the adoption of reduced tillage the role of human capital and other variables this paper presents a model of adoption behavior and explains differences econometrically in farmers decisions to adopt reduced tillage practices and in the efficiency of farmers adoption decisions the empirical results obtained from microdata show that the probability of adopting reduced tillage in corn enterprises differs widely across farms and depends on soil characteristics cropping systems and size of farming operation the results also show that farmers schooling enhances the efficiency of the adoption decision

investing in farmers the impacts of farmer field schools in relation to integrated pest management public policy in developing countries has failed to invest in educating farmers on how to deal with variable agro ecosystems and a changing world here we present an assessment of a participatory training approach in changing crop protection by farmers from chemically dependent to more sustainable practices in line with the tenets of integrated pest management ipm we review the evidence from the studies on an educational investment designed to capacitate farmers to apply ipm and discuss these data in the light of an on going policy debate concerning cost effectiveness the results indicate substantial immediate and developmental benefits of participation in farmer field schools

household level determinants of adoption of improved natural resources management practices among smallholder farmers in western kenya abstract integrated natural resources management inrm of which integrated soil fertility management isfm is a component offers considerable promise for increasing food production in kenya it nonetheless remains unclear whether isfm inrm techniques lend themselves easily to adoption by smallholder farmers using panel data collected in western kenya in 1989 and 2002 this study finds that resource constraints limit many farmers adoption of isfm inrm techniques the size of the farm owned by a household the value of its livestock off farm income family labor supply and the educational attainment and gender of the household head all had a significant positive effect on the likelihood of adoption similar factors were found to be statistically significant in discouraging abandonment of the practices under study there thus seem to exist reinforcing feedback between investments in soil fertility management and household wealth as measured by asset endowments our findings raise important questions as to whether isfm and related techniques are really affordable to poorer smallholder farmers

the economics of smallholder organic contract farming in tropical africa summary the paper examines the revenue effects of certified organic contract farming for smallholders and of adoption of organic agricultural farming methods in a tropical african context the comparison in both cases is with farming systems that are organic by default survey data from a large organic coffee contract farming scheme in uganda are reported and analyzed using a standard ols regression and a full information maximum likelihood fiml estimate of the heckman selection model the analysis finds that controlling for a range of factors there are positive revenue effects both from participation in the scheme and more modestly from applying organic farming techniques

land clearance and social capital in mountain agro ecosystems the case of opuntia scrubland in ayacucho peru abstract opuntia scrublands are important ecological economic systems in rural andean areas they provide goods for peasants diet and animal feed as well as cochineal insects a highly valued source of dyes land clearance on these scrublands promotes changes in land use from nonproductive wilderness to cochineal and fruit harvest areas grazing lands and fuel wood supply zones here we empirically explore the role of social capital on land clearance based on a case study of the humanga region of ayacucho peru the literature on social capital is showing evidence of the positive effect of social capital on development actions and on environmental conservation in rural areas of developing countries such as participatory forest management here the notion of social capital is captured by the idea that some features of social organization such as networks facilitate coordination and cooperation within the peasant communities that help in managing different economic activities both on and off farm the habilitation of the scrublands in the andean mountain environment could be generating negative externalities as a consequence of altering the vegetation cover such as soil erosion because the benefits arising from land clearance activities are obtained by cochineal collecting households and the negative environmental effects are costs imposed upon noncochineal collectors the social capital associated with scrubland habilitation could be perverse from an agro environmental viewpoint and a revision of some government policies and of some ngos actions for rural development through the promotion of various community networks in this deprived area could be needed

do farmers benefit from participating in specialty markets and cooperatives the case of coffee marketing in costa rica1 historically low prices in the conventional coffee market have caused financial and social hardship among coffee farmers in the face of this crisis specialty markets have attracted the attention of the international donor community these market segments have shown consistent growth over the last decade and exhibit price premiums in international markets therefore if higher prices are passed on to farmers access to specialty markets could help to alleviate the crisis brought on by low prices in the conventional sector the present study attempts to identify the factors that determine farmers participation in specialized markets and whether participation in these markets leads to higher prices for farmers a two stage model is used to analyze farmers marketing decisions and their effect on the prices received this procedure allows us to control for the endogeneity bias introduced by the marketing choice our results indicate that farmers participating in the specialty coffee segment do in fact receive higher prices than those participating in conventional channels additionally we find that participation in cooperatives has a positive impact on the probability that a farmer chooses to grow specialty coffee and analogously on the prices that they receive based on these results it seems that efforts to increase participation in the specialty coffee segment and in cooperatives would help to lessen some of the hardships brought on by low prices in the conventional coffee sector

policy technology and management strategies for achieving sustainable agricultural intensification considerable agreement exists among researchers development practitioners and policymakers regarding the goals of sustainable agricultural intensification sai they include achieving agricultural productivity growth household food security and improved rural livelihoods and employment while simultaneously mitigating environmental degradation however the multiplicity of these objectives as well as the choice of approaches to achieving them and the site and context specificity of specific technological and institutional interventions assures that the research and policy challenges to achieving sai will remain considerable this article summarizes the contributions of the articles in this special issue in four areas of the literature first labor market constraints the labor intensity of specific agricultural technologies and practices and labor s substitutability or complementarity with other inputs are shown to widely influence their viability and related input efficiencies second the articles identify specific tradeoffs and synergistic relationships that arise in the attainment of these multiple goals stemming from technologies management practices and policies introduced under specific agroclimatic market and institutional conditions third these papers contribute to the literature on agricultural technology adoption by furnishing additional empirical evidence on the determinants and effects of investment behavior and adoption of specific technologies and management practices finally the articles in this special issue emphasize that there is no single policy nor technological management or institutional innovation that unambiguously promotes sai preferred policies must be contextualized and sensitive to initial biophysical market and institutional conditions

tradeoffs and complementarities in the adoption of improved seeds fertilizer and natural resource management technologies in kenya there is widespread consensus that agricultural technology has an important role to play for poverty reduction and sustainable development there is no consensus however about the types of technologies that are best suited for smallholder farmers in africa while some consider natural resource management nrm technologies as most appropriate others propagate input intensification with a stronger role of the private sector in the public debate these two strategies are often perceived as incompatible environmental non governmental organizations in particular consider low external input strategies as the only sustainable form of agriculture a view that has considerable influence on policymakers and the international donor community most existing research studies on smallholder innovation focus on the adoption of individual technologies so that comparisons between different types of technologies in the same context are not easily possible we use representative data from maize producing households in kenya and a multivariate probit model to analyze the adoption of different types of technologies simultaneously results indicate that nrm technologies and strategies that build on external inputs are not incompatible interesting complementarities exist which are not yet sufficiently exploited because many organizations promote either one type of technology or the other but rarely a combination of both

the globalization of organic agro food networks summary this article analyzes the booming world trade in organic agro foods such as tropical products counterseasonal fresh produce and processed foods research focuses on expanding south north networks linking major us and european markets with major production regions particularly in latin america employing a commodity network approach i analyze organic production distribution and consumption patterns and the roles of social political and economic actors in consolidating international trade organic certification proves central to network governance shaping product specifications production parameters and enterprise participation my analysis identifies key contradictions between mainstream agro industrial and alternative movement conventions in global organic networks 2004 published by elsevier ltd

towards a more ethically correct governance for economic sustainability in this paper we propose that economic sustainability is seen in terms of inter temporal and inter national value creation we claim that value appropriation or capture can become a constraint to economic sustainability we propose that for sustainable value creation to be fostered corporate governance needs to be aligned to public and supra national governance in order to achieve this a hierarchically layered set of agencies needs to be diagnosed and the issue of incentive alignment addressed enlightened self interest pluralism and diversity as well as a representative supra national organisation for world wide economic sustainability can serve as a new more ethically correct governance for economic sustainability but not a panacea

corporate governance provisions and firm ownership firm level evidence from eastern europe we study differences in the use of two corporate governance provisions e cumulative voting and proxy by mail voting e in a sample of about 220 firms located in four eastern european countries after controlling for other firm characteristics we find that firms that have a large minority blockholder are more likely to allow cumulative voting we do not find any significant relationship between the use of these corporate governance provisions and foreign ownership we conclude that the use of cumulative voting is associated with the presence of large minority shareholders 2006 published by elsevier ltd jel classification g34 p2

soil fertility management and socio economic factors in crop livestock systems in burkina faso a case study of composting technology abstract the relation between technology adoption and farmers socio economic characteristics has increasingly been given attention in developing countries however most of the studies conducted by economists dealt with the adoption of external technologies here we test the determinants of compost adoption an alternative indigenous technology for soil fertility management the results of analysis of data from burkina faso using logit model strongly support the hypothesis that farmers socio economic characteristics and their agro ecological location significantly affect their adoption decisions there are two main conclusions of this study first the agro ecological location of farmers influence their decision to widely adopt compost technology second among farmers characteristics affecting compost adoption three groups can be distinguished the most important socio economic characteristics are farmers age their comparative perception on the yield effect of compost with regards to other fertilizers and their annual agricultural income a second group of characteristics include the institutional factors which are represented by the farmers participation in extension workshops a third group of factors comprises the farmer s labor force participating rate the number of ruminants owned and farmers gender

conservation agriculture organic marketing and collective action in the honduran hillsides conservation agriculture ca is often perceived to provide win win outcomes for farmers leading to reduced erosion and off site sedimentation as well as improved soil fertility and productivity however adoption rates for ca in many regions of the world remain below expected levels this article looks at the effects of participation in organic markets and farmers organizations on the adoption of soil conservation practices based on original survey data from 241 small scale farm households in honduras we find that both participation in organic markets and farmer based groups have positive effects on the number of soil conservation practices adopted the results indicate that besides supply oriented policy measures such as the provision of technical assistance and extension demand related factors are likely to play an important role in sustainable soil management demand oriented policy measures include support for labeling initiatives and consumer education to facilitate value added product differentiation and market segmentation jel classifications q01 q12 q13 q16

are there systematic gender differences in the adoption of sustainable agricultural intensification practices evidence from kenya this paper uses sex disaggregated survey data at the plot level to test whether there are systematic gender differences in the adoption of multiple sustainable intensification practices sips in kenya we analyze plot level adoption decisions of sips by male female or joint plot managers within the household controlling for household characteristics asset wealth and land quality factors that condition investments in intensification options using a multivariate probit model we find gender differences in the adoption pattern for some sips compared to male plot mangers female managers are less likely to adopt minimum tillage and animal manure in crop production indicating the existence of certain socioeconomic inequalities and barriers for female farmers however we find no gender differences in the adoption of soil and water conservation measures improved seed varieties chemical fertilizers maize legume intercropping and maize legume rotations

agroindustrialization through institutional innovation transaction costs cooperatives and milk market development in the east african highlands abstract some small holders are able to generate reliable and substantial income flows through small scale dairy production for the local market for others a set of unique transaction costs hinders participation cooperative selling institutions are potential catalysts for mitigating these costs stimulating entry into the market and promoting growth in rural communities trends in cooperative organization in east african dairy are evaluated empirical work focuses on alternative techniques for effecting participation among a representative sample of peri urban milk producers in the ethiopian highlands the variables considered are a modern production practice cross bred cow use a traditional production practice indigenous cow use three intellectual capital forming variables experience education and extension and the provision of infrastructure as measured by time to transport milk to market a tobit analysis of marketable surplus generates precise estimates of non participants distances to market and their reservation levels of the covariates measures of the inputs necessary to sustain and enhance the market policy implications focus on the availability of cross bred stock and the level of market infrastructure both of which have marked effects on participation the velocity of transactions in the local community and inevitably the social returns to agroindustrialization

the role of technology in sustaining agriculture and the environment abstract visions of sustainable development often leave unanswered the question what actions taken by the current generation will ensure that future generations can meet their economic and environmental needs in this context we assess the role of technology in steering agriculture along a more sustainable path from the agricultural sector s perspective this requires an optimal investment plan for a nation s stock of environmental assets that accounts for an intergenerational fulfillment of sustainability s dual goals 1 satisfying food and fiber needs at reasonable costs to consumers and 2 providing environmental service flows in reviewing agricultural indicators to assess the nation s performance in meeting these goals we find productivity growth has increased while rates of soil erosion wetland conversion and pesticide application have declined however individuals continue to demand more environmental services while private markets undersupply environmental services the capacity of the agricultural sector to meet food and fiber and environmental service demands partially depends on the availability and adoption of new technology several market impediments explain the undersupply of sustainable technologies 1 firms cannot fully appropriate rents from technology development 2 success may vary with farm structure 3 the heterogeneity of the resource base influences adoption and 4 farmers cannot capture the benefits of environmental services to address these market failures sustainable agriculture policy should 1 support research and development in sustainable technologies and provide incentives to encourage adoption 2 ensure that conservation efforts reflect the efficient and sustainable allocation of environmental assets and 3 legitimize markets for foods produced under more sustainable practices

decoupling standards from practice the impact of in house certifications on coffee farms environmental and social conduct in this paper we investigate whether coffee farms that have been granted in house socio environmental certification from a global buyer display better social and environmental conduct compared to non certified farms we perform an econometric analysis using data from an original cross country survey covering 575 farms in various regions of brazil colombia costa rica guatemala and mexico we find that farms that have been granted in house certification demonstrate better environmental but not better social conduct than non certified farms we find also that the positive relationship between in house certification and environmental conduct is stronger if the farm sells to a cooperative and if it is located in an institutionally weak country finally we find that the institutional strength of the farm s home country has a positive influence on its social conduct we discuss how our analysis contributes to the literature on the social and environmental impacts of certifications and to scholarship in global value chains social and environmental upgrading

the heterogeneous effect of shocks on agricultural innovations adoption microeconometric evidence from rural ethiopia abstract theoretically the relationship between shocks and agricultural innovation adoption could be ambiguous while shocks could lower the competence and capacity of households to adopt new agricultural innovations households can also take up agricultural innovations as a coping mechanism against the different shocks they face using a nationally representative household data from ethiopia of the living standards measurement study integrated surveys on agriculture lsms isa of the world bank this paper analyzes the effect of idiosyncratic and covariate shocks on adoption of different agricultural innovations assuming interdependence among the innovations we find shocks to have heterogeneous effects on the adoption of agricultural innovations specifically production and health shocks have negative effects on the adoption of high cost innovations such as improved seeds chemical fertilizer and irrigation however production shocks are positively associated with low cost innovations such as organic fertilizer to enhance farmers adoption of agricultural innovations especially high cost innovations there is a greater need towards the design of policies and interventions that would reduce household s exposure to production and health shocks

policy instruments for sustainable land management the case of highland smallholders in ethiopia degradation of land continues to pose a threat to future food production potential in many developing economies various approaches mainly based on command and control policies have been tried with limited success in the past to encourage adoption of erosion control practices by farm households high transactions costs and negative distributional impacts on the welfare of the poor limit the usefulness of standards and taxes for soil and water conservation one innovative approach is the use of interlinked contracts which create positive incentives for land conservation this study analyses the social efficiency of such policies for erosion control in the ethiopian highlands using a non separable farm household model incentive contracts linked with conservation seem to be promising approaches for sustainable resource use in poor rural economies this may suggest that conservation programs should give greater consideration to better fine tuning and mix of policies that help achieve both economic and environmental objectives

adoption of agricultural innovations as a two stage partial observability process in this paper we reconsider the appropriateness of certain statistical analyses in innovation adoption studies and suggest that partial observability models may sometimes be more useful the proposed models allow for a flexible specification of the process of adoption from one stage to two stages facilitate the modelling of non adopters and remedy the violation of the assumption of full information an application to the adoption of organic cultivation in greece demonstrates the relative merits of the proposed analysis

cropping system diversification conservation tillage and modern seed adoption in ethiopia impacts on household income agrochemical use and demand for labor the type and combination of sustainable agricultural practices saps adopted have a significant effect on agricultural productivity and food security this study develops a multinomial endogenous switching regression model of farmers choice of combination of saps and impacts on maize income and agrochemicals and family labor use in rural ethiopia four primary results were found first adoption of saps increases maize income and the highest payoff is achieved when saps are adopted in combination rather than in isolation second nitrogen fertilizer use is lower in the package that contains system diversification and conservation tillage third conservation tillage increased pesticide application and labor demand perhaps to compensate for reduced tillage however when it is used jointly with system diversification it does not have a significant impact on pesticide and labor use fourth in most cases adoption of a package of saps increases women workload suggesting that agricultural intensification technology interventions may not be gender neutral this implies that policy makers and other stakeholders promoting a combination of technologies can enhance household food security through increasing income and reducing production costs but need to be aware of the potential gender related outcomes

do lenders favor politically connected firms rent provision in an emerging financial market corruption by the politically connected is often blamed for economic ills particularly in less developed economies using a loan level data set of more than 90 000 rms that represents the universe of corporate lending in pakistan between 1996 and 2002 we investigate rents to politically connected rms in banking classifying a rm as political if its director participates in an election we examine the extent nature and economic costs of political rent provision we nd that political rms borrow 45 percent more and have 50 percent higher default rates such preferential treatment occurs exclusively in government banks private banks provide no

synergies between different types of agricultural technologies in the kenyan small farm sector abstractsustainable intensification of agriculture will have to build on various innovations but synergies between different types of technologies are not yet sufficiently understood we use repre

spatial patterns of organic agriculture adoption evidence from honduras in low potential agricultural areas like the honduran hillsides characterized by soil degradation and erosion organic agriculture can provide a means to break the downward spiral of resource degradation and poverty we use original survey data to analyze the factors influencing the decision to convert to organic agriculture previous studies have emphasized the role of spatial patterns in the diffusion and adoption of agricultural technologies in general and organic agriculture in particular these spatial patterns can result from a variety of underlying factors in this article we test various potential explanations including the availability of information in the farmer s neighborhood social conformity concerns and perceived positive external effects of the adoption decision in a spatially explicit adoption model we find that farmers who believe to act in accordance with their neighbors expectations and with greater availability of information in their neighborhood network are more likely to adopt organic agriculture furthermore perceived positive productivity spillovers to neighboring plots decrease the probability of adoption we discuss the implications of our findings for the dissemination of sustainable agricultural technologies in low potential agricultural areas in developing countries

policies for sustainable development in the hillside areas of honduras a quantitative livelihoods approach in this article we use data for 376 households 1 066 parcels and 2 143 plots located in 95 villages in the hillside areas in honduras to generate information needed by decision makers to assess the needs and opportunities for public investments and design policies that stimulate natural resource conservation we develop a quantitative livelihood approach using factor and cluster analysis to group households based on the use of their main assets this resulted in seven household categories that pursue similar livelihood strategies we use a multinomial logit model to show that livelihood strategies are determined by comparative advantages as reflected by a combination of biophysical and socioeconomic variables while 92 of the rural hillsides population in honduras lives on us 1 00 capita day or less households that follow a livelihood strategy based on basic grain farming are the poorest because they often live in isolated areas with relatively poor agro ecological and socioeconomic conditions opportunities for off farm work tend to be limited in these areas and household strategies that combine on farm work with off farm work earn higher incomes per capita incomes can be increased by improving road infrastructure widening access to land policies that reduce household size and dependency ratios and adoption of sustainable land management technologies that restore soil fertility we used probit models to show that the latter can be promoted by agricultural extension programs and land redistribution investments in physical assets should be directed toward households that pursue livelihood strategies based on off farm employment or coffee production while agricultural training programs are best focused on livestock producers

large shareholders and the monitoring of managers the case of antitakeover charter amendments this paper examines the role of large shareholders in monitoring managers when they propose antitakeover charter amendments we attempt to distinguish between two competing hypotheses the active monitoring hypothesis and the passive voting hypothesis we find a statistically significant positive relation between institutional ownership and the stockholder wealth effects of various types of amendments after controlling for ownership concentration among institutions managerial ownership and firm size our empirical evidence lends support to the active monitoring hypothesis proposed by demsetz 1983 and shleifer and vishny 1986 that the existence of large shareholders leads to better monitoring of managers

player and referee roles held jointly the effect of state ownership on china s regulatory enforcement against fraud this article examines the impact of the prevailing state ownership in the chinese stock market on corporate governance and the financial regulatory system respectively as the internal and external monitoring mechanisms to deter corporate fraud and protect investors in line with the literature that state ownership exaggerates the agency problem we find that the retained state ownership in privatised firms increases the incidence of regulatory enforcements against fraud for the state owned enterprises soes however larger state ownership is associated with a lower incidence of enforcement actions this is attributed to the mutual political affiliation of the fraudulent soes and the regulatory commission a new regulation solutions for listed firm checks promulgated in march 2001 has mitigated this effect by empowering the regulatory commission to increase the severity of regulatory conditions our evidence confirms the improvement in the regulatory environment and investor protection in the chinese stock market brought about by the regulatory reform and development

institutional investors political connections and the incidence of regulatory enforcement against corporate fraud we investigate two under explored factors in mitigating the risk of corporate fraud and regulatory enforcement against fraud namely institutional investors and political connections the role of institutional investors in the effective monitoring of a firm s management is well established in the literature we further observe that firms that have a large proportion of their shares held by institutional investors have a lower incidence of enforcement actions against corporate fraud the importance of political connections for enterprises whether in a developed market such as the united states or an emerging market such as china has been established by previous studies however we find evidence of another positive effect of political connections they may reduce the incidence of enforcement action against corporate fraud we also find that political connections play a more significant role in reducing regulatory enforcement incidents against non state owned enterprises and firms in weaker legal environments whereas institutional ownership plays a more important role in reducing regulatory enforcement incidents against state owned enterprises

sustaining linkages to high value markets through collective action in uganda abstract uganda s rapid urbanization offers new market opportunities for smallholder farmers to supply higher value markets such as supermarket chains and fast food restaurants supplying these formal outlets offers higher incomes but accessing and maintaining links to these markets requires significant upgrading in terms of product quality and business management to meet these conditions farmers need to become more organized which requires increased levels of social capital to strengthen internal and external relations with group members service providers and market chain actors one farmers group in south western uganda has successfully sustained sales of potatoes to a fast food outlet in kampala farmers had to learn a series of new skills and integrate multiple technical organizational financial and marketing innovations this paper outlines how collective action combined with strong leadership and an iterative market led learning process enabled a smallholder farmers association to meet the considerable challenges of achieving the stringent quality parameters of a modern food outlet

improving the speed of adoption of agricultural technologies and farm performance through farmer groups evidence from the great lakes region of africa the article examines the effect of membership in farmer groups mfg on adoption lag of agricultural technologies and farm performance in burundi the democratic republic of congo and rwanda we use duration and stochastic production frontier models on farm household data we find that the longer the duration of mfg the shorter the adoption lag and much more so if combined with extension service delivery farmer groups function as an important mechanism for improving farm productivity through reduced technical inefficiency in input use we discuss policy implications under which farmer groups are a useful channel to reduce adoption lag and the means through which improved farm performance can be achieved

standards as a new form of social contract sustainability initiatives in the coffee industry abstract in the former age of national capitalism the achievement of market fairness was embedded in a normative framework generated by government labor unions and perhaps religious authority in the current age of global capitalism new actors such as ngos industry associations and public private partnerships provide the normative framework that corporations use for social legitimacy in this context standard setting processes operate as new forms of social contract where the state rather than being directly involved between the parties provides a form of basic guarantee while more or less accountable ngos and firms are in charge of hammering out the bargains this article examines the dynamics of this new configuration through the case study of sustainability initiatives in the coffee sector it addresses four questions 1 are these standards effective in communicating information and creating new markets 2 to what extent do they embed elements of collective and private interests 3 is sustainability content actually delivered to their intended beneficiaries and 4 what is the role of public policy in addressing their shortcomings

a game theoretic explanation of the administrative lattice in institutions of higher learning abstract we provide a game theoretic model of academic organizations focusing on the strategic interaction of prototypical overseers administrators and professors by identifying key principal agent games routinely played in colleges and universities we begin to unpack the black box typically used to conceptualize these institutions our approach suggests an explanation for the seemingly inevitable drift of institutions of higher education into such well documented phenomena as academic ratchet and administrative lattice and builds an understanding of the organizational conditions in which drift would be restrained

politicians and banks political influences on government owned banks in emerging markets abstract government ownership of banks is very common in countries other than the united states this paper provides cross country bank level empirical evidence about political influences on these banks it shows that government owned banks increase their lending in election years relative to private banks this effect is robust to controlling for country specific macroeconomic and institutional factors as well as bank specific factors the increase in lending is about 11 of a government owned bank s total loan portfolio or about 0 5 of the median country s gdp per election per government owned bank

confronting the coffee crisis can fair trade organic and specialty coffees reduce small scale farmer vulnerability in northern nicaragua summary this paper links changing global coffee markets to opportunities and vulnerabilities for sustaining small scale farmer livelihoods in northern nicaragua changing governance structures corporate concentration oversupply interchangeable commodity grade beans and low farm gate prices characterize the crisis in conventional coffee markets in contrast certified fair trade and organic are two alternative forms of specialty coffee trade and production that may offer opportunities for small scale producers a research team surveyed 228 farmers to measure the impact of sales on organic and fair trade markets the results suggest that participation in organic and fair trade networks reduces farmers livelihood vulnerability 2004 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

collective agricultural production a solution for transition economies abstract the paper examines theoretical reasons and provides examples for productivity differences between agricultural service cooperatives and collectives service cooperatives can utilize economies of scale enhance competitiveness and provide technical information advantages that often outweighed problems of free riding low investment and excessive political intervention agricultural collectives while not adding substantial advantages are in addition associated with problems of supervision and effort supply tendencies to substitute casual workers or mechanization for regular members and low investment incentives while collective forms of organization in transition economies respond to high risk and market imperfections they do so inefficiently policies that create conditions for service cooperatives to compete may lead to large productivity gains

location and uptake integrated household and gis analysis of technology adoption and land use with application to smallholder dairy farms in kenya abstract gis derived measures of location and space have increasingly been used in models of land use and ecology however they have made few inroads into the literature on technology adoption in developing countries which continues to rely mainly on survey derived information location with all its dimensions of market access demographics and agro climate nevertheless remains key to understanding potential for technology use the measures of location typically used in the adoption literature such as locational dummy variables that proxy a range of locational factors now appear relatively crude given the increased availability of more explicit gis derived measures this paper attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of integrating gis measures into analysis of technology uptake for better differentiating and understanding locational effects a set of gis derived measures of market access and agro climate are included in a standard household model of technology uptake applied to smallholder dairy farms in kenya using a sample of 3330 geo referenced farm households the three technologies examined are keeping of dairy cattle planting of specialised fodder and use of concentrate feed logit estimations are conducted that significantly differentiate effects of individual household characteristics from those related to location the predicted values of the locational variables are then used to make spatial predictions of technology potential comparisons are made with estimations based only on survey data which demonstrate that while overall explanatory power may not improve with gis derived variables the latter yield more practical interpretations which is further demonstrated through predictions of technology uptake change with a shift in infrastructure policy although requiring large geo referenced data sets and high resolution gis layers the methodology demonstrates the potential to better unravel the multiple effects of location on farmer decisions on technology and land use

organic certification agro ecological practices and return on investment evidence from pineapple producers in ghana the recent empirical literature on economic sustainability of certified export crops shows that certification standards that enhance yields are important for improving farm revenues and household welfare however limited evidence exists on the impact of organic certification on the adoption of agro ecological practices in this study we use unique farm level data from pineapple producers in ghana to examine the impact of organic certification on the use of agro ecological practices such as organic fertilizers organic pest and weed control crop rotation and soil and water conservation as well as how using these measures affect farm outcomes such as return on investment our empirical results reveal that organic certification increases agro ecological practice use although from a very low starting point using a generalized propensity score approach we show that there is a positive but nonlinear relationship between the intensity of agro ecological practice use and return on investment