Although farmers in developing countries are generally thought to be risk averse, little is known about the actual form of their risk preferences. In this paper, we use a relatively large field experiment to explore risk preferences related to sweet potato production among a sample of farmers in...

This study explores farmer acceptance and valuation of a biofortified staple food crop in a developing country prior to its commercialization. We focus on the hypothetical introduction of a high-iron pearl millet variety in Maharashtra, India, where pearl millet is among the most important...

This study analyzes consumer acceptance of biofortified orange maize in rural Zambia by eliciting consumers' willingness to pay. It attempts to examine the impact of nutrition information, comparing the use of simulated radio versus community leaders in transmitting the nutrition message, on...

Micronutrient deficiency is a widespread health problem in the developing world. Most efforts to combat this issue have focused on providing vitamin and mineral supplements to vulnerable population groups and/or fortifying foods through postproduction processing. The outcome of these...

Vitamin A deficiency is a major health problem in Africa and in many other developing countries. Biofortified staple crops that are high in beta-carotene and adapted to local growing environments have the potential to significantly reduce the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency. One such example...

In this paper, we examine the implications of alternative country-specific scenarios for biofortification on the reduction of micronutrient deficiency prevalence in under-fives. The scenarios are implemented within a long-term projections model of agriculture production and consumption, given...

"Biofortification is increasingly seen as an additional tool to combat micronutrient malnutrition. This paper presents, for the first time, evidence on the costs and potential benefits of biofortification for a large number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We use a modification of...

This analysis explores smallholder demand for hybrid maize seed by subsidy receipt. We test the hypothesis that the hybrid maize subsidy in Zambia is selectively biased due in part to its delivery mechanism and the self-selection of farmers who are able or choose to exercise their claim. Our...

In this paper we assess (a) consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a recently developed variety of maize that is high in provitamin A in the context of a public health intervention and (b) the performance of three elicitation mechanisms in estimating WTP in a field experiment in Ghana....