In a developing economy, the availability of storage infrastructure is considered essential for two purposes; the reduction of post-harvest losses resulting in food shortage, and allowing for gains from inter-temporal trade due to potential arbitrage opportunities arising out of volatility in...

In a developing economy, the availability of storage infrastructure is considered essential for two purposes; the reduction of post-harvest losses resulting in food shortage, and allowing for gains from inter-temporal trade due to potential arbitrage opportunities arising out of volatility in...

Productivity and efficiency are key performance indicators of improved seeds. Efficiency differences explain part of the variation in productivity. Improved seeds may affect efficiency because farmers often do not apply inputs at optimum. Improved seeds therefore not only directly affect...

In many low-income countries, agriculture is mostly rainfed and yields highly depend on climatic factors. Furthermore, farmers have little access to traditional crop insurance, which suffers from high information asymmetry and transaction costs. Insurances based on meteorological indices could...

This study models producer protection legislation that would grant growers the right to claim damages (PPLD) if their contracts are prematurely terminated. In the absence of contracting frictions that prevent contractors from redesigning contracts to accommodate exogenous policy changes, PPLD...

The extent to which commodity price volatility affects the income of producing households and their vulnerability to poverty and food insecurity depends on household diversification patterns and the degree of their exposure to markets. This article focuses on estimating agricultural income...

This paper identifies the key causal factors behind farmers’ marketing decisions in Mozambique. A two-step decision making process is modelled. Farmers decide, first, whether or not to participate in the market and, second, how much to market. The model is estimated using a Heckman switching...

This paper examines the prospects for organic agriculture (OA) and the production of biofuels as strategies for rural development in Cambodia and the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Both agricultural activities are growing worldwide, although there are some questions as to how...

German agriculture exhibits persistent income problems. While larger farms are on average quite profitable, this is consistently not true for the majority of part-time and small- and medium-sized family farms. These farms are particularly prominent in the southern and western parts of Germany...

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was fundamentally reformed in 2003. From 2005 on, farmers will receive decoupled income support payments instead of production premiums if basic standards for environment, food safety, animal health and welfare are met. Farmers will likely adjust production...