We analyzed a county-level data set of rice yield and daily weather outcomes in China to examine the effects of high temperatures and extreme temperature events on rice yield.

The changing weather patterns and seasonal shifts are negatively impacting agricultural ecosystems and compromising the benefits from production of agricultural goods and services. Such impacts include reduced farm returns, reduced household incomes, increase in poverty levels, and reduction in farm productivity and efficiency. Using three waves of panel data, this study applies a monotonic translog stochastic frontier (SFA) to assess the overall farm efficiency and the influence of climatic factors, agro-ecological factors, and household factors on farm level efficiency.

We estimate the production function for agricultural output in Eastern Africa incorporating climate variables disaggregated into growing and non-growing seasons. We find a substantial negative effect of within growing season variance of precipitation. We simulate predicted climate change for the region and find a resulting output reduction of between 1.2% and 4.5%.

Empirical studies point to reduced tillage as a means to increase yields and reverse land degradation. A relatively neglected avenue of research concerns why farmers increase tillage frequencies. Using household plot–level panel data from the Nile Basin of Ethiopia, this article applies a random effects ordered probit endogenous switching regression model to empirically investigate the impact of weather events and other conditioning factors on farmers’ choice of tillage intensity and the effect of changing tillage frequencies on differences in farm returns.

Why do many smallholder farmers fail to adopt what appear to be relatively simple agronomic
or management practices which can help them cope with climate-induced stressors?
Using household and plot level data collected in 2011, we implement a
multivariate probit model to assess the determinants of farmer adaptation behavior to climatic
risks and the relative contribution of information, credit and education on the probability
of adopting specific practices in response to adverse changes in weather patterns.

This paper investigates the spatial and temporal aspect of seasonal agricultural drought in Ethiopia during the cropping season using Vegetation Condition Index. SPOT-VGT S10 NDVI time-series for the period 1998 to 2013 was employed. Five hundred and sixty-seven dekadal images were administered in order to produce the multi-temporal agricultural drought maps. Accordingly, the analysis showed different causes for the nation-wide drought events occurred in the years 1998, 2000, 2002, 2009, and 2010.

Reducing poverty and improving household food security remains an important policy objective for rural development in the semi-arid areas of many countries in Africa. Many development programs have been introduced in efforts to bring the cycle of poverty and food insecurity to an end. This paper investigates the impact of a food security package (FSP) program in improving rural household’s food consumption in Tigray region, Northern Ethiopia.

This article examines the main household demographics and economic factors associated with food insecurity and coping behavior of rural households employed during times of food shortages in northern Ethiopia. Using a cost-of-basic-needs approach we estimated the food poverty line. This cut-off value was used to classify households as either food secure or insecure.

This research investigates farmers’ cognitive perceptions of risk and the behavioral intentions to undertake farm-level risk-reduction measures. It has been observed that people who are susceptible to natural hazards often fail to act, or do very little, to protect their assets or lives.

With the development of global changes, researchers from all over the world increasingly pay attention to drought detection, and severe droughts that may have resulted from climate change. In this paper, spatial and temporal variability of drought is evaluated based on precipitation data and remotely sensed images. The standard precipitation index (SPI) and vegetation condition index (VCI) are used to evaluate the spatial and temporal characteristics of meteorological and vegetative drought in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia.