Download or read book Migration local off farm employment and agricultural production efficiency written by Yang, Jin and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper studies the effect of local off-farm employment and migration on rural households’ technical efficiency of crop production using a five-year panel dataset from more than 2,000 households in five Chinese provinces. While there is not much debate about the positive contribution of migration and local off-farm employment to China’s economy, there is an increasing concern about the potential negative effects of moving labor away from agriculture on China’s future food security. This is a critical issue as maintaining self-sufficiency in grain production will be critical for China to feed its huge population in the future. Several papers have studied the impact of migration on production and yield with mixed results. But the impact of migration on technical efficiency is rarely studied. Methodologically, we incorporate the correlated random-effects approach into the standard stochastic production frontier model to control for unobservable that are correlated with migration and off-farm employment decisions and technical efficiency. The most consistent result that emerged from our econometric analysis is that neither migration nor local off-farm employment has a negative effect on the technical efficiency of grain production, which does not support the widespread notion that vast-scale labor migration could negatively affect China’s future food security.

Download or read book Migration and Technical Efficiency in Cereal Production Evidence from Burkina Faso written by Fleur S. Wouterse and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2008 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Land governance integrated socio ecosystem and sustainable development written by Chen Zeng and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-06-23 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book An evaluation of the effectiveness of farmland protection policy in China written by Li, Man and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-05-08 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost two decades have passed since China first enacted legislation to protect farmland from conversion to nonagricultural use. Yet hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land are still developed to urban area each year, raising the question of whether the legislation is effective in preserving farmland from development. This paper examines the effectiveness of the Basic Farmland Protection Regulation in protecting high-quality farmland from urban development in China in the first decade after it came into effect (1995?2005). The theoretical basis for this study is a spatial urban development model with a splitting equation. The empirical evaluation is conducted with georeferenced, longitudinal data on more than 2,000 counties in the country. Results indicate that the Regulation was effective in preserving farmland with high productivity potential only during the period 1995?2000. There is no evidence of effectiveness of the Regulation in protecting lands with good irrigation conditions or lands more suitable for growing major food grains. Farmland development induces the conversion of non-farmland to crop production. This substitution effect declined from 1986 to 2005 and is therefore less likely to be exaggerated by the enforcement of the dynamic balance strategy.

Download or read book Can smallholder fruit and vegetable production systems improve household food security and nutritional status of women written by Kabunga, Nassul and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper aims to empirically infer potential causal linkages between fruit and vegetable (F&V) production, individual F&V intake, household food security, and anemia levels for individual women caregivers of childbearing age. Using a unique and rich dataset recently collected from rural smallholder Ugandan households, we show that the use of a qualitative tool to measure household food insecurity is robust and applicable in other contexts. We also show, using robust econometric methods, that women living in F&V-producer households have a significantly higher intake of F&Vs than those living in nonproducer households. Furthermore, F&V-producer households are potentially more food secure, and women caregivers in producer households have significantly higher levels of hemoglobin, rendering the prevalence rates of anemia lower among F&V-producer households. We argue that these effects, modest as they are, could be further improved if there were deliberate efforts to promote the intensification of smallholder F&V production.

Download or read book Direct seed marketing program in Ethiopia in 2013 written by Benson, Todd and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2013 the Bureaus of Agriculture in the regional states of Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples of Ethiopia supported a program of direct marketing of certified seed by seed producers to farmers across 31 woredas (districts). This program stands in contrast to the dominant procedure for supplying such seed in which farmers register with local agricultural offices or extension agents to purchase seed for the coming cropping season and then receive seed either directly from these local offices or through local cooperatives. The evaluation shows that competition between entrepreneurial seed producers to capture a substantial portion of the market of farmer-customers for their seed to enable their firms to remain in business will propel wider and more effective distribution of new and improved hybrid maize to more and more farmers.

Download or read book Agriculture for development in Iraq Estimating the impacts of achieving the agricultural targets of the national development plan 2013 2017 on economic growth incomes and gender equality written by Al-Haboby, Azhr and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-05-30 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper estimates the potential effects of achieving the agricultural goals set out in Iraq’s National Development Plan (NDP) 2013–2017 using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model. The findings suggest that raising agricultural productivity in accordance with the NDP may more than double average agricultural growth rates and add an average of 0.7 percent each year to economywide gross domestic product during the duration of the plan. As a consequence, the economy not only diversifies into agriculture, but agricultural growth also lifts growth in the food processing and service sectors. Achieving the yield targets for cereals (especially wheat) and for fruits and vegetables will have the largest impact on economic growth and household incomes. Household incomes will rise by an estimated 3.3 percent annually. This increase in household incomes will benefit the poorest households and female-headed urban households the most due to a combination of lower food prices and higher incomes from labor and land. Reaping these benefits from agricultural growth will critically depend on the implementation of policies and investments to ensure that additional agricultural produce can be marketed efficiently domestically and compete with imports.

Download or read book Intellectual property rights technology diffusion and agricultural development written by Spielman, David J. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) has been extensively debated in the literature on technology transfers and agricultural production in developing countries. However, few studies offer cross-country evidence on how IPRs affect yield growth, for example, by incentivizing private-sector investment in cultivar improvement. We address this knowledge gap by testing technology diffusion patterns for six major crops using a unique dataset for the period 1961–2010 and an Arellano–Bond linear dynamic panel-data estimation approach. Findings indicate that both biological and legal forms of IPRs tend to promote yield gap convergence between developed and developing countries, although effects vary between crops.

Download or read book Sins of the fathers written by Tan, Chih Ming and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intergenerational effect of fetal exposure to malnutrition on cognitive ability has rarely been studied for human beings in large part due to lack of data. In this paper, we exploit a natural experiment, the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–1961, and employ a novel dataset, the China Family Panel Studies, to explore the intergenerational legacy of early childhood health shocks on the cognitive abilities of the children of parents born during the famine. We find that daughters born to rural fathers who experienced the famine in early childhood score lower in major tests than sons, whereas children born to female survivors are not affected.

Download or read book How does climate change alter agricultural strategies to support food security written by Thornton, Philip K. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of the paper is to identify how climate change affects how we should approach the process of transforming agricultural systems (including crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry) to support global food security and poverty reduction in a sustainable way. We also identify implications for FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and CGIAR priorities.

Download or read book Women s individual and joint property ownership written by Doss, Cheryl and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasingly, women’s property rights are seen as important for both equity and efficiency reasons. While there has been debate in the literature about women are better off with individual rights in contrast to rights jointly with their husband, little empirical work has analyzed this question. In this paper, the relationship of women’s individual and joint property ownership and the level of women’s input into household decisionmaking is explored with data from India, Mali, Malawi, and Tanzania. In the three African countries, women with individual landownership have greater input into household decisionmaking than women whose landownership is joint; both have more input than women who are not landowners. The relationship with other household decisions is more mixed, as is the relationship between housing and input into household decisionmaking. No similar relationship is found in Orissa, India.

Download or read book Quality healthcare and health insurance retention written by Delavallade, Clara and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-06-06 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Healthcare in developing countries is often unreliable and of poor quality, thus reducing individuals incentives to use quality health services. This paper examines an innovative approach to access to and demand for quality health care from the poor. Using data from a field experiment in India, I examine the impact of high-quality care experiences in the form of a free medical consultation with a qualified nongovernmental organization doctor, randomly offered by a health insurance provider to a subset of its enrollees. The effects are twofold. First, receiving this additional benefit raises enrollees’ willingness to pay to renew health insurance by 51 percent. This impact appears mostly at the extensive margin and is driven by a perceived income shock, as well as increased satisfaction with the scheme and trust in the insurance provider. In addition, exposed individuals are 12 percentage points more likely to consult a qualified practitioner when ill two months after the free consultation. Providing some initial quality care thus improves the demand for quality healthcare through two different pathways—first by improving health insurance retention and second by raising the subsequent use of quality health services.

Download or read book Market interdependence and volatility transmission among major crops written by Gardebroek, Cornelis and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of volatility between the corn, wheat, and soybean markets in the United States. Volatility interactions across markets, if they exist, may lower the effectiveness of diversification strategies to mitigate price risks and should be taken into account when analyzing the pricing behavior of different agricultural commodities. We follow a Multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) approach to evaluate the level of interdependence and volatility transmission across these major crops on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

Download or read book The impact of cash and food transfers Evidence from a randomized intervention in Niger written by Hoddinott, John F. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is little rigorous evidence on the comparative impacts of cash and food transfers on food security and food-related outcomes. We assess the relative impacts of receiving cash versus food transfers using a randomized design. Drawing on data collected in eastern Niger, we find that households randomized to receive a food basket experienced larger, positive impacts on measures of food consumption and diet quality than those receiving the cash transfer.

Download or read book Can transfer programs be made more nutrition sensitive written by Harold Alderman and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Malnutrition can best be addressed by a combination of nutrition specific interventions and nutrition sensitive programs, including social protection. This study reviews mechanisms of transfer program in order to better design nutrition sensitive social protection. Social protection programs typically increase income as well as influence the timing and, to a degree, control of this income. Additionally, social protection programs may achieve further impact on nutrition by fostering linkages with health services or with sanitation programs, and specifically through activities that are related to nutrition education or micronutrient supplementation. This paper discusses what might be expected from such programs and reviews some of the evidence from specific transfer programs.

Download or read book Importance of rice research and development in rice seed policies written by Takeshima, Hiroyuki and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First, this paper shows that rice varietal development in Nigeria has been lagging behind that of other developing countries in Asia and Latin America, due partly to insufficient investment in domestic rice R&D. The paper then illustrates using a household model simulation that impacts of certain policies, such as the seed subsidy, may be greater (smaller) if they are applied to good (poor) varieties. The paper concludes by discussing key policy implications and future research needs.

Download or read book Bargaining power and biofortification The role of gender in adoption of orange sweet potato in Uganda written by Gilligan, Daniel O. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We examine the role of gender in adoption and diffusion of orange sweet potato, a biofortified staple food crop being promoted as a strategy to increase dietary intakes of vitamin A among young children and adult women in Uganda. As an agricultural intervention with nutrition objectives, intrahousehold gender dynamics regarding decisions about crop choice and child feeding practices may play a role in adoption decisions. Also, most households access sweet potato vines through informal exchange, suggesting again that gender dimensions of networks may be important to diffusion of the crop. We use data from an experimental impact evaluation of the introduction of OSP in Uganda to study how female bargaining power, measured by share of land and nonland assets controlled by women, affect adoption and diffusion decisions.