Organic farmers have traditionally relied on a variety of marketing channels, suggesting that earned organic income will depend on the farmer's experience in producing and selling organic products and their comparative advantage in bargaining and marketing skills. A discrete choice model of the...

Labour market discrimination against women and parental discrimination against daughters are two of the most commonly cited explanations of the gender gap in education in developing countries. This study empirically tests the labour market explanation for India using household survey data...

In the era of a global economy, farmers face increasing pressure in developing a portfolio of various marketing channels. However, the literature on direct marketing strategies has mainly focused on consumers. Using farm-level data this study investigates factors associated with the choice of...

Field experiments were conducted from 2008 to 2010 in the Weibei Highlands of China to determine the effects of cultivation with ridge and furrow mulching on soil temperature, moisture, and maize (Zea mays L.) growth and yield. Ridges were covered with plastic film in all the treatments....

Under low and poorly distributed rainfall higher food production can be achieved by increasing crop water use efficiency (WUE) through optimum soil fertility management and selection of deep-rooting cultivars, appropriate plant density and planting dates. We explored AquaCrop's applicability in...

Realising that rainwater harvesting (RWH) improves crop productivity, smallholder farmers in semi-arid Zimbabwe modified contour ridges traditionally used for rainwater management by digging infiltration pits inside contour ridge channels in order to retain more water in crop fields. However,...

It is widely believed that a Green Revolution similar to the one achieved in Asia is impossible in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although grain yields have been stagnant in this region, there are some signs of the intensification of farming systems in the face of growing population pressure on limited...

This paper uses the only representative sample of the Russian Federation, the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, to estimate the returns to education in this ex-communist country. This is one of the first studies to tackle this classic issue in labor economics with the realistic expectation...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of marketing contract choices including written contracts, oral contracts and no contracts, as well as to examine the impact of marketing contracts on net returns from apple production in China. Design/methodology/approach...