This study links intertemporal optimization to a biophysical crop growth model finding that agricultural intensification does not dramatically degrade soils in southern Mali. Productivity growth can be sustained through adoption of new techniques, particularly with policy reforms to reduce...

Recent federal agricultural programs have accelerated the devolution of enterprise risk management responsibility from the state to individual producers. Using a biophysical simulation model, the risk management benefits of federal crop insurance and supplemental irrigation are derived and...

This study examines the impact of genetically modified maize on labor, cost, and input substitutability for smallholders in South Africa. Data was collected during the 2009- 2010 maize production season from 184 households with a total of 212 maize plots in two regions, Hlabisa and...

European Union (EU) retailers are setting global benchmarks for the production of fresh food, and are asking their suppliers for produce to be certified according to food safety and quality standards. Compliance to these standards for developing countries small-scale producers entail costly...

This paper applies a program evaluation technique to assess the causal effect of the adoption of improved groundnut technologies on consumption expenditure and poverty measured by headcount, poverty gap and poverty severity indices. The paper is based on a cross-sectional farm household level...

Limited empirical evidence exists either to confirm or refute the hypotheses that food-safety standards confer a positive external effect on farmers adopting it. This article makes use of health indicators obtained from a random cross-section sample of 439 small-scale export farmers in Kenya to...

This study assessed the potential economic and poverty impact of 11 improved chickpea varieties released by the national agricultural research organization of Ethiopia in collaboration with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. The economic surplus model applied...

If dryland legumes are to meet the expectations of reducing poverty and hunger in the semi-arid tropics, there will be need for a full understanding of their potential for diffusion and the barriers to adoption. We apply a program evaluation technique to data obtained from Tanzania to derive...

This paper reports the analysis of the impact of Kenya's Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme on the household decisions on productive activities using data from a randomised experimental design. Results show that the programme had a positive and significant impact on food...