Resource information
In Lesotho, some externally financed agricultural development projects have appeared particularly prone to failure. One reason may be that, when designed, projects have not been subjected to sufficiently rigorous analysis, particularly with regard to expected farmers' response to extension messages. The thesis of this paper is that the impact of high inter-annual fluctuations in crop yields (and of crop prices) on farmers' expectations plays an important role in producers' decision-making, and that this can be measured with sufficient approximation to assess the prospects for the successful introduction of "improved" cropping technologies in small farmers' communities. Stochastic Efficiency Analysis has been applied to the mountain areas of Lesotho, where natural conditions are particularly harsh, but it has wider applicability in project formulation. The paper is based on information gathered by an FAO Investment Centre mission, which visited the Districts of Thaba T'seka and Qacha's Nek in November 1995 on behalf of the Government of Lesotho and the International Fund for Agricultural Development to identify a Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Programme for possible IFAD financing. See also the related FAO Investment Centre Occasional Paper N. 7 "Note on the Machobane system".
