The impact of infrastructure shocks on agricultural markets. Evidence from the Zambezi river in Mozambique

Submitted by NENRE Concepcion on

Prior to 2009, there was no direct road connection between the southern regions of Mozambique—where the capital city is located—and the more agriculturally-productive central and northern regions. In this paper, we leverage the opening of a major road bridge to identify the impact of enhanced domestic transport infrastructure on agricultural market performance. We apply a generalized difference-in-difference estimator within a dyadic regression context.

Agriculture

Participation in Organizations, Technical Efficiency and Territorial Differences: A Study of Small Wheat Farmers in Chile

Submitted by NENRE Concepcion on

The lack of efficient individual solutions for small farmers either in the market or through the State has resulted in a search for collective spaces to strengthen their productive capacities, where participation in organizations emerges as a relevant factor to obtain higher efficiency levels.

Agriculture

Weather shocks and cropland decisions in rural Mozambique

Submitted by NENRE Concepcion on

Economic development in low income settings is often associated with an expansion of higher-value agricultural activities. Since these activities often bring new risks, an understanding of cropland decisions and how these interact with shocks is valuable. This paper uses data from Mozambique to examine the effect of weather shocks on cropland decisions. We account for the bounded nature of land shares and estimate a Pooled Fractional Probit model for panel data. Our results show that crop choice is sensitive to past weather shocks.

Agriculture, Climate Change

Conservation versus Equity: Can payments for environmental services achieve both?

Submitted by Manuela Fonseca on

Based on a framed field experiment, we investigate the trade-off between conservation and equity in the use of payments for environmental services (PES). We compare the effects of two PES schemes that implicitly incorporate different distributive justice principles: a flat-rate payment per biophysical unit conserved and a redistributive payment based on the Rawls maxi-min distributional principle. The main findings indicate that the introduction of a redistributive scheme can function as a multipurpose instrument.

Conservation

Collective Property Leads to Household Investments: Lessons from Land Titling in Afro-Colombian Communities

Submitted by Manuela Fonseca on

In the developing world, collective land titling has become an important tool for recognizing the historical presence of ethnic communities and safeguarding their rights to occupy and manage their territories. However, little is known about the average impact of these titling processes on the well-being of these communities. In this paper we attempt to estimate the impact of collective land titling in territories inhabited by Afro-descendent communities in Colombia.

Conservation, Policy Design

Smallholder Agricultural Production Efficiency of Adopters and Nonadopters of Land Conservation Technologies in Tanzania

Submitted by Salvatory Macha on

Promotion and supporting the adoption of land management and conservation technologies (LMCTs) among poor farming households has been considered to improve crop yields as well as production technical efficiency (TE). This article compares production efficiency between adopters and nonadopters of LMCTs in Tanzania. Using national panel data, the study applied stochastic frontier model to estimate the TE of adopters and nonadopters. The findings show that adopters of LMCTs had a relatively significantly higher TE (0.73) than their nonadopter counterparts (0.69).

Agriculture, Climate Change, Conservation, Forestry