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The association between nutrition and cognitive test performance among school children is limited in developing countries, including Ghana. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between nutrient intake and cognitive competence in the context of abstract reasoning among school-aged children in the Tamale Metropolis.

The present cross-sectional study recruited 596 children aged 9–13 years from government-owned and private primary schools in Tamale Metropolis. Dietary intake was assessed by using three-day repeated 24-hour recall. Cognition was assessed by the Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices (RCPM) test, made up of 36 questions and used as a continuous variable, whereby higher scores indicated better cognition.

The majority of the children did not meet the recommended dietary allowances for protein (55.5%) and fibre (94.0%) and estimated adequate requirement for energy (86.6%), folate (72.8%), vitamin E (90.6%) and zinc (74.8%). More girls (55.1%) performed poorly in the cognition test than the boys (45.7%) (p = 0.029). Between-subject effects determined using univariate and multivariate analyses indicated age (p = 0.002), dietary folate (p = 0.016), vitamin C intake (p = 0.011), combined age and dietary folate (p = 0.049) and combined age and dietary vitamin C (p = 0.022) significantly affected cognition scores. Girls had lower odds (AOR = 0.7, p = 0.021, 95%CI = 0.5–0.9) of scoring above the 50th percentile in cognition test than boys.

The current nutrient intakes of the children were inadequate. The children performed poorly in Raven’s cognition test of abstract reasoning, and this was associated with being a girl.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate nutrient intakes and RCPM test performance among children in Northern Ghana. Thus, the findings of the study provide relevant information needed by stakeholders to implement nutrition programs in basic schools, aimed at ensuring optimal nutrition achievement among school children for improved cognition.

Product quality standardization is the solution to market collapses due to quality-insensitive pricing regimes prevalent in West African (WA) rice value chains. However, access to local rice that is differentiated by quality standards is limited. This paper explores feasibility of quality standardization of local rice and evaluates how its price–quality connecting effect depends on retailer characters/reactions.

This study uses panel data from a wholesale randomized control trial (RCT) and three surveys of 135 rice retailers in Ghana.

Improved local food value chains and access to quality differentiated products are impactful entry points for import substitution policies. The strength of interretailer competition, retail infrastructure and wholesaler activities matter for a stronger connection of prices and quality, given uptake of quality-standardized local rice.

Access to quality-differentiated local rice can be increased via private and third-party certification. This addresses the prevailing inefficient pricing and its related problems. The positive impacts of such access would be magnified by designing quality certification interventions to elicit regular-frequent purchases by retailers and target retailers with adequate retail infrastructure in high competition areas. However, this study only explored profitability and opportunities for strategic behavior as the behavioral basis for quality-sensitive pricing. Other impact mechanisms could be explored in further research that includes consumer data.

Despite their difficulty and limited use in value chains studies, RCT and panel data methods are used. This study is the first to empirically analyze feasibility of introducing product standardization, a missing institution in the WA local rice markets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the asymmetry of vertical price transmission (i.e. from the wholesale to the retail market) in the Nigerian cowpea market and identify its causes.

The authors surveyed 19 markets in Kano and Ibadan from 2012 to 2015. The autoregressive distributed lag model and asymmetric error correction model were adopted to test the asymmetry of vertical price transmission.

Results suggest that price transmission in Kano is symmetric, but it is asymmetric in Ibadan. This distinction is caused by the differences in the market structure (in terms of competition level, inventory period and transaction cost) of these cities.

This is the first study to empirically investigate the vertical price transmission in two Nigerian cowpea markets. It is also the first to reveal the role of the market structure in price transmission through a comparison of two markets. The findings provide policy implications and will help create a more efficient food market in Nigeria.

Total farmland value exceeds its value in agriculture but is not directly perceptible to villagers in China. Thus, the exceeded part is often neglected when discussing farmer’s land transaction decision. This study aims to revisit the question about how land titling project affects farmer’s land renting-out and investigate how this unobservable land value would distort the intentional effects of land titling.

This paper first modifies a two-period model by incorporating the unobservable part of land value into the farmers’ leasing decision problem. Following the implications from the theoretical analysis, this study then exploits the difference-in-differences and the triple-differences approach to confirm the distorting effects that are resulted from the unobservable land value.

The modified theoretical model of this study reveals that land titling would encourage farmers to rent out land when the unobservable land value is predicted to be low but discourage farmers’ willingness to rent-out when this value is predicted to be high. The core reason for this significant conclusion lands in the uncertainty of the unobservable land value. Empirical analysis then provided two evidences for this presumption. Furthermore, this study also gave a disproof of the argument that the uncovered discouraging effect is due to a stronger endowment effect.

This paper contributes to the literature by highlighting the unobservable land value in the farmers’ land-related decisions. This part of land value is always neglected in previous discussions about the land tenure system, but it would cause distorting effects especially in regions without private land ownership.