Oil palm has become one of the most rapidly expanding crops throughout the humid tropics. Over the last two decades, the area under oil palm has almost tripled and its production more than quadrupled. This development is mainly attributed to the rising demand for vegetable oils and biofuels,...

Smallholder farmers in developing countries often suffer from high risk and limited market access. Contract farming may improve the situation under certain conditions. Several studies analyzed effects of contracts on smallholder productivity and income with mixed results. Most existing studies...

Abstract: Labor saving innovations are essential to increase agricultural productivity, but they might also increase inequality through displacing labor. Empirical evidence on such labor displacements is limited. This study uses representative data at local and national scales to analyze labor...

The demand for agricultural land is globally increasing due to population growth and dietary diversification. As the availability of agricultural land is limited, much of the cropland expansion is occurring at the expense of tropical forests. During the past few decades, oil palm has become one...

Changes in land use, such as deforestation, expansion of sedentary agriculture and intensification of agricultural systems, significantly altered economic and ecological conditions in many regions of the world. In recent decades, one of the most rapid changes in land use was the expansion of...

The conversion of biologically rich areas into agricultural land undermines the capacity of these lands to sustain and maintain vital ecosystem functions. This is mostly the case when the conversion includes the simplification to a monoculture system such as that of oil palm. Oil palm grows best...