracing DBS.

The use of digital services for banking in India is in a nascent stage, but the rate of adoption is increasing at a cyclonic speed. Affordable electronic devices, cheap internet and different medium of using DBS are fuelling the rapid increase; yet, limited research focuses on the differences in the rate of acceptance of digital banking services concerning rural MSMEs.

This study aims to investigate risks associated with climate change vulnerability and in response the adaptation methods used by farming communities to reduce its negative impacts on agriculture in Pakistan.

The study used household survey method of data collection in Charsadda district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, involving 116 randomly selected respondents.

Prevalent crops diseases, water scarcity, soil fertility loss and poor socio-economic conditions were main contributing factors of climate change vulnerability. The results further showed that changing crops type and cultivation pattern, improved seed varieties, planting shaded trees and the provision of excessive fertilizers are the measures adapted to improve agricultural productivity, which may reduce the climate change vulnerability at a household level.

The major limitation of this study was the exclusion of women from the survey due to religious and cultural barriers of in Pashtun society, wherein women and men do not mingle.

Reducing climate change vulnerability and developing more effective adaptation techniques require assistance from the government. This help can be in the form of providing basic resources, such as access to good quality agricultural inputs, access to information and extension services on climate change adaptation and modern technologies. Consultation with other key stakeholder is also required to create awareness and to build the capacity of the locals toward reducing climate change vulnerability and facilitating timely and effective adaptation.

This original research work provides evidence about farm-level vulnerability, adaptation strategies and risk perceptions on dealing with climate-change-induced natural disasters in Pakistan. This paper enriches existing knowledge of climate change vulnerability and adaptation in this resource-limited country so that effective measures can be taken to reduce vulnerability of farming communities, and enhance their adaptive capability.