Volunteer farmer-trainer motivations in East Africa: practical implications for enhancing farmer-to-farmer extension

Farmer-to-farmer extension (FFE) has received considerable interest in developing countries due to a decline in government extension services. There are, however, questions as to how FFE can be improved to enhance effectiveness and sustainability of the approach. One area that may hold the key is to understand volunteer farmer-trainer (VFT) motivations. Informal and formal interviews were held with VFTs in a smallholder dairy development project in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Data were collected on the reasons why VFTs became trainers and why they continue to train. Findings of the study showed that VFTs were motivated by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. These factors are not static; they change over time. Gaining knowledge and skills as well as altruism were found to be the most important motivating factors for becoming trainers in the three countries. However, a few years after becoming trainers, income earned from selling inputs and specialized services associated with training was an important motivating factor to VFTs in Kenya. In Uganda gaining knowledge and skills remained the most important whereas in Rwanda, a new motivation, increased demand for training, was the most important reason for continuing to train. These findings point to the fact that the general reasons that motivate VFTs irrespective of context are similar; however, the importance attached to motivations is context specific. These motivations can provide insights into which incentives can be enhanced to improve effectiveness and sustainability of FFE.     

扶贫动态管理和贫困退出中的矛盾及其解决——基于湖北省徐家村贫困户和普通农户的调研分析

随着精准扶贫工作进入攻坚期,我国贫困人口脱贫进程不断加快,相对静态的扶贫管理方式已难以满足当前贫困退出工作需要。对湖北省徐家村的田野调查显示：贫困户与普通农户对于扶贫动态管理和贫困退出的意见和态度既存在相似性,也存在差异性,贫困户希望动态管理能够更加全面,普通农户则希望贫困进出通道更加畅通。扶贫动态管理和贫困退出机制不够健全,如进出机制不够灵活、动态监测指标单一等问题是贫困户和普通农户的共识;贫困户认为动态监测不全面,导致自身部分贫困问题得不到及时帮扶;普通农户认为贫困进出机制不灵活,一旦成为贫困户便可以长期占有扶贫资源,新的贫困群体则难以介入。为化解社会矛盾,促进全面建成小康社会,不但要强化扶贫动态管理,并逐步构建科学规范、公平高效的贫困退出机制;还应坚持正向激励,强化问责督导,让贫困退出经得起社会和时间的检验。     

中国燃料乙醇政策演变

迫在眉睫的能源危机促使中国努力寻找替代方案,其中生物燃料乙醇受到最为广泛的关注,并得到迅速发展。然而,中国大多数生物燃料乙醇以玉米为原料,其迅速发展造成原材料玉米价格猛涨,以及饲料价格飚升引发猪肉价格上涨,加上国际粮价上扬的影响,对中国的粮食安全形成威胁。在能源安全与粮食安全的角力中,中央政府选择了以粮食安全为重,连续下发文件对玉米燃料乙醇紧急刹车,要求严格控制玉米燃料乙醇生产,转而开发非粮乙醇。     

提升农民工就业质量的政策建议

提升农民工就业质量是新时期促进中国经济发展、建设和谐社会的关键。应从坚持以人为本、加强农民工职业技能培训、加强社会保障建设、强化社会责任、消除农民工就业歧视和加大政府监管力度等措施来提升农民工就业质量。     

被征地农民及其社会保障——文献评论与今后公共政策选择

研究目的：通过文献评论为被征地农民及其社会保障提供公共政策选择的方向。研究方法：文献研究法、归纳分析法。研究结果：1978年中国农村土地家庭承包制改革以来,土地的社会保障功能使政府职能有机会从农村社会保障中退出,导致后来的立法和政策设计对农民应得的社会保障等社会权利的救济均附着在土地权利之上。研究结论：当前的问题在于没有区分农民的土地权利和社会权利,农民失地的同时也失去了附着于土地上的社会保障权利,造成农民保障生存安全、享受社会成果的权利与能力的缺失。     

金融供给视野的农户借贷行为及其走势

以福建漳州N村近三十年的农户借贷行为为切入点对社会主义新农村建设需要的金融支持进行分析。研究发现,农户借贷行为与农村经济发展紧密相关:经济高速发展时,农户借贷行为频繁;经济发展缓慢时,农户金融需求减少.农户较少借贷。这意味着现有以金融供给为视角的农村金融体系与当前农村经济发展的金融需求存在错位,因此必须深刻认识新农村建设的真正金融需求并进行相应的制度设计。进一步.新农村建设所面临问题的解决思路可能需要在农村金融体系外求解。     

政府支持方式与农民创业类型——基于四川省典型地区的分析

[目的]乡村振兴战略背景下,农民创业成为实现产业兴旺的重要途径和助力脱贫攻坚的重要力量,研究影响政府对农民创业类型支持方式的核心因素有助于给予农民创业者在选择创业类型时提供有价值的参考。[方法]文章利用2017年7月至2018年8月四川省8市34县(区) 2 778份农民创业者调查数据,根据三产类型将创业类型分为3类,构建无序多分类Logistic回归计量经济模型探索影响政府对农民创业类型支持方式的核心因素。[结果]农民创业类型以第一产业为主,第三产业相对较少。其中,以第一产业"种植业""养殖业"为创业类型的农户分别占样本总量的35.85%和34.99%,而以第三产业"互联网电商""创意、文化、教育类"为创业类型的农户分别仅占样本总量的5.18%和4.54%。[结论]政府对于在第一产业领域内的农民创业类型更倾向于培训支持和政策支持,对于第二和第三产业领域内的农民创业类型更倾向于资金支持。     

Group heterogeneity and the economic effect of farmer organisation participation: Empirical evidence from Taiwan

We explore the effects of different farmer organisations on smallholder farmers' economic performance. The average treatment effect of switching between different farmer organisations is examined. In addition, based on the premise that a higher level of social capital is accumulated through participation in multiple farmer organisations, we also investigate how the economic consequences of farmer organisation membership vary with the intensity of participation. Our conceptual model explicitly includes social capital to provide a micro-foundation and a theoretical justification for the linkage between farmer organisation participation and the economic outcome. This indicates that participating in different types of farmer organisations is beneficial for farm households only when the returns from social capital investment outweigh the time cost of participation. Our empirical results suggest that membership of farmer organisations that are more homogeneous in terms of member specialty and similarity in production and marketing activities results in a significant increase in farm sales revenue and net returns. This result supports the view that technological proximity accentuates knowledge spillovers within the farmer organisations, and thus leads to better economic outcomes. In line with the prediction of the theoretical model, the average treatment effect of participation is found to increase with the number of organisations that farmers belong to. Moreover, results from the quantile regression provide empirical evidence supporting increasing returns to social capital accumulated through participation in several farmer organisations.     

The role of farmer cooperatives in promoting environmentally sustainable agricultural development in China: A review

Environmentally sustainable agricultural development is an essential part of the Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations in 2015. This article systematically reviews studies on the role of farmer cooperatives in promoting environmentally sustainable agricultural development and uses China as a case study to analyze the measures and function mechanisms of farmer cooperatives in promoting the adoption and scaling of sustainable farming practices by farmers. Farmer cooperatives in China influence farmers’ farming practices and benefits by not only serving farmers with various information and technologies but also supervising farmers’ production processes. Nevertheless, farmer cooperatives, both in general and in China in particular, face challenges in effectively promoting the adoption of environmentally sustainable farming practices. A few policy implications are proposed based on these analyses.     

Do farmers get a greater return from selling their agricultural products through e-commerce?

E-commerce allows farmers to cut out intermediaries and sell agricultural products to consumers directly. This raises the question of whether farmers get a greater return when they use e-commerce to sell their products than when they use conventional marketing channels (i.e., intermediaries). To answer this question, we collected rural household data on sales of agricultural products from Zhejiang and Shandong provinces, in which we selected pairs of villages where e-commerce was advanced and villages where e-commerce was less advanced and households in each village that used or did not use e-commerce. We employed a fixed effects model to investigate the impacts of e-commerce on the selling prices and marketing costs of agricultural products. The model results revealed that compared with the conventional marketing channel through intermediaries, the marketing costs through the e-commerce channel significantly increased, but the selling price increases much more, which results in increases in gross returns for farmers. The increases in selling prices and marketing costs using e-commerce varied among agricultural products and between different qualities of the same product. It has important policy implications for improving farmers’ incomes and agricultural marketing channels in developing countries.