Chitemene slash-and-burn cultivation continues to be a dominating cropping system in northern Zambia even after the introduction of modern technologies such as hybrid maize and fertilizer. The rationale of farming systems evolution in northern Zambia where labour markets have been absent or...

The decline in per-capita agricultural production has been reversed somewhat in tropical Africa by the structural adjustment programs which have increased producer prices, liberalized marketing and devalued currencies. But the 300Jo of smallholder farm households which are female-headed will not...

This paper applies a multidimensional method and a structural approach to the results of research based on a field survey on the origins of pluriactivity and on the attitudes of farm families toward multiple job-holding and full-time farming. Multiple correspondence analysis makes it possible to...

In agriculture, studies dealing with the separation of ownership from control have focused on sharecropping, paying little attention to the impact of management and ownership on efficiency. Using Argentine data, this study tests the hypothesis that efficiency is a function of type of management,...

The equilibrium allocation of owner operated and rental land in the agricultural sector is examined given risk averse agents, risky returns and asset price risk. The model is extended to account for disparities in bargaining power among landlords and farmers. In the absence of disparities, the...

Recently the managerial decision making process has been given new attention, both in theoretical studies as well as in empirical research explaining differences in farm results. However, while critical to explaining efficiency, managerial ability has been difficult to measure and therefore...

A farm financial model with leverage and investment in two farm enterprises is specified. The model is extended to incorporate futures hedging and the Separation Theorem is used to show that optimal hedging is zero. The assumption of a risk-free asset is relaxed and, while this leads to a...

Risk and uncertainty have been extensively studied by agricultural economists. In this paper we question (a) the predominant use of static frameworks to formally analyse risk; (b) the predominant focus on risk aversion as the motivation for considering risk and (c) the notion that explicitly...

Canada is one of the few countries for which data exist on individual family farms over time. Using these data, researchers have been able to show that much of the microdynamics of family farms in Canada (e.g. changes in size distribution) can be attributed to farmer entry and exit. However, the...

Textbooks and articles on farm management stress the importance of the management capacity of the fanner with respect to his farm results. However, explicit definitions together with an elaboration of this concept are hard to find. In this article, aspects of management capacity are grouped...