Three Essays On The Impact Of Agricultural Decisions In Africa
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Three Essays On The Impact Of Agricultural Decisions In Africa
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Author : Thomas Taeksung Kim
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2022
Three Essays On The Impact Of Agricultural Decisions In Africa written by Thomas Taeksung Kim and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022 with Agriculture categories.
I examine agricultural decisions in a developing country context, which cover the major part of life and industry in low-income countries. I question stylized facts about major agricultural activities, evaluate its economic benefit with more thorough econometric methodologies, and present new aspect of its effectiveness. The first paper discusses a possible ineffective farm output resulted from farm-level crop diversification. Using a farm-by-crop level dataset from four Southeastern African countries and exogenous variation from the temporal standard deviation of normalized differences in a vegetation index (NDVI), I find a possible non-positive contribution of farm-level crop diversification on crop output. Based on this observation, I introduce two motives for crop diversification as adding new crops in the crop portfolio: 1) farmers adopt new crops for which they have better crop-specific farmer ability, and 2) farmers adopt new crops with better response to agricultural shocks. Then, I check the model empirically and find that the newly added crops show insignificant response to the NDVI shocks but significantly worse crop-specific farmer ability, which implies the possible economic disadvantage of crop diversification. I further present supporting evidence of output drop due to crop diversification with a series of supplementary analyses. Lastly, I examine different newly adopted crop groups driving different diversification outcomes. Throughout the paper, I present empirical support for the possible output drop due to farm-level crop diversification. The risk of a large drop in crop-specific farmer ability calls for a careful approach of governments and agencies encouraging crop diversification as a risk coping strategy. In the second paper, I examine if living in a community with diverse food production is important for a diverse diet. This paper responds to the large literature suggesting a strong impact of farm-level food diversification on diet. I introduce a new source for diverse household diet, diverse food production at the community level. Using household fixed effects, a spatial autoregression model, and data from Ethiopia, I find a significantly positive association between community-level agricultural production diversity and household diet diversity, while the impact of farm-level crop production diversity is rather limited and reduces the diversity of purchased food consumption. I further examine the association by each food group and check if household consumption of each food group is affected by community- or farm-level production of the corresponding food group. I find a positive contribution of community and farm production on consuming the purchased and own-produced foods, respectively. I finally found that this impact of community production is strengthened by three channels that accelerate the local food circulation: presence of a community market; crop sales within a village; and gifting food behaviors. All the evidence points to the importance of community-level food production. With a loosely integrated market in Ethiopia, local agricultural production plays a significant role for household diet as much or more than farm-level crop diversification. The final paper examines the relationship between rural maize price and local maize yields in agriculture-centered developing countries. Most studies about staple price construction in the developing world focus on price transmission from outside countries or between major domestic markets. Instead, I focus on rural areas in four African countries and point to the significant role of local maize production in constructing the rural maize price. I first create various local maize yield measures by taking the median of all yields within different radii around each village. Then, I derive a trend of association between price and local yield as widening the radius of local yield. In addition, I examine if this estimated relationship varies with village characteristics: proportion of large size farmers; level of maize production; and distance to city, market, and road. I find a negative relationship between rural maize price and yields at the local level controlling for the village fixed effect and global maize price. This relationship becomes stronger in the villages with more smallholder farmers and poor accessibility to major market features. I detect an active rural maize market and find that the local production plays a significant role in constructing the maize price.
Three Essays On Economic Development In Africa
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Author : Mark Musumba
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2012
Three Essays On Economic Development In Africa written by Mark Musumba and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012 with categories.
To achieve economic development, regional authorities have to address issues that relate to climate change, efficient information flow in the market place, and health care. This dissertation presents three essays on current issues of concern to economic development in Africa. Climate change is examined in terms of its effects on the Egyptian agricultural sector; transmission of world price to small scale growers is examined in Uganda; and the benefits of insecticide-treated bed nets use is examined in Africa. In essay I, to address the impact of climate change on the Egyptian agricultural sector under alternative population growth rates, water use and crop yield assumption; the Egyptian Agricultural Sector Model (EASM) is updated and expanded to improve hydrological modeling and used to portray agricultural activity and hydrological flow. The results indicate that climate change will cause damages (costs) to the Egyptian agricultural sector and these will increase over time. Egypt may reduce these future damages by controlling its population growth rate and using water conservation strategies. In essay II, I use vector autoregressive analysis to examine the transmissions of price information to Uganda coffee growers; using monthly coffee price data on retail, futures, farmgate and world prices from 1994 to 2010. Improved transmission of world prices to farmers may increase their decision making to obtain a better market price. Directed acyclic graphs reveal that there is a causal flow of information from the indicator price to the London futures price to the Uganda grower?s price in contemporaneous time. Forecast error variance decomposition indicates that at moving ahead 12 months, the uncertainty in Uganda grower price is attributable to the indicator price (world spot price), own price (farmgate), London future and Spain retail price in rank order. In essay III, the cost of malaria in children under five years and the use of insecticide treated bed nets is examined in the context of 18 countries in Africa. I examine the direct and indirect cost of malaria in children under five years and the benefit of investing in insecticide treated mosquito nets as a preventative strategy in 18 African countries. The results indicate that the use of mosquito treated nets reduces the number of malaria cases in children; and this can induce 0.5% reduction in outpatient treatment costs, 11% reduction in inpatient treatment costs, 11% reduction in productivity loss, and 15% reduction in disability adjusted life years (DALY) annually.
Three Essays On Agriculture And African Development
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Author : Paul A. Corral
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2016
Three Essays On Agriculture And African Development written by Paul A. Corral and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016 with Agriculture categories.
This is a 3 essay dissertation focusing on two African nations: Malawi and Nigeria. The first chapter focuses on returns to cash crops. At the household level, cash crop production is a potential source of greater incomes and consequently improved nutrition, yet many farmers do not switch from subsistence agriculture despite the potential gains. Using an innovative approach, this paper reignites the debate on the effects of cash cropping and behavioral patterns of farmers in this regard. The approach consists of the use of a model with essential heterogeneity and a semi-parametric technique proposed in the literature. This allows for an in-depth exploration of returns from planting cash crops versus only food crops in terms of both observable and unobservable household characteristics. Finally, farming outcomes are related to household nutrition and dietary diversity. The results obtained put into question the validity of programs advocating the adoption of cash crops in order to improve rural livelihoods. The second chapter studies the neighborhood effect in the household's income diversification choice. Many households in developing countries allocate their productive assets between various income generating activities in order to develop a portfolio of income from occupations with different degrees of risk, expected returns and relax liquidity constraints. Push and pull factors influencing the diversification decisions of households are widely discussed in the literature; however, no study to date has taken into account spatial interdependence of household decisions in spite of various channels of neighborhood effects such as information flow, learning from others, social networks and agglomeration economies. This paper fills in the gap by incorporating spatial dependence in the choice model of diversification. The chapter finds that neighborhood effects are significant in the decision to diversify. The third chapter focuses on the relationship between credit and agriculture in Nigeria. The study attempts to identify households which are liquidity constrained. The study finds that households who are constrained will benefit from increased input usage significantly more than unconstrained households. Nevertheless the study also finds that constrained households would do just as well if they were unconstrained and vice versa.
Essays On Agriculture And Demography In Developing Countries
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Author : Siyao Jessica Zhu
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2019
Essays On Agriculture And Demography In Developing Countries written by Siyao Jessica Zhu and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019 with categories.
This dissertation is composed of three essays that explore agriculture and demography issues in developing countries. The first two chapters investigate smallholders' agricultural technology adoption decisions in Mozambique and Tanzania, respectively. The third chapter examines the impacts of skewed sex ratios in Paraguay. All essays are motivated by the analysis of how individuals' behaviors and decisions are affected by various factors, such as personal characteristics, exogenous treatments and conflicts, and culture norms. To address these topics, both data collected through a field experiment and nationally representative surveys are used, while different methods are applied -- experiment, structural model, and reduced-form analysis. Despite the importance of agriculture sector and the availability of technologies that enhance yields, smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa persistently use traditional farming methods and face low agricultural productivity. In the first chapter, which is coauthored with Florence Kondylis and Valerie Mueller, we investigate which channels can diffuse and boost adoption of productive farming practices. Specifically, we conduct a large-scale randomized field experiment in Mozambique to measure the impact of augmenting the contact farmer (CF) model with a direct CF training on the diffusion of a new technology. Moving forward with the information transmission and promotion channel research, I examine the rationale behind small-scale farmers' adoption decisions in my second chapter. There is a well-known technology adoption puzzle: Why do African farmers not adopt modern technologies that economists believe should provide higher returns on average, for example fertilizer, and at the same time why do African farmers adopt traditional technologies that economists consider unprofitable, for example intercropping? I build a structural model, estimate it with data from Tanzania, and offer an explanation to this puzzle. The third chapter, which is coauthored with Jennifer Alix-Garcia, Laura Schechter, and Felipe Valencia Caicedo, explores another central theme in the field of development economics, gender. Using the event of the War of the Triple Alliance, we examine both the short-term and the long-term impacts of a temporary variation in sex ratios on the economies, such as the marriage market and labor market performances.
Three Essays On African Agriculture
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Author : Michael Ryan Betz
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2011
Three Essays On African Agriculture written by Michael Ryan Betz and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011 with categories.
Extension services provide channels through which farmers are exposed to new information and agricultural practices that can increase their productivity. Because of differences in program design and resource availability, extension effectiveness has varied greatly across Africa. We investigate the impact of membership in a National Agricultural Advisory Service (NAADS) farmer group on farm yields in Uganda. We also investigate the household and farm characteristics that influence the effectiveness of NAADS farmer groups. We find farmer group membership has no impact on farm yields. Our investigation of factors influencing farmer group effectiveness reveals certain groups of farmers are not benefitting more than other groups. In particular, characteristics such as gender, wealth, age, and land ownership do not influence the effectiveness of farmer group membership.
Three Essays On Agricultural Production And Household Income Risk Management In Uganda
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Author : Michael Mukembo Kidoido
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2011
Three Essays On Agricultural Production And Household Income Risk Management In Uganda written by Michael Mukembo Kidoido and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011 with categories.
Abstract: Poor soil fertility and unreliable rainfall are associated with crop failures in Uganda. However, adoption of technologies in Uganda is among the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa. The first essay examines the impact of production risk on farmers' simultaneous use of high yielding maize varieties (HYM) and fertilizers. The study is implemented in two steps: the first step uses the flexible moments based approach to generate lagged output moments as proxy measures of production risk, the second step incorporates the lagged output moments in a technology adoption model. Simultaneous technology adoption decisions are estimated using a multinomial probit estimator. Results show that the expected output, the variance, and the probability of crop failure (skewness) are important factors affecting the adoption of the technology package. Other important factors include scale of production, access to extension services, access to credit, household assets, and access to output markets.
Three Essays In Economic Development
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Author : Paul Conal Winters
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 1996
Three Essays In Economic Development written by Paul Conal Winters and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1996 with Agriculture categories.
Essays On Agricultural Productivity And The Impact Of Food Price Change On Welfare In Africa
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Author : Manzamasso Hodjo
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2020
Essays On Agricultural Productivity And The Impact Of Food Price Change On Welfare In Africa written by Manzamasso Hodjo and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020 with categories.
Africa is the most food-insecure continent in the world, according to the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. While low purchasing power is the main cause of food insecurity, inefficient domestic food production is also a major constraint. Our study specifically focused on four food production issues in Africa, namely, agricultural productivity, cropland use, food demand and welfare analysis, and demand-led crop breeding. First, we assessed the impact of public spending on agricultural productivity in Africa. We estimated the effect of two government-spending measures: Agriculture Budget Share (BS) and Research Share of Agricultural GDP (RS) on agriculture total factor productivity growth (TFPG). We used a panel fixed-effect estimator to control for the country-specific characteristics of twenty-eight African economies from 1991-2012. Although North African economies appeared to have the highest TFPG, this did not translate into the highest agricultural and research budget share. Meanwhile, Central African economies exhibited the lowest BS and RS, along with the lowest TFPG of the continent. The panel fixed-effect estimator revealed a marginal impact of 6.77% for RS on TFPG after seven years. However, the cumulative marginal impact of BS on TFPG is estimated at 7.21% over the eight years that follow the budget increment. Our findings suggest that a BS of 14% and a RS of 15% are required for a country to double its TFPG in the eight following years. Therefore, additional, and continuous investment in research and development is required for a significant productivity enhancement, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, we assessed the factors that shape cereal cropland allocation decisions in Nigeria and Niger. We theoretically derived the key cropland allocation arguments using the household model. Next, we used the World Bank LSMS-ISA data to map acreage mean centers and fit a fractional regression model using the panel fixed-effect estimator. We assessed the traditional Mendelsohn land use model and uncovered its limitation in efficiently approximating cereal cropland allocation. We improved the appropriateness of fit of the traditional Mendelsohn model by controlling for additional factors, such as food prices, socio-demographics, and food trade factors. Overall, we found cereal acreage shares in Nigeria and Niger to be spatially heterogeneous and determined by climatic, price, and trade factors. Additionally, farmers tend to base their cropland allocation decisions upon the price of the most important staples: maize in Nigeria; millet and sorghum in Niger. Furthermore, due to their tolerance to heat and drought, sorghum and millet compete for northeast farmland in both countries, especially for rainfed croplands. Thus, our study illustrates that millet and sorghum are key choices in ensuring food security in the context of global warming and rainfall instability. Our findings fill a literature void and provide policy makers with evidence to foster geo-referenced farmer cooperatives aimed at enhancing food production. Furthermore, our findings could be incorporated into a land use framework for planning, environmental monitoring, scenario analysis, and impact assessment. The third essay analyzed the staple foods consumption patterns of households in Niger by estimating a complete demand system. Demand elasticities are estimated using the Niger 2011 and 2014 LSMS-ISA household survey data to fit the modified Linear AIDS model. The results indicated that food consumption patterns in the country are affected by income and prices, as well as by socio-economic and geographic factors. All food items have positive expenditure elasticities and negative own-price elasticities, with rice exhibiting the most elastic demand. We found millet to be a necessity while rice and sorghum are luxuries. Additionally, our analysis revealed that urban households had a more diversified staple demand pattern. Furthermore, the welfare analysis revealed that an increase of millet price reduces rural welfare more than an increase in sorghum price. On the other hand, a sorghum price increase adversely affects the welfare of urban households the most. For example, a 20% increase of the millet or sorghum price reduces the average household welfare by 5.88% and 4.38%, respectively. This study highlights the importance of estimating staple food demand elasticities for both research and policymaking during a food price shocks. Our findings revealed that millet price is the canal that might foster support programs targeting the poorest households in Niger. Our fourth and last essay is a theoretical argument for demand-led breeding in a small-scaled farming system. Our investigation stems from the fact that agricultural productivity lags in small-scaled farming in Sub-Saharan Africa. While inadequate production capital, water control and poor infrastructure remain important challenges, the low adoption of improved and high-yielding varieties is a key limiting factor for productivity enhancement. Often, studies elucidating improved technology implementation are focused upon the adoption (demand) rather than the creation (supply). In this analytical essay, we reviewed theoretical causes and solutions to low varietal uptake for sorghum. Consistent with much of the structural research framework, we presented asymmetric information, bounded rationality, and weak intellectual property as key causes of seed market coordination failure. Leaning on the technology adoption under uncertainty model, we showed how market-induced uncertainty, compounded with other factors, reduces farmers' willingness to trade traditional seeds for improved ones. Furthermore, we used the matching theory, supported with a general equilibrium model, to show how consumer preference drives farm-level adoption. We argued that breeding programs can benefit from effective preference matching across the food value chain while leveraging on the growing demand-led breeding literature. Finally, we presented hypotheses that can be empirically used to assess stakeholders' weigh and ranking of varietal attributes across the food value chain.
Three Essays On Land And An Intensive Farming System In Sub Saharan Africa
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Author : Rie Muraoka
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2015
Three Essays On Land And An Intensive Farming System In Sub Saharan Africa written by Rie Muraoka and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015 with Electronic dissertations categories.
Climate Water And Carbon
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Author : Francis Muamba Mulangu
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2011
Climate Water And Carbon written by Francis Muamba Mulangu and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011 with categories.
Abstract: This dissertation is composed of three essays. The first essay seeks to estimate the impact of climate change on household's welfare on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Unlike previous studies, the approach used in this essay limits the bias from unobservables by applying the analysis in a relatively small geographical area composed of homogeneous farmers with similar cultures, agricultural systems, and market influence. However, these farmers inhabit places that have relatively large differences in rainfall. The data for the analysis were gathered from a random sample of over 200 households in 15 villages and observation posts to measure the precipitation from rainfall were placed in each of the surveyed villages. The results indicate that Mt. Kilimanjaro's agriculture is vulnerable to precipitation variation, especially November precipitations. Farm vulnerability is heterogeneous across space, crops, and monthly precipitation. The study finds some evidence about the ability of irrigation usage to reduce crop vulnerability to precipitation change. With regards to household's welfare, we simulated crop revenue response to a median of seven Global Climate Models (GCMs), and found evidence that climate change will negatively affect household's welfare on Mt. Kilimanjaro. The second essay analyzes the potential benefits of introducing improved irrigation schemes on Mt. Kilimanjaro to help rain-dependent farmers cope with the risks of climate change. The study uses the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to elicit farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for eliminating the risks of crop loss by accessing improved irrigation schemes. The study makes important contributions to both policies in Africa and the applied welfare literature. The policy contribution consists of valuation of improved irrigation in the presence of climate change risks. The applied welfare contribution consists of empirical evidence about the impact of farmers' risk beliefs, and self-protective actions on welfare valuation. The study finds that farmers' expected increase in revenues associated with the improved irrigation scheme will equal the cost of building it within 8 to 10 years. The purpose of the third essay is twofold. First, the essay seeks to determine the potential for soil carbon sequestration on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Second, the essay aims at estimating the marginal cost of sequestering soil carbon on Mt. Kilimanjaro. To answer these questions, the essay develops a Markov decision model that maximizes the net present value (NPV) of farm profit by allowing the farmer to choose optimal farm management subject to crop yield, soil carbon stock, and exogenous carbon price. The essay concludes that there is potential for economically viable carbon sequestration contracts on Mt. Kilimanjaro. At $20 per metric ton of carbon or $8.62 per hectare, 0.085 million metric tons of carbon could be sequestered per year because farmers would find it optimal to practice no-tillage cultivation of grains and retain some crop residues.