Cropping pattern in the Himalayan region of India has undergone a significant change in the recent past. Introduction of horticultural crops of vegetables, fruits and flowers have led to more intensive agriculture. Such a change, resulting in higher incomes and improvements of the overall living...

Transgenic pest-resistant varieties are hypothesized to reduce farmers’ demand for on-farm diversity through an act of substitution, as both serve as production risk reducing instruments. This adverse agro-biodiversity impact of technology adoption might be partially counteracted by an...

Systemic weather risk is a major obstacle for the formation of private (nonsubsidized) crop insurance. This paper explores the possibility of spatial diversification of insurance by estimating the joint occurrence of unfavorable weather conditions in different locations. For that purpose copula...

In this paper we specify and estimate producers’ risk preference using farm data. We allow heterogeneous risk preference across individuals and propose a specification to model the heterogeneity. We base farmers’ decision making on a utility maximization framework and incorporate both market...

This paper investigates the effects of network based individual social capital on the access of rural households to services. In the context of development economics, an innovative data collection approach is used to determine network based social capital. The approach originates from the field...

There is growing concern about the impact of climate change on agriculture and the potential need for better risk management instruments that respond to a more risky environment. This is based on the widespread assumption that climate change will increase weather and yield variability and will...

Texas High Plains (THP) is a major cotton producing region in the US with low rainfall and decreasing irrigation water availability. Hence stochastic rainfall poses considerable production risk in the region and developing strategies to maximize the average profit and minimize the year to year...