The economic impacts of altering quarantine policies are divided into two main areas: trade evaluations, utilising a partial equilibrium approach to determine the benefits of market liberalisation; or pest management economics, used to determine the on-ground impacts of introduced species. This...

Farmers are well known to be risk-averse. Although a considerable literature has focused on the role water markets play to allocate water more efficiently, none has explicitly studied the risk management role water markets play in irrigators’ decision making. We used a two-step empirical...

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...

In arid countries worldwide, social conflicts between irrigation-based human development and the conservation of aquatic ecosystems are widespread and attract many public debates. This research focuses on the analysis of water and agricultural policies aimed to conserve groundwater resources and...

Global agriculture is struggling to keep pace with increasing demands for food as human population increases and food preferences alter. Changes in temperature, greenhouse gas concentrations, precipitation patterns and radiation further challenge farmers. Insect and nematode pests, plant...

A couple of months ago a journalist from a magazine asked me to name the five most important or influential books in my life. I had to start off with a little book called Zeek the Rabbit which hooked me on reading when I was about seven or eight years old, and that left me four more slots. One...

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...

Environmental policy is evolving rapidly in the international arena with an increasing number of multilateral environmental agreements being negotiated in a range of forums. The issue of risk management has figured prominently in these processes, with the OECD risk reduction strategy for lead...