Climate change is one of the main problems affecting the global environment which is critical to human welfare. Although the least developed countries (LDCs) in general and Africa in particular contribute the least to the problem, they are the most affected, with reasons varying from lacking resources to cope, immense poverty, and that many LDCs are located in regions where severe weather will hit the most.

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the impact of climate change on agriculture in a typical developing country. The economic implications of climate change are estimated by using both a farm productivity and a Ricardian framework.

In a mixed farming system in which farmyard manure (FYM) is considered an important multipurpose renewable resource that can be used to enhance soil organic matter, provide additional income and supply household energy, soil fertility depletion could take place within the perspective of the household allocation pattern of FYM. This paper estimates a system of FYM allocation regressions to examine the role of returns to FYM and farmers’ impatience on the propensity to allocate FYM to different uses.

Using the land tenure system in Ethiopia, where all land is state-owned and only farm households have usufruct rights, as a case study, we assessed the links between land owners’ tenure insecurity, associated behavioral factors, and contract length. In this paper, we analyze these links with survey data of rural households in the Amhara National Regional State of Ethiopia.

This publication compiles about 23 research papers that were presented on the national conference hosted by Department of Economics of Mekelle University and sponsored by EEPFE, on August 8-9, 2008 at Axum Hotel, Mekelle, Ethiopia.