On the basis of portfolio selection theory, this paper finds that whole-farm risk must be regarded as a major reason for the low level of credit flow to agriculture in North-western Kazakhstan. A quadratic programming model was used in order (a) to demonstrate the comparatively high overall risk...

In the face of seasonal climate variability, the smallholder farmers, particularly those in rural communities, are among the most adversely affected. As a way to address this, together with concern on low productivity, the Philippine government has been implementing a range of risk management...

Crop insurance is a risk management tool designed to even out agricultural risks and address the consequences of natural disasters to make losses more bearable, especially to the marginalized farmers. In the Philippines, the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) implements and manages the...

This review examines portions of the vast literature on rural financial markets and household behavior in the face of risk and uncertainty. We place particular emphasis on studying the important role of financial intermediaries, competition and regulation in shaping the changing structure and...

Though Zambia is well endowed with natural resources, its agricultural sector is extremely underdeveloped, and almost half of the small-scale farmers do not even achieve food security. While internal political problems are a major cause for this, external disturbances such as climate change and...

The majority of the small-scale fruit and vegetable producers due to their small sizes are not able to meet the requirements of the large commercial chains by themselves. Only the cooperation could bring an effective solution. The POs are able to concentrate the scatteredsmall-scale commercial...

This chapter assessed sustainability and resilience of eleven farming systems in their current situation, as well as in hypothetical future systems, using qualitative and quantitative methods. The assessment shows that current farming systems address sustainability dimensions in an unbalanced...

This chapter aims to formulate principles and recommendations for an enabling environment that fosters resilience of farming systems. Principles have been derived from archetypical patterns identified in the various case studies on how actions in the enabling environment tend to constrain the...