Mobile phone use is increasing in Sub-Saharan Africa, spurring a growing focus on mobile phones as tools to increase agricultural yields and incomes on smallholder farms. However, the research to date on this topic is mixed, with studies finding both positive and neutral associations between phones and yields. In this paper we examine perceptions about the impacts of mobile phones on agricultural productivity, and the relationships between mobile phone use and agricultural yield.
La CEPAL ha colaborado en la iniciativa La economía del cambio climático en Centroamérica (ECC CA) desde 2008 con el propósito de estimar y evidenciar los impactos de la variabilidad y del cambio climático, y propiciar la discusión sobre políticas públicas en sectores clave. Esta publicación es un resumen de los análisis de impactos potenciales del cambio climático y de las discusiones sobre opciones de políticas públicas en Guatemala generadas en el marco de la iniciativa ECC CA.
The role of genetically modified (GM) crops for food security is the subject of public controversy. GM crops could contribute to food production increases and higher food availability. There may also be impacts on food quality and nutrient composition. Finally, growing GM crops may influence farmers’ income and thus their economic access to food. Smallholder farmers make up a large proportion of the undernourished people worldwide. Our study focuses on this latter aspect and provides the first ex post analysis of food security impacts of GM crops at the micro level.
Despite substantial research on the economic effects of transgenic insect-resistant Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton, there is still limited work on this technology’s impacts on human health. Due to the inbuilt insect resistance, Bt cotton requires fewer pesticide sprays than conventional cotton, which is not only advantageous from economic and environmental perspectives, but may also result in health benefits for farmers.
This paper documents a positive relationship between maize productivity in western Kenya and women’s empowerment in agriculture, measured using indicators derived from the abbreviated version of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index. Applying a cross-sectional instrumental-variable regression method to a data set of 707 maize farm households from western Kenya, we find that women’s empowerment in agriculture significantly increases maize productivity.
Many of the world’s food-insecure and undernourished people are smallholder farmers in developing countries. This is especially true in Africa. There is an urgent need to make smallholder agriculture and food systems more nutrition-sensitive. African farm households are known to consume a sizeable part of what they produce at home. Less is known about how much subsistence agriculture actually contributes to household diets, and how this contribution changes seasonally. We use representative data from rural Ethiopia covering every month of one full year to address this knowledge gap.
Land-use changes have dramatically transformed tropical landscapes. We describe an ecological-economic land-use change model as an integrated, exploratory tool used to analyze how tropical land-use change affects ecological and socio-economic functions. The model analysis seeks to determine what kind of landscape mosaic can improve the ensemble of ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, and economic benefit based on the synergies and trade-offs that we have to account for.
El objetivo del presente boletín es presentar algunas experiencias de circuitos cortos provenientes tanto de América Latina como de otras partes del mundo, que permita a su vez identificar factores de éxito y lecciones aprendidas. Estos ejemplos se basan en los casos analizados durante el seminario sobre circuitos cortos recientemente organizado por la CEPAL, la FAO y la OMS
El documento tiene como objetivo analizar los avances realizados por países de América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) en el fortalecimiento de la institucionalidad vinculada a la agricultura, el cambio climático y la seguridad alimentaria. El documento destaca iniciativas innovadoras, en ámbitos como la formulación de políticas, el desarrollo de marcos legales, el fomento de la investigación y la innovación, el desarrollo de mecanismos de financiamiento, y la gestión de riesgos climáticos, entre otros. La revisión está enfocada en las políticas nacionales
El objeto del libro es dar cuenta de las principales innovaciones, así como de la riqueza de planteamientos y enfoques de políticas para promover y potenciar la contribución del sector al desarrollo sostenible e inclusivo de las sociedades latinoamericanas y del Caribe. El segundo capítulo trae un rápido análisis acerca de las características de la agricultura regional y de sus posibilidades de inserción en la futura agricultura mundial.