Three essays exploring the link between agricultural factor markets, input use, and production in Eastern and Southern Africa. The first looks at factors influencing the use of fertilizers by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. The second uses price elasticity analysis to examine how Kenyan smallholders adjust demand for cultivated area and fertilizer in response to changing land, labor, and fertilizer prices. The third characterizes the range in expected profitability of fertilizer and weeding labor use that is found within households and villages in Central Malawi. Taken together, these essays underscore the role of factor market frictions and other imperfections in limiting input use among smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa. They highlight the need to consider the additional constraints farmers face as a result of these linkages as part of a strategy to increase agricultural production.
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