Rural households’ participation in charcoal production in Zambia: Does agricultural productivity play a role?

The study uses a nationally representative dataset of smallholder farmers in Zambia to determine the effect of agricultural productivity on households’ participation in charcoal production. An instrumental variable probit approach is applied to account for the endogeneity of agricultural productivity in household's charcoal participation decision. We find a negative and significant effect of agricultural productivity on household's likelihood of participation in charcoal production. Results also show that higher education, income, asset value, and participation in off-farm employment opportunities reduce the likelihood of participation in charcoal production. Therefore, interventions seeking to reduce charcoal production in rural Zambia could benefit from improving smallholder agricultural productivity, incomes, asset base, and off-farm employment creation. However, interventions need not lose sight of other important macro-level factors.     

近代安徽农村问题及其成因之考察

近代安徽是一个农业大省,但农村社会时常处于危机之中。表现为农民生活急剧恶化,农村人口流离逃亡;农业劳动生产率严重下降,生产停滞不前;土地兼并加重,租佃关系日益扩大和膨胀;民变四起,社会动荡不安。造成此种局面的主要原因在于封建剥削苛酷,战乱频仍,匪祸横行,自然灾害严重等。种种因素的综合作用,使农村社会危机进一步加深。     

Understanding rural household behavior: Beyond Boserup and Becker

New data and new methods have provided many new insights into rural households in the past 50 years. We analyze what we have learned from household models since Boserup and Becker, using this to frame more recent findings about household behavior from three types of studies: observational studies, experimental games, and impact evaluations. More sex-disaggregated data, as well as data that are collected at smaller units, such as agricultural plots, have allowed us to better understand agricultural productivity, risk sharing, and spousal cooperation. However, the focus on bargaining within households has often led us to ignore the cooperation that occurs within households. Many resources are owned and managed jointly by household members and many decisions are made jointly, although not all parties necessarily have equal voice in these decisions. Research demonstrating that households often do not reach efficient outcomes suggests that we still have much to learn about rural household behavior. Understanding both individual roles within households and the levels of cooperation, including joint decision making and ownership of resources, is essential to analysis of households, especially in rural areas where households engage in both production and consumption.     

How has microcredit supported agriculture? Evidence using panel data from Bangladesh

Improving agricultural productivity has received a greater attention in recent years amid concerns about rising food insecurity, population pressures, and climate change. Many believe that better access to institutional credit, spanning microcredit as well as commercial and agricultural banks, can help rural households smooth risks, and access inputs and other technology to modernize agriculture and improve farm/nonfarm linkages. We use recently augmented household panel data spanning over 20 years in Bangladesh to examine the effects of rural credit expansion (both microcredit and formal bank channels) on outcomes for agricultural households. We find that microcredit has benefited households with lower landownings, raising agricultural income from activities such as livestock rearing that require less land, as well as nonfarm income diversification for all households, but with the strongest effect for landless or near‐landless households. We do not find effects of microcredit on crop income, but do, however, find that reported supply‐side credit constraints significantly lower crop income. Borrowing by both men and women has contributed to nonfarm income growth for marginal farmers, but only men's borrowing has contributed to nonfarm income growth among higher landowning groups.     

Focal area approach: a participatory community planning approach to agricultural extension and market development in Kenya

The focal area approach has been developed and applied by the public agricultural extension service in Kenya to harness the comparative advantages of various players for the overall development of rural areas. Participatory processes have been institutionalized in public extension and have brought new meaning to both extension and understanding rural development. The interactive engagement of smallholder farmers by public extension and the conducive environment created by the approach for other service providers to interact with communities has brought many advantages. The participation of women and youth, the poor and vulnerable groups in generating information and solutions to address food security and other rural needs has been impressive. The knowledge gained from the interaction has contributed in influencing policy change and research priorities. Smallholder farmers have formed common interest groups, which has enabled them to move from subsistence to business farming associated with increased knowledge, increased productivity and increased demand for produce. The approach has enabled extension service providers to reach more farmers per year than they did previously. The partnerships created between public extension with other institutions contributed to enhancement of knowledge and skills that has enabled the approach to spread to more areas in the country. Further capacity development among the extension providers and formulation of supportive policies that encourage demand-driven extension will lead to further improvement of the approach and scaling up.     

地理大数据视野下京津冀乡村旅游空间类型区划研究

[目的]随着农业多元化进程,在乡村地带出现的旅游产业空间具有独特的发展特点。京津冀协同发展战略推进过程中,城市群建成区之外的乡村地带是协同发展的重要阵地,休闲旅游是其重要的产业抓手。京津冀乡村旅游类型特征和空间分布呈现出一定规律和特征,这种规律和特征对指导乡村地域规划和乡村旅游产业发展实践有重要意义。[方法]文章是大数据与传统旅游地理学方法的结合,利用网络数据采集手段抓取所有乡村旅游数据,通过地理信息技术提取属性信息,依托统计分析工具将乡村旅游点进行聚类划分,并以空间因子解释刻画乡村旅游空间类型。[结果]通过地理空间大数据的方法对京津冀乡村旅游空间进行区划,12个指标通过主成分分析剔除了平均温度、人口密度、GDP等3个指标,其余指标可划分为3个主成分。3个主成分对乡村旅游点进行空间聚类与合并,可形成4类空间。[结论]乡村旅游本底条件、配套设施条件、客源吸引潜力是京津冀乡村旅游空间区划的维度,京津冀乡村旅游可划分为近郊游憩型、景区集聚型、农业休闲型、山野/原野度假型等类型。每种类型在与城市的距离、立地属性、交通条件、旅游资源、游憩机会等方面有各自特征,具有不同的集聚规律。     

Do input subsidy programs “crowd in” or “crowd out” commercial market development? Modeling fertilizer demand in a two‐channel marketing system

Many governments in developing countries distribute fertilizer at subsidized prices in an effort to stimulate small farmers' agricultural productivity and food security. Prior fertilizer demand studies have largely failed to account for the effects of government programs on farmers' commercial purchases. Using a double hurdle model and nationally representative rural household panel data in Zambia, we distinguish between these sources and measure the contemporaneous "crowding in" and "crowding out" effects of government input programs on commercial fertilizer sales. Where the private sector is relatively active and average wealth is higher (areas seemingly more likely to be targeted by government programs), results indicate that subsidies have substantially crowded out the private sector, in some cases to the point that such programs could actually lower overall fertilizer use. On the other hand, in poorer areas where the private sector is relatively inactive, subsidies help to generate demand and crowd in private sector retailers. Empirical studies explicitly modeling farmers' fertilizer purchase behavior within a dual marketing framework can provide important insights for agricultural policy discussions in developing countries.     

农户劳动力迁移程度对林地流转的影响分析

基于江西省集体林权制度改革项目2011—2016年的连续监测数据,考虑非农就业的内生性,采用IV-Probit模型及其估计方法,分析集体林区农户劳动力长期外出务工对林地流转的影响。结果显示:集体林区农户劳动力迁移程度对林地转入有抑制作用,但对林地转出具有促进作用,且都通过了显著性检验。因此,政府部门应该在如何推动农村劳动力实现长期、有效、稳定的非农就业转移这一问题上做出相关努力,以促进农户间的林地流转,最终实现林业规模经营的目的。     

A spatial analysis of land-use change and agriculture in eastern Canada

Publicly available statistics regarding rural demographics, rural society and land use are presented and analysed using Geographic Information System (GIS). Our aim was to provide a quantitative basis for discussion of rural policy issues such as urban encroachment. Productivity (tonnage) of crop agriculture has increased by about 230% over 40 years while that of livestock (expressed as livestock units) has remained constant. Agricultural consolidation and intensification seen in southern Ontario has not translated into economic sustainability where on-farm income declined from 1991 to 2000. However, on-farm income in southern Quebec and municipalities adjacent to Toronto increased, perhaps due to the niche markets created in these regions. The increases in agricultural activity throughout southern Ontario have occurred in regions that have been designated as sites for innovation clusters, thus providing a foundation of resources for bio-based industries to expand and innovate. Reflecting on trends of demographics and production systems we conclude that rural policy should orient its geographical delineation to regional and inter-provincial scales. Our analysis indicates that rural populations and communities are sustainable but agricultural enterprises have changed radically; they have maintained or increased productivity but lost profitability. Applying a rural landscape design to the entire region would help address the sustainability of agriculture and rural communities.     

Sustainable agricultural intensification in forest frontier areas

The Lore Lindu region in Indonesia—as in many forest frontier areas in Southeast Asia—has experienced rapid deforestation due to agricultural expansion in the uplands, at the forest margins. This has resulted in aggravated problems of erosion and water availability, threatening agricultural productivity growth. At the same time, technical progress is promoting agricultural intensification in the lowlands. In this article, we examine how improved technologies for paddy rice cultivation in the lowlands have affected agricultural expansion and deforestation in the uplands. The question of a “forest‐saving” or “forest‐clearing” effect related to technical innovation is important from a sustainable development perspective and remains a controversial issue in the literature. We address this question for the Lore Lindu region with an empirical model in which expansion in the lowlands and the uplands is estimated simultaneously. We use data from an extensive village survey conducted in the region, combined with GIS data. To guide the empirical analysis, we develop a theoretical framework based on a Chayanov‐type agricultural household model. The model analyzes farmers' land allocation decisions, taking into account the lowland–upland dichotomy in the agricultural sector. The empirical findings, corroborated by the analytically derived results, show how technical progress for lowland production affects land use at the forest margins and how these effects depend on the factor‐intensity of the technology. The findings imply specific rural development policies for sustainable agricultural intensification in forest frontier areas.     

中国分地区农业农村现代化发展水平评价

目的 评价农业农村现代化发展水平对实现农业农村现代化至关重要。方法 文章根据农业农村现代化内涵,构建一个包含28个具体指标的农业农村现代化评价体系,参考发达国家经验和我国实际,确定各指标实现农业农村现代化的目标值,对2015—2019年全国及各地区农业农村现代化发展进行分析。结果 （1）2015—2019年全国层面农业农村现代化由发展阶段提高到了提升阶段,但目前存在农业现代化发展增速较慢和农村现代化发展水平较低的问题。（2）从地区差异来看,2015—2019年各地区农业农村现代化水平都有了显著提升,华东沿海地区、中部地区与长江流域、西部地区与东北地区农业农村现代化水平依次降低。（3）按近几年增速预测,2035年全国层面基本实现农业农村现代化问题不大,但是部分地区会有一定困难。结论 最后提出推进农村产业高质量融合发展,完善金融机构对农业农村支持,构建多元主体参与的乡村建设机制,重点加强西部、东北地区农业农村现代化建设的政策建议。     

Government Spending, Growth and Poverty in Rural India

Using state-level data for 1970–93, a simultaneous equation model was developed to estimate the direct and indirect effects of different types of government expenditure on rural poverty and productivity growth in India. The results show that in order to reduce rural poverty, the Indian government should give highest priority to additional investments in rural roads and agricultural research. These types of investment not only have much larger poverty impacts per rupee spent than any other government investment, but also generate higher productivity growth. Apart from government spending on education, which has the third largest marginal impact on rural poverty and productivity growth, other investments (including irrigation, soil and water conservation, health, and rural and community development) have only modest impacts on growth and poverty per additional rupee spent.     

河北省农村气象服务需求分析

河北省农村经济发展不平衡,省内各地农村对气象服务的需求不同,研究提出针对每个区域的农业经济特征,以县市气象部门为依托,研究不同农村气象服务需求,提出区域内做好气象服务的实现途径,从而做好新时期的农村气象服务工作,推动农业经营方式创新,不断满足农业生产力发展的新要求,实现农村气象服务精细化、特色化、城乡均等化。     

Land regularization on agricultural frontiers: The case of Northwestern Petén, Guatemala

Land regularization, the provision of state-sanctioned property rights to landowners, is an important development strategy in the Global South. Although much work has examined the effects of regularization in settled rural areas, the effects of this policy on agricultural frontiers are poorly understood. Four benefits of regularization that are predicted for settled rural areas are improved tenure security, increased land-attached investment and credit access, and more efficient land market activity. This study explores the extent to which these benefits accrue to campesino landowners and society in the early years of a regularization project implemented by a non-government organization (NGO) on an agricultural frontier in Petén, Guatemala. Based on semi-structured interviews with landowners from three rural communities in northwestern Petén and discussions with personnel from state agencies and NGOs, this study concludes that the predicted benefits of regularization are strongly constrained by socio-economic and ecological factors in the agricultural frontier region, specifically, the weak connection between legal tenure and de facto tenure security, inadequate markets, high wildfire frequency, unwillingness of banks to supply campesino landowners with formal credit, and the presence of a strong extra-legal land market.     

城市化进程中农业生产结构调整及发展方向

我国是一个农业大国,农村问题是我国经济社会发展的核心问题之一。自古以来,中国一直以农业为国本,几千年来中国创造了高度发达的农业文明,也形成了有明显农业文明特色的文化体系。而近代我国农业逐渐从农业文明向工业文明的方向发展,农业经济随之向市场化与城市化的方向发展。在城市化的进程中,农业生产结构调整及发展方向成为当前最值得探究的问题。文章从分析城市化的人口集中、经济活动聚集、社会经济结构巨变等发展特点出发,探讨了城市化对于农业发展的影响,并提出了扩大农业经营规模、加强农业生产与市场的联系、提高农业机械化程度、科学制定土地流转政策等建议,以期为城市化背景下的调整农业生产结构提供借鉴。     

要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率空间影响效应分解研究

目的 通过对要素市场扭曲下的农业全要素生产率的系统分析,以期为提升农业全要素生产率以及要素市场改革进程中的中国农业可持续发展提供参考。方法 文章基于资本、劳动力、土地等要素市场严重扭曲的事实,利用1997—2018年中国28个省（ 市、自治区）面板数据,通过构建空间计量模型检验要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率的空间影响及其溢出效应。结果 中国资本市场、劳动力市场、土地等要素市场扭曲度比较高,同时呈现显著地区差异;中国农业全要素生产率增长以技术进步驱动为主,大多数省份的技术效率不高,同时呈现出东部地区高于中西部地区的区域不平衡特点;要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率的影响为负,资本市场、劳动力市场、土地等要素市场扭曲在一定程度上阻碍农业全要素生产率的提升;要素市场扭曲对全要素生产率具有一定的空间溢出效应,也在一定程度抑制了全要素生产率增长。结论 考虑要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率影响的空间分析,更能客观反映当前不断深化的农业农村改革发展所引发的地区差距,应充分重视要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率的空间溢出效应,通过要素市场化改革,持续加大涉农政策调整,不断加大对农业农村生产经营的金融资源投入,逐步实现农业全要素生产率的全面提升。     

Rural employment in industrialised countries⋆

This paper assesses the recent changes in rural employment in the OECD countries, highlighting the growing role of employment in services and, in some cases, manufacturing activity. In many, but not all, rural areas the secular decline in agricultural employment has been more than counterbalanced by growing employment in these other sectors. However, the diversity of employment growth within and between rural areas is stressed, as are the implications of this diversity for policy. A range of explanations for the relative economic success of some rural areas is explored. These include the impacts of globalisation; restructuring of the labour market; new‘consumption’ demands on the rural areas; and human mobility. The paper concludes that traditional theories do not explain the diversity of outcomes in rural areas. New approaches are needed. Recent analyses under the banner of‘the new economic geography’ has advanced our understanding of the pre‐conditions for rural development to occur, but understanding the diverse pattern of rural employment outcomes within the same kind of geography remains a challenge which needs to be addressed by inter‐disciplinary approaches and methods.     

吉林省农村居民食物消费影响因素实证分析

食物是人类生存与获取营养的来源之一,国家居民食物消费水平与结构不仅同整个国家的经济发展水平有着密切联系,而且还是衡量国家或地区人民生活质量的重要标准。吉林省作为我国农业大省,自改革开放30多年以来,农村居民生活水平得到了很大的提高,食物消费水平与结构也得到相应改善。但与城镇居民、与其他发达省份农村居民相比,食物消费的水平与结构仍存在很大差距,与国家阶段性目标相比,差距更大。而与城镇居民相比,农村居民在食物消费方面有着自身的特殊性,农村居民在食物供应链中既是食物的供应者又是食物的消费者,在农村居民的食物消费中既包括了自给自足的部分,又包括市场上购买的一部分。作为农业大省的吉林,农村居民食物消费有其独有的特点,因此影响农村居民食物消费的因素也有其特殊性。文章从经济、政策、社会、生产因素等视角对吉林省农村居民食物消费的影响因素进行了分析。并利用回归模型对吉林省农村居民食物消费的影响因素进行实证检验,结果表明:农村居民家庭经营收入、工资性收入、购买食物占食物消费比重对农村居民食物消费有显著的影响,该文据此提出拓展从事农业生产收入的增长空间、提高农村居民工资性收入及加强吉林省农村市场建设的建议。     

Government Expenditures,Health Outcomes and Marginal Productivity of Agricultural Inputs: The Case of Tanzania

This paper examines the impact of health expenditures on agricultural labour productivity in order to inform the necessary policy decisions about targeting scarce public resources towards their most effective uses. We link health sector expenditures in rural Tanzania to health outcomes and agricultural labour productivity using data from the 2008 Household Budget Survey (10,975 households) and the 2007/08 Agricultural Census (52,594 households) across 113 districts in Tanzania. The results indicate that the marginal productivity of labour as well as land and fertilisers respond significantly to health expenditures. However, the magnitude of the response varies across types of disease, categories of expenditures and agricultural inputs. These findings suggest both the need and scope for targeting public expenditures in the health sector to achieve better agricultural growth outcomes.     

Assessing Total Factor Productivity Growth in Sub‐Saharan African Agriculture

The importance of the agricultural sector in the economic development process is well known. Improvements in agricultural productivity are often found to spill into other areas of a developing economy, potentially improving the standards of living of urban and rural workers alike. Given the importance of this sector, accurate measures of total factor productivity (TFP) across countries can be helpful in identifying conditions, institutions or policies that promote agricultural development. In this article, we estimate TFP growth in agriculture for a panel of 39 sub‐Saharan African countries from 1961 to 2007. We also develop a set of development outcome measures theoretically consistent with strong agricultural performance to serve as external validation of our results. We find that three estimation methods (stochastic frontier, generalised maximum entropy, and Bayesian efficiency) generate relative rankings that are consistent with the development outcome measures, providing external validation of the methods. However, the data envelopment analysis approach performs poorly in this regard.