Download or read book Three Essays on Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Farmers written by Anthony Baffoe-Bonnie and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first chapter of the dissertation, we estimate the impacts of controlling for environmental production conditions on smallholder farmers' technical efficiency in Ethiopia for maize, sorghum and wheat farming. We use a household panel dataset with annual and cropping season environmental production conditions data. Our results show that accounting for environmental production conditions in the stochastic frontier helps to determine the sources of inefficiencies which may otherwise be ignored or overestimated. The mean estimates of the technical efficiency scores differ when we control for environmental production conditions during the cropping season and annually. The second chapter of the dissertation examines the efficiency of smallholder farmers who adopt improved maize using agricultural household data from Ethiopia. We find that smallholder farmers are becoming more efficient in growing improved seeds than local varieties even though there are still some inefficiencies. The mean technical efficiency of improved maize farmers increases by 2.9%. For improved open pollinated varieties, it increases by 9.21%. We attribute the increase in efficiency to the changes in agricultural systems of most Sub-Saharan African countries. Therefore, given that the dissemination and adoption of improved seeds is increasing in Africa, efforts should be made to assist smallholder farmers to be more efficient in growing these seeds. The third chapter provides an insight into the efficiency of peanut farmers in Haiti. We use the stochastic production frontier to show how the agricultural training program impacts the efficiency of smallholder peanut farmers in Haiti. Specifically, we estimate the technical efficiency of farmers enrolled in the training program offered by a for profit organization and those who qualify to enroll but chose not to. Our results indicate that the program had positive effect on the efficiency of peanut farmers during the spring growing season. Farmers who enrolled in the spring season had efficiency scores of 36% more than those who chose not to enroll. Further, we find a large gap in efficiency scores between farmers who enrolled in the fall and spring growing seasons, suggesting that environmental variables should also be included in farm efficiency studies.
Download or read book Technical efficiency of smallholder farms in Nigeria written by Kolawole Ogundari and published by Cuvillier Verlag. This book was released on 2010-07-30 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation is based on three essays with a focus on the technical efficiency of smallholder farms in Nigeria. The overall objective of the research is to contribute to the existing literature on the efficiency and productivity of Nigerian agriculture. The first essay examined the development and drivers of the average technical efficiency in Nigerian agriculture based on 64 efficiency studies covering 1999-2008. The second essay went on to further identify the trends in crop diversification while examining its impact on the technical efficiency of smallholder farms in Nigeria. Last but not least, the third essay investigated technical efficiency, inputs substitution and their complementary effects using an output distance function while focusing on cassava production in Nigeria. The second and third essays are based on unbalanced panel data of 846 observations covering three farming season (2006/07-2008/09) from southwestern Nigeria via the application of the stochastic frontier analysis. In summary, the research found that average technical efficiency significantly increased over time across the 64 frontier studies in the country. Besides, the study observed that technical progress characterized food crop production in the country while the mean technical efficiency reported from each of the essays that make up the dissertation showed that there is still room for improvement in Nigerian food crop production as each estimate falls below the frontier level. Furthermore, the research revealed that cropping pattern increased significantly with the intensification of diversification in food crop production in the country. In addition, the study identifies education, credit, extension contacts and crop diversification among others as key drivers of technical efficiency in Nigerian food crop production. In light of this, the research concludes that the latter observation underscores the importance of education, credit and extension contacts as variables of policy concern for the institutions of public and private policies design to reposition the Nigerian food crop production industry in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of food security.
Download or read book Three Essays on the Role of Information in Farming Decisions and Outcomes written by Joanna Noelia Kamiche Zegarra and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation contributes to the literature on the role of information in farming decisions and performance by answering three related questions: (i) How does the use of market information contribute to agricultural productivity?; (ii) What factors explain the access to and/or the actual use of information in farming?; and (iii) What kind of specific information do farmers need when choosing the market in which to sell their crops? The first chapter provides an overview of the dissertation. In the second chapter, we use a three-step procedure to measure technical efficiency (TE) gains when farmers use information in their decision making. First, we use propensity score matching techniques to obtain comparable samples for information users and nonusers. Next, we apply the selectivity corrected stochastic production frontier model to examine TE for users and nonusers. Third, we implement two recently developed stochastic metafrontier approaches to compare TE between the two groups. Our results show that information users are more efficient than nonusers, regardless of gender, age, or education level. In the third chapter, we examine the factors that influence farmers' decisions to access information and to use information when choosing what crops to grow, considering them as two separate decisions. The difference is important because information will be beneficial only if farmers use it to make better choices. Employing a bivariate probit model, we find that general education has a higher marginal effect on the decision to obtain information, but its marginal effect is smaller on the decision to use information for selecting what crops to grow. On the other hand, neighbors' decisions have a significant marginal effect on farmers' decisions to use information. Finally, based on observed patterns of decisions made by small-scale farmers, the fourth chapter develops a theoretical model to examine the key determinants of market choice. The model shows that this choice depends not only on transportation costs but also on price differences per crop between markets and the crop share out of the total weight of the products the farmer plans to sell. Our findings may help in the design of extension services that provide price information.
Download or read book Three Essays on Technology Adoption and the Roles of Off farm Labor Human Capital and Risk in Contemporary US Agriculture written by Hiroki Uematsu and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Three Essays on Economics of Water Resources Management in Nepal written by Krishna Lal Poudel and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First essay consists of two steps. First, Technical Efficiency (TE) index is estimated for upriver and downriver ecoregions employing DEA technique. In the second stage, we censored the TE index and run the Tobit regression model to assess the socio-economic factors responsible for explaining technical efficiency of smallholder farming practices. The median technical efficiency values were 0.606 and 0.756 in upriver and downriver respectively. Tobit model indicates lower productivity of small scale farming units are due to inadequate water availability, lack of reliable inputs and poor market services. Access to farm credit and electricity are significant and positive factors explaining technical efficiency in both regions. The second essay examines the on-going consequences of climate change on water resources availability and how adaptation practices and strategies have developed in agricultural practices. Results indicate increasing temperatures, prolonged drought followed by intense precipitation, and greater frequency of flooding than in the past. About two-thirds of small creeks and springs have disappeared and others will soon disappear if current trends continue. Respondents prefer collective water management. Logistic regression analysis shows that farm income, market access, access to extension services, and market distance are significant predictors of adaptive behavior. Essay-3 deals the conveyance, economic and agronomic efficiency of water used, and factors affecting aggregate water use efficiency in the study regions. Farmers in the Mountain region were found relatively more effective at reducing water loss than farmers in the Hill and Terai regions. Water use efficiency scores regressed on farm related socio-economic variables shows that farm size, distance to water source, government agricultural extension services and access to credit positively affect water use efficiency in all regions.
Download or read book Analysis of Technical Efficiency of Small Holder Tef Producing Farmers written by Kumadebis Tamiru Gemechu and published by . This book was released on 2015-05-21 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Essays on the Technical and Economic Efficiency of Broiler Production in Saudi Arabia written by Kahlid Al-rwis and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Production Efficiency and Technology for Small Farms written by and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Farming Systems and Poverty written by John A. Dixon and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.
Download or read book Three Essays on Evaluation and Measurement in Developing Countries written by Mario González Flores and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The overall theme of this dissertation is on evaluation and measurement in developing countries. All three essays make a contribution to the literature---either with the use of a new empirical method for evaluation or a unique or new data set, or the evaluation of a tool or program not yet evaluated, or by evaluating an aspect within the evaluation literature usually neglected. The results of the three essays have policy relevance and can be used to design or modify anti-poverty programs geared towards the social and productive sectors so that they can have a greater impact on poverty.
Download or read book Three Essays on Agricultural Marketing in Developing Countries written by Aya Suzuki and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Development and Sustainability written by Sarmila Banerjee and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-07-08 with total page 622 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the reforms undertaken in the last two decades, India’s economic landscape has been radically transformed. This book examines the new economic map, which is shown to be shaped by two intertwined currents: globalization and sustainability. Weaving extensively through these currents and the canvas of development in the Indian economy they open up, this work seeks to introduce new methodologies, a corpus of concepts and modes of analysis to make sense of the emerging order of things. What transpires in the course of the investigation is a critical reflection of the present in which not only the new institutions, policies and practices are analyzed, but their limitations, fragility and at times myopic approaches are brought to light. By highlighting the rough edges created by the new conditions, this book is firmly engaged with the frontier of the Indian economy and ends up challenging many well-known conjectures and assumptions. In doing so, it strives to shift the Indian economy to a new terrain, thereby fundamentally re-locating and re-orienting the discourse of that economy as a unique object of analysis.
Download or read book Essays on Agricultural Economy written by G. B. Ayoola and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2018-12-06 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In particular, this book of essays is aimed at quenching the thirst of undergraduate and postgraduate students of agricultural economics in the institutions of higher learning at home and abroad for a quick reference book on Nigerian development, which they require for proper understanding of taught courses. In general, it is also aimed at dependent and independent professionals in the public and private sectors of the economy and development community at large, with a view to providing them with the institutional memory they require to demonstrate their expertise on the job much better. To this end, the book offers the benefit of many years of experience in teaching, research, and community services, through a menu of topics for profitable reading about the inner mechanisms of the policy process for agricultural development of the country in real time. Herein is strenuously articulated the systematic outputs of disciplined hard work spanning three decades, from 1988 to 2018, including the last ten years of active engagements in policy advocacy outside the university system. The menu of nonexperimental writings provides information about the seemingly dry area of agricultural historiography of the country embedded in a series of analytical thoughts and expositions on performance of successive programs and projects for developing the agricultural economy.
Download or read book Three Essays on Productivity and Research and Development in U S Investor owned Electric Utilities written by Haru Connolly and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Role of Smallholder Farms in Food and Nutrition Security written by Sergio Gomez y Paloma and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book discusses the current role of smallholders in connection with food security and poverty reduction in developing countries. It addresses the opportunities they enjoy, and the constraints they face, by analysing the availability, access to and utilization of production factors. Due to the relevance of smallholder farms, enhancing their production capacities and economic and social resilience could produce positive impacts on food security and nutrition at a number of levels. In addition to the role of small farmers as food suppliers, the book considers their role as consumers and their level of nutrition security. It investigates the link between agriculture and nutrition in order to better understand how agriculture affects human health and dietary patterns. Given the importance of smallholdings, strategies to increase their productivity are essential to improving food and nutrition security, as well as food diversity.
Download or read book American Doctoral Dissertations written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Essays in Honor of Subal Kumbhakar written by Christopher F. Parmeter and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2024-04-05 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the editor’s distinct privilege to gather this collection of papers that honors Subhal Kumbhakar’s many accomplishments, drawing further attention to the various areas of scholarship that he has touched.
