The natural variation in climate around the world means that periods of severe shortfall of rainfall are inevitable, and some times occur on a large geographical scale. Human settlements have adapted to this reality in many different ways, including the development of agricultural systems that...

A household-level switching regression model is implemented to examine potential selectivity bias for rural households under high and low levels of investments in soil conservation in El Salvador and Honduras. In the presence of selectivity bias, separate stochastic production frontiers are...

The paper examines the rural land and labour markets in the context of economic liberalization in India. Land and labour are the two fundamental resources available to the rural people for income generation. The access to land and to employment for labour become basic determinants of well-being...

Although livestock forms a very important component of the livelihoods of rural populations of developing countries, productivity remains very low. Livestock keepers are beset by various constraints. In sub-Saharan Africa, cattle are exposed to a number of tropical diseases and other...

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) affects millions of people world-wide, causing serious health problems. Golden Rice (GR), which has been genetically engineered to produce beta-carotene, is being proposed as a remedy. While this new technology has aroused controversial debates, its nutritional impact...

Economic analysis of chemical pesticide use has shown that the interactions between plants, pests, damage control technology and state of the ecosystem are important variables to be considered. Hence, a bio-economic model was developed for the assessment of Bt variety and pesticide-based control...

Paper removed at request of author on 11/20/07.

This paper examines the effects of compliance with developed country pesticide standards (DC-PS) on pesticide-related health costs and morbidity of developing country fresh vegetable growers. DC-PS require that farmers i) only use approved pesticides (usually less toxic to humans than ones used...

This paper analyzes changes in U.S. agricultural technology during 1960-1999, emphasizing the role of immigrant workers on farm mechanization. The rates and directions of biased technological change based on the induced innovation theory are compared before and after the passage of the...

By taking a rare opportunity to have both pre- and post-disaster survey data in Nicaragua in 1998 and 2001, we estimate the direct impacts of Hurricane Mitch on long-term child health status, measured in height-for-age z-scores, in the pooled cross section model. Especially, we focus on children...