Farmers may adapt to climate change by substituting away from the crops most severely affected. In this paper we estimate the substitution caused by a moderate change in climate in the US Midwest. We pair a 10-year panel of satellite-based crop coverage with spatially explicit soil data and a fine-scale weather data set. Combining a proportion type model with local regressions, we simultaneously address the econometric issues of proportion dependent variables and spatial correlation of unobserved factors.

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.

Financial insurance for extreme events can play an important role in hedging against the implications of climate change. This paper combines a comprehensive estimation strategy and a unique panel dataset to study the role of financial insurance in farmers' welfare under uncertainty.

This paper analyses the role of institutional isolation on crop productivity in Kenya using household survey data. The study is based on the theory of agricultural household models and the sustainable land management framework.

This paper investigates the efficiency of carrot and stick policies to reduce investment in coca cultivation in rural Colombia. To measure behavioral responses to anti-drug policies, we conducted a framed field experiment with farmers living in one of the most important coca growing areas. Our experimental design allows identifying heterogeneous producer types and measuring their behavioral response to carrots and sticks. We provide an example on how knowledge on distribution types can be used to design an optimal anti-drug policy.

This paper integrates soil science variables into an economic analysis of agricultural output among small-scale farmers in Kenya's highlands. The integration is valuable because farmers’ choice of inputs depends on both the status of the soil and socioeconomic conditions. The study uses a stochastic production frontier in which the individual farm's distance to the frontier depends systematically on individual factors.

This paper concerns the patterns of food crop choice in a multicropping setting, in which production risk considerations and rainfall uncertainty are likely to be critical factors.

This is a chapter in a book entitled "Agricultural Investment and Productivity: Building Sustainability in East Africa" edited by Gunnar Köhlin and Randall Bluffstone, 2011.

Difficult climatic conditions and lack of soil nutrients pose important challenges for farm households in Ethiopia. In isolated dry environments farmers rely heavily on genetic resources, and Ethiopia is a recognized global center of genetic diversity for several cereals.

This paper investigates the effects of crop genetic diversity on farm productivity and production risk in the highlands of Ethiopia.

Agricultural Investment and Productivity provides a deep and systematic look at the opportunities for and constraints to investments in sustainable agriculture in East Africa, offering important insights into what works and how to analyze agricultural investments in one of the poorest regions of the world.