查看更多>>摘要：The Northwest is the second largest milk producing region of Cameroon. In Bamenda, the region's capital, the shutdown of the only milk processing plant in mid-2016 and political unrest later that year disrupted its dairy supply chain. Producers had to decide whether to continue selling milk, to momentarily stop selling milk, or to quit the dairy business entirely. We investigate the approaches considered by producers in response to the supply chain disruption using household survey data from 2017 with 320 active and inactive dairy market participants. By means of binary and multinomial logit models, we examine household characteristics, farm resources, and institutional factors that may have driven producers' responses one year after the disruption. Our analysis reveals that pastoral and sedentary milk producers should be examined separately. Results show that livestock diversity, land titles, and dairy-focused trainings are helpful to sedentary producers to continue milk sales, whereas pastoral sellers are encouraged by greater access to production factors, and by being members of cooperatives. Generally, younger producers in non-urban areas are most likely to remain milk sellers, regardless of production system. This study sheds light on producers' different approaches after supply chain disruptions and highlights farm-level factors that help them stabilize and maintain their livelihoods. This knowledge can contribute to the design of more appropriate mitigation strategies against the repercussions of such events in the future, particularly for cattle and dairy development programs. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
查看更多>>摘要：The fact that shocks in early life can have long-term consequences is well established in the literature. This paper examines the effects of extreme precipitations on cognitive and health outcomes and shows that impacts can be detected as early as 2 years of age. Our analyses indicate that negative conditions (i.e., extreme precipitations) experienced during the early stages of life affect children's physical, cognitive and behavioral development measured between 2 and 6 years of age. Affected children exhibit lower cognitive development (measured through language, working and long-term memory and visual-spatial thinking) in the magnitude of 0.15 to 0.19 SDs. Lower height and weight impacts are also identified. Changes in food consumption and diet composition appear to be key drivers behind these impacts. Partial evidence of mitigation from the delivery of government programs is found, suggesting that if not addressed promptly and with targeted policies, cognitive functioning delays may not be easily recovered. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Ihli, Hanna JuliaChiputwa, BrianWinter, EttiGassner, Anja...
18页
查看更多>>摘要：In recent years, Uganda has experienced widespread forest loss and degradation, mainly driven by agricultural expansion and rising demand for forest products. The adoption of agroforestry is regarded as one of the key strategies in forest landscape restoration in agriculture. While the benefits of agroforestry are widely acknowledged, adoption among smallholder farmers is sluggish. This study analyzes how individual risk and time preferences affect smallholder farmers' choice of attributes of companion trees within coffee agroforestry systems in the Mt. Elgon region in Uganda. Farmers' risk and time preferences are elicited using lottery-based experiments, whereas farmers' choices of preferred attributes for companion trees are determined using a discrete choice experiment. The data from the different experimental designs are combined to establish how risk and time preferences affect the decision to integrate companion trees into coffee farms. Farmers' choices of tree attributes are analyzed based on random utility models, and farmers' risk and time preferences are measured using cumulative prospect theory and quasi hyperbolic discounting. The results reveal that most farmers are both risk and loss averse with high discount rates (impatience), and they are willing to pay more for quality tree seedlings. Analyzing the behavioral parameters in combination with discrete choice data on the preferred choice of tree attributes reveals a close association between farmers' aversion to risk and loss and high discount rates with preferences for trees that grow fast, improve soil fertility, and provide fuelwood. This study offers unique insights for researchers, extension officers, and policymakers, on how farmers' risk and time preferences and preferred attributes can be used to tailor agroforestry interventions to be attractive for farmers in different contexts in pursuit of broader forest landscape restoration goals. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
查看更多>>摘要：Linkages among climate change-related environmental stress, public assistance, and the spatial pattern of population change are assessed for neighboring coastal areas of India and Bangladesh. Environmental stress is measured using historical cyclone impacts, salinization, and land loss from erosion. Household migration decisions are based on current and expected future income streams in different locations. Rising environmental damage raises costs, but it may also induce increased public assistance that moderates or neutralizes those costs, diminishing migration incentives, even in areas hard-hit by climate change. Econometric estimates for the Sundarbans region shared by India and Bangladesh suggest that endogenous public assistance strongly dampens the migration response to rising environmental stress in both countries, though the assistance response and migration dampening are lower in Bangladesh. A broader analysis for the coastal region from India's Odisha State to eastern Bangladesh finds that present and past cyclone impacts are highly significant for explaining coastal population changes, although responses are lower in India because of lower environmental stress and greater public-assistance intensity. A counterfactual simulation suggests that, as a result of cyclones since 1970, the affected regions are 8-10% less populous in Bangladesh but only 2% less populous in India. The paper's findings motivate a discussion of the implications for alternative policy regimes as land erosion increases, and sea-level rise and salinization continue with climate change. After comparing the efficiency and equity of regimes that provide universal damage compensation or leave coastal households to fend for themselves, the paper suggests an alternative approach that focuses public resources on compensation for households that choose to relocate as the coastal threat mounts. (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
查看更多>>摘要：Productivity growth is essential for food security and sustainable development of agriculture. Since rice is a major staple food in China, understanding factors affecting the performance of rice total factor productivity (TFP) is of great importance for China's future food security. Despite the growing importance of agricultural TFP, rigorous evidence-based studies on the impacts of cooperative membership on agricultural TFP, especially rice TFP, are scant, hindering the understanding about the potential contribution of agricultural cooperatives to TFP growth. This study examines the impacts of cooperative membership on rice productivity in China by using country-representative survey data from 2014 to 2018. An endogenous switching regression model is employed to account for selection bias. The empirical results show that cooperative membership has a positive and significant impact not only on rice TFP but also on TFP change, technical change and technical efficiency change. The results are robust to alternative choice of instrument variables. The effects of cooperatives on rice productivity are highly heterogeneous with regard to regions, farm scales and mechanization levels. Rice TFP gains through cooperatives are larger for producers in the eastern and central regions, while the effect on TFP growth is the highest in the western region. Regarding farm scales, cooperative membership has a positive and significant impact on rice TFP for small and medium farms but not for large farms. Moreover, cooperatives help improve rice productivity for provinces with low mechanization level of producers. This study further explores the underlying channels through which cooperative membership impacts rice productivity, and identifies that mechanical cultivation, high-quality inputs and technical training appear to be the main channels. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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