With declining Irish potato production trends in Kenya this paper identifies and analyses factors that influence the economic efficiency of smallholder Irish potato producers in Kenya by drawing on data from random sample of 130 smallholder farmers from Nyandarua North district. A dual...

When there is a correspondence between two logical systems, duality can be used to derivea correspondence between results in one system and results in another system (Russell andWilkinson, 1978). Under appropriate regularity conditions, dual functions such as normalizedprofit functions in...

A great deal of attention has been devoted in the last two decades to assessing the economic consequences of agricultural research. The biotechnology revolution (see, for example, Hueth and Just, 1986; Kalter and Tauer, 1986) may provide a further stimulus to study of the size and distribution of...

Interest in the economic impacts of research and development (R&D) among forest economists is of relatively recent vintage when compared with the long history of such inquiries in agricultural economics. In contrast to the literature in agricultural economics, which can be traced to the seminal...

Rice sector contributes significantly to secure households with regard to their food needs but also to the creation of employments and income generation. The sector development and its evolution over the years have been marked by various policies and approaches. These development stages of the...

This paper evaluates the production and trade trends for maize and maize products in southern Africa, individual countries’ revealed comparative advantages in producing these products, and the expected implications of freer trade in this sector. The analysis employs mainly annual bilateral...

Commercial rice imports have accounted for approximately 61%, food aid in rice accounted for about 2%, and domestic rice accounted for some 37% per annum of rice consumption in Ghana over the four years between 2000 and 2003. Compared to the 1990s, these figures show a gradual decline in the...

In this paper, the case of the Italian fruit-drink industry is presented to discuss the strategic issues of product-innovation in imperfectly competitive markets. In particular, three main topics are addressed: the incentives to the adoption of innovation-based strategies, R&D investments in...

Innovation is a key component of a firm's strategy to improve market competitiveness and operational efficiency as well as to respond effectively to changing consumer preferences and regulations. A firm has the choice of undertaking different types of innovations that differ in the extent to...

Advancement in biotechnology requires continued innovative activity by firms. To grow, biotechnology firms must understand the factors affecting their innovative activity. Such understanding also informs policy makers, and supports the development of policies promoting one's biotechnology...