There is an emerging body of literature analyzing how smallholder farmers in developing countries can benefit from modern supply chains. However, most of the available studies concentrate on export markets and fail to capture spillover effects that modern supply chains may have onlocal markets. Here, we analyze the case of sweet pepper in Thailand, which was initially introduced as a product innovation in modern supplychains, but which is now widely traded also in more traditional markets.
This article adds to the literature about the impact of social networks on the adoption of modern seed technologies among smallholder farmers in developing countries. The analysis centers on the adoption of hybrid wheat and hybrid pearl millet in India. In the local context, both crops are cultivated mainly on a subsistence basis, and they provide examples of hybrid technologies at very different diffusion stages: while hybrid wheat was commercialized in India only in 2001, hybrid pearl millet was launched in 1965.
Farm input subsidies are often criticised on economic and ecological grounds. The promotion of natural resource management (NRM) technologies is widely seen as more sustainable to increase agricultural productivity and food security. Relatively little is known about how input subsidies affect farmers’ decisions to adopt NRM technologies. There are concerns of incompatibility, because NRM technologies are one strategy to reduce the use of external inputs in intensive production systems.
Though extension services have long since proved their value to agricultural production and farmer prosperity, their record in sub-Saharan Africa has been mixed. To study the impact of such programs on farmers' learning about agricultural technologies, we implemented a quasi-randomized controlled trial and collected detailed panel data among Malawian farmers. Based on those findings, we develop a two-stage learning framework, in which farmers formulate yield expectations before deciding on how much effort to invest in learning about these processes.
We analyse the impact of intensity of tillage on wheat productivity and risk exposure using panel household-plot level data from Ethiopia. In order to control for selection bias, we estimate a flexible moment-based production function using an endogenous switching regression treatment effects model. We find that tillage has a complementary impact on productivity and risk exposure. As the intensity of tillage increases, productivity increases and farmers’ exposure to risk declines. Our results suggest that smallholder farmers use tillage as an ex-ante risk management strategy.
This book is the re-titled third edition of the widely used Agricultural Extension (van den Ban & Hawkins, 1988, 1996). Building on the previous editions,Communication for Rural Innovation maintains and adapts the insights and conceptual models of value today, while reflecting many new ideas, angles and modes of thinking concerning how agricultural extension is taught and carried through today.
Este estudio de caso describe la Cadena de valor del Cacao en Costa Rica. Empieza hablando del cacao a nível global, regional y nacional y en seguida describe los eslabones y limitaciones de la cadena
Esta tesis constituye un insumo construido de manera participativa con las comunidades agrarias y rurales de Camino Verde, El Triunfo, Nueva Gomera, Nuevo Monte Cristo y San Rafael, con el propósito de analizar en conjunto la situación actual y expectativa de desarrollo a futuro de las familias campesinas.
Este trabajo busca evaluar el impacto de las Escuelas de Campo en familias y fincas cacaoteras de Upala y Talamanca (Costa Rica).
El propósito del presente estudio de caso es documentar un proceso de Investigación Agrícola para el Desarrollo (IAD): las ECAS de MAP en Trifinio, el cual analiza la experiencia del Proyecto Innovaciones en Cadenas de Valor de Hortalizas Epeciales. Asimismo resalta los principales logros y lecciones aprendidas, que sirven como un ejemplo tangible de un impacto positivo en la vinculación de IAD con la innovación, el desarrollo y el papel que pueden desempeñar las políticas y mecasnismos institucionales para promover esta relación