This issue of "Agricultural Economics" contains articles from a seminar entitled "Small Farms: Decline or Persistence?" held at the University of Kent. This issue includes nine papers selected from more than 50 papers presented at the seminar. Articles published use a range of econometric...

Contrary to conventional economic theories, the relationship between income growth and agricultural employment is extremely diverse, even among regions starting from similar levels of development, such as Asia and Africa. Due to its labor-intensive Green Revolution and strong farm--nonfarm...

The rural nonfarm economy accounts for one-quarter of all full-time employment in rural India and for nearly one-third of rural income, and is also intimately linked to agriculture. This paper examines the importance of rural-urban growth linkages in India, and aims to assess the impact of...

"Contrary to conventional economic theories, the relationship between income growth and the share of the population within the rural or agricultural sector is extremely diverse, even among regions starting from similar levels of development, such as Asia and Africa. The pattern in developing...

This paper is an accumulation, over the past 25 years, of a body of detailed work examining the structure of Africa's rural, nonfarm economy. First, it systematically reviews empirical evidence on the nature and magnitude of the African rural, nonfarm economy. It then explores differences across...

Improving agricultural technology equitably in Africa has been difficult in the past because of the vast differences, as well as weak institutions and infrastructure in its many regions. However, the prospects for equitable growth are good for several reasons. The distribution of land has not...

This paper uses a simulation model to measure the size of the social welfare gains from price stabilisation within the general setting of a non-linear, multiplicative risk and lagged expectations model of the market. The size of the gains is found to be relatively small when producers plan on...

The paper reviews the implications for rural development of current transformations in agriculture. It first identifies some of the driving forces - in addition to the impact of rising incomes in some but not all developing countries - behind the transformation process: changing market chains,...

The post-Green Revolution period has seen profound changes in the economic situation in South Asia and evolving challenges for the agricultural R&D system. The priorities have changed from a narrow focus on the productivity of food grains to a need for more work on natural resources management...