Weather fluctuations tend to be as important as climate change in farmers’ decision making in countries such as Ethiopia that have virtually no weather insurance. This paper assesses the distinct impacts of weather and climate change measures on agricultural productivity of households, measured in terms of crop revenue, in the Amhara region of Ethiopia.
This paper provides the first county-level analysis of the impacts of weather variability on rice yield in China, by compiling a unique panel on irrigated single-season rice and daily weather data. We found that temperature and solar radiation had statistically significant impacts on rice yield during the vegetative and ripening stages, while the effects of rainfall on yield were not significant.
Implementing and complying with standards and certification often increases costs for supply chain actors. These increased costs are caused by upgrading production, logistics and marketing needed to achieve compliance, and can lead to the exclusion of actors from the supply chain.
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the social sciences are typically not double-blind, so participants know they are “treated” and will adjust their behavior accordingly. Such effort responses complicate the assessment of impact.
Several activities are being undertaken to improve the livelihood of poor households by governments and NGOs in developing countries including Ethiopia. As women constitute about half of the total population in Ethiopia, it is important to see their role in improving household’s food security. This study provides an assessment of the role of women’s participation in ensuring food security at household level in Ebinat district, Amhara Region, Ethiopia.
This is a PhD dissertation by Haileselassie Medhin and containing seven self-contained papers:
The adoption and diffusion of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) has become an important issue in the development-policy agenda for sub-Saharan Africa, especially as a way to tackle land degradation, low agricultural productivity and poverty. However, the adoption rates of SAPs remain below expected levels.
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.
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of land rights and tenure types on farmers' investment behavior in Chinese collective forests, using household survey data from Fujian Province.
Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the authors conducted a household survey in Fujian province of 520 randomly selected forest farmers. The authors used a random-effects Tobit model to estimate the impact of land rights and other components on, for example, tenure security and harvest quota, and the impact of tenure types on farmers' investment incentives.
Biodiversity is crucial for the production of a range of marketed and non-marketed ecosystem goods and services. This paper reviews the empirical evidence for the role of terrestrial biodiversity and biodiversity conservation in economic development and poverty, at both the macro (e.g. country) and micro (e.g. farm) scales.