The Role of Ownership in Determining the Rural Economic Benefits of On‐shore Wind Farms

The development of the wind energy sector is often promoted as a means of supporting rural economies. This paper focuses on how the ownership structure of on‐shore wind power plants (external, farmer or community) affects the size and distribution of impacts within the rural part of a region. Empirical analysis is based on a regional computable general equilibrium model of North East Scotland with the results compared to those generated from a standard social accounting matrix multiplier analysis. With no local ownership, while rural GDP increases, there is almost no effect on household incomes due to the limited direct linkages of the on‐shore wind sector. Local ownership increases the household income benefits but there are still limited positive spill‐over effects on the wider economy unless factor income is re‐invested in local capital. With re‐investment, farm household ownership gives rise to the largest increase in total household income but community ownership gives rise to the largest increase in rural (non‐farm) household incomes and welfare. The results contribute to the on‐going debate about the opportunity cost of external asset ownership in rural areas.     

Modeling farmers' decisions on child labor and schooling in the cocoa sector: a multinomial logit analysis in Côte d'Ivoire

Since 2000, children working in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire have found themselves in the media spotlight. This situation has assumed particular importance because approximately 40% of the world's cocoa production occurs in Côte d'Ivoire. Concerned parties have since taken great interest in this thorny issue. There is a need to better understand the reality of child labor utilization in this sector. This article investigates child labor issues in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire in conjunction with schooling status of children. The study is based on a survey done in 2002, over a representative sample of more than 11,000 members of cocoa households. The multinomial logit model is used to capture choice probabilities across work and/or school options. The results reveal that child labor in cocoa farms and nonenrollment in schools are significant. Moreover, many children are involved in potentially dangerous and/or harmful tasks. Data also highlight gender and age dimensions in the participation of children in tasks and the way labor is allocated. Econometric results generally indicate that the gender and age of children, whether or not the child is the biological child of the household head, parents' education, the origin of the farmer, household welfare, household size, the household dependency ratio, the size of other perennial crop farms, the number of sharecroppers working with the household head, and communities' characteristics are all pertinent in explaining the child work/schooling outcome in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire.     

Market and Other Factors Affecting Farm Specific Production Efficiency in Pig Production in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

In developing country production environment, farm production efficiency is often measured in terms of on-farm resources and producer characteristics. In this paper we postulate that input and output market related factors also influence farm production decisions hence its efficiency. Stochastic frontier production function was used to assess technical efficiency and its determinants including input and output market variables for a sample of 1962 pig farms in Vietnam with data collected in 1999. There are significant differences in production behavior and efficiency level between the North and the South, among farms producing different breeds, between mixed and specialized farms, between household and commercial farms, and among producers located in different agro-ecological regions. Access to better output market, land size, herd size, and education of household head significantly reduced inefficiency, while access to government supplied inputs, age of household head, female headed households and family supplied crude feeds significantly increased inefficiency in both the regions. The direction of influence on efficiency differs between the two regions for access to credit, proportion of output sold at market rather than at farm gate and family labor supply. Generally, market related factors had more consistent influence on production efficiency in the South of Vietnam where the experience of market economics is longer compared to the North. Policy actions on providing better extension, more timely access to better quality inputs through the private sector, making credit more easily accessible to smallholders and opportunity to sell output at better priced secondary markets are expected to increase productivity and reduce inefficiency.     

Understanding the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers: Evidence from land reform beneficiaries in South Africa

Climatic change has a negative impact on people’s livelihoods, agriculture, freshwater supply and other natural resources that are important for human survival. Therefore, understanding how rural smallholder farmers perceive climate change, climate variability, and factors that influence their choices would facilitate a better understanding of how these farmers adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. A Zero-inflated double hurdle model was employed to estimate the factors influencing farmers’ adoption of adaptation strategies and intensity of adoption at the household level in South Africa. Different socioeconomic factors such as gender, age, and experience in crop farming, institutional factors like access to extension services, and access to climate change information significantly influenced the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among beneficiaries of land reform in South Africa. Concerning intensity of adoption, age, educational level, farming experience, on-farm training, off-farm income, access to information through ICT and locational variables are the significant determinants of intensity of adaptation strategies. Thus, education attainment, non-farm employment, farming experience are significant incentives to enhance smallholder farmers' adaptive capacity through the adoption of many adaptation approaches. This study therefore concluded that farm-level policy efforts that aim to improve rural development should focus on farmers’ education, on-farm demonstration and non-farm employment opportunities that seek to engage the farmers, particularly during the off-cropping season. The income from non-farm employment can be plough-back into farm operations such as the adoption of soil and water conservation, use of improved planting varieties, insurance, among others to mitigate climate variability and subsequently increase productivity. Policies and investment strategies of the government should be geared towards supporting education, providing on-farm demonstration trainings, and disseminating information about climate change adaptation strategies, particularly for smallholder farmers in the country. Thus, the government, stakeholders, and donor agencies must provide capacity-building innovations around the agricultural extension system and education on climate change using information and communication technologies.     

Does human capital raise farm or nonfarm earning more? New insight from a rural Pakistan household panel

This study explores how human capital affects farm household earnings using two tools to refine measurement of human capital effects. First, it employs a two‐sector model to allow the allocation of family labor between farm and nonfarm activities. Second, it accounts for village fixed effects to evaluate whether results from panel data differ meaningfully from a cross‐sectional data analysis with local binary variables. The results show that education has a negligible effect on farm earnings; instead, experience appears to be the principal channel by which human capital affects agricultural performance in a traditional rural setting. Our results also suggest that prior models that fail to separate nonfarm activities spuriously exaggerated the effect of education to the farm sector. In addition, typical cross‐sectional analyses that ignore fixed effects may cause the effects of education on rural household earnings to be significantly overstated. The fact that panel data regressions accounting for village‐level fixed effects found only one instance of education raising earnings—the effect of literacy on nonfarm income—suggests that considerable heterogeneity may have been ignored in cross‐sectional data analyses, especially ones that omitted village‐level effects.     

Agriculture and economic growth in Ethiopia: growth multipliers from a four-sector simulation model

Agriculture accounts for over half of Ethiopian GDP, yet 'he case for agriculture as a focus of economic growth strategies must rely on identifying a set of intersectoral linkages through which agricultural growth contributes to the growth of nonagriculture in the Ethiopian economy. This article develops a four-sector numerical simulation model of economic growth in Ethiopia which permits the calculation of macroeconomic growth multipliers resulting from income shocks to agriculture, services, modern industry, and traditional industry. The resulting growth multipliers are 1.54 for agriculture. 1.80 for services, 1.34 for modern industry, and 1.22 for traditional industry. These results depict an economy in which intersectoral linkages operate on a highly uneven basis. These limits are reflected in the wide disparity between sectoral growth multipliers and by substantial differences in the patterns ol their decomposition. The policy relevance of these findings relate, in part, to the distributional implications of growth in particular sectors. Poverty in Ethiopia is disproportionately rural. An income shock to agriculture is clearly the most progressive choice, indicating the need to highlight agricultural development in growth strategies for Ethiopia. Yet, the simulation results further indicate that doing so imposes relatively little trade off against total benefit. While a $1 service sector income shock generates $0.80 in indirect benefits, a $1 agricultural income shock still generates $0.54 in indirect gains-a somewhat smaller benelit, but one likely to make the greatest possible impact on poverty reduction.     

How important is improving food availability for reducing child malnutrition in developing countries?

Do increases in the food supply per person in a country, i.e., national food availability, contribute substantially to reductions in malnutrition among its children? This paper sets out to answer this controversial question using panel data from 63 developing countries over 1970–1996. This paper gives evidence in support of a statistically significant and strong positive impact of national food availability on child nutrition, finding that increased food supplies have resulted in significant reductions in malnutrition since the 1970s despite population increases over the period. However, per‐capita food supplies have a declining marginal impact: their effect is quite strong for countries with very low food availability (e.g., most countries in sub‐Saharan Africa and South Asia), but weak or non‐existent for those with high levels (e.g., most countries in the Near East and North Africa). Further, non‐food factors, such as women's education and status and the quality of health environments, are also important determinants of children's nutritional status. Depending on the state of food availability in any particular geographic area and relative costs, these factors may merit greater priority in policies to reduce malnutrition.     

Agriculture-led growth: foodgrains versus export crops in Madagascar

This article compares the growth-generating power of alternative agricultural development strategies in Madagascar. Projections from a semi-input–output model and a recently developed social accounting matrix suggest that both paddy and export crops stimulate strong linkages with other sectors of the Malagasy economy. But since paddy output can be increased at lower cost, investment in rehabilitating small irrigated rice perimeters generates 40% to 100% more gdp than a comparable investment in coffee production. Paddy also generates greater employment and a more equitable income distribution.     

Analysis of export demand for Ghana's timber products: A multivariate co-integration approach

This study analyzed the factors that affect the export demand for Ghana's timber products. Export demand functions and error correction models for sawnwood, plywood, and veneer using data from 1961 to 2006 were estimated. Six categories of explanatory variables were hypothesized to determine export demand: world price of wood products, income of importing countries, Ghana's external debt, exchange rates, time-related variables, and policy changes (log export ban, reduction in annual allowable cut and the imposition of export levy on air-dried sawnwood). All variables except external debt were determined from augmented Dickey–Fuller unit root tests to be integrated of order one. The Johansen multivariate cointegration test showed that there was only one cointegration relationship in each timber product data. Exchange rates and income were significant determinants of exported timber products and had the theoretically expected positive signs. The three policy initiatives significantly reduced the exports of sawnwood, but increased the exports of plywood and veneer. Price was moderately elastic for sawnwood and plywood and had the expected negative signs in both cases, while it was positive and inelastic for veneer. The error-correction coefficients show that 68% of shocks to veneer exported is corrected in the following year, while only approximately 20% and 19% of this are corrected for sawnwood and plywood, respectively. Sawnwood and plywood face stiff competition in the international market and this has revenue and tax policy implications for Ghana's forestry sector. Policies that encourage domestic processing and restrictions on both legal and illegal harvesting would work to ensure greater value-added benefits to, and sustainable forest management in, Ghana.     

中国农民主观幸福感影响因素的Meta分析

[目的]进一步探索影响农民主观幸福感的关键因素及其效应并深入分析研究层面产生分歧的原因。[方法]文章基于2007—2019年的40项实证研究,运用Meta分析,探究影响我国农民主观幸福感的主要因素及影响效应,分析其是否存在异质性,并探讨各影响因素的影响效应随时间迁移的动态变化趋势。[结果]受教育程度、健康状况、婚姻状况、家庭人口数、住房条件、家庭年收入、区位特征、医疗条件、人际交往是影响农民主观幸福感的关键因素;除家庭人口数、区位特征、医疗条件外,其他影响因素均具有显著的异质性;关键影响因素的影响效应值随时间的变迁趋于稳定且变化趋势较为良好或趋于稳定。此外,不同的研究特征对实证研究的结果会产生较大影响。[结论]强化农村公共服务投入水平,多渠道提升农民收益水平,维护拓展农民社会联系以提升农民主观幸福感。同时在未来研究中加强对关键影响因素与主观幸福感之间的潜在调节变量的进一步考察,并注重多方法的交叉及比较应用。     

新型城镇化对农民收入的影响效应研究基于30个省（市、自治区）面板数据的实证分析

目的 通过人口的城镇化率、土地的城镇化率、经济的城镇化率、就业的城镇化率这4个自变量综合考察新型城镇化对农民收入的直接影响效应和间接影响效应并提出推进新型城镇化建设促进农民增收的建议。方法 文章运用空间杜宾模型,收集近10年我国30个省（市、自治区,不含港澳台、西藏）的相关数据分析新型城镇化对农民收入的影响。结果 新型城镇化通过人口的城镇化、土地的城镇化、经济的城镇化对农民收入产生显著正向的直接效应,且通过经济的城镇化产生显著负向的间接效应,而就业的城镇化对农民收入影响效应不显著;新型城镇化对农民收入的直接效应主要还是由人口的城镇化产生,但也不能忽视土地城镇化和经济城镇化促进农民增收的作用;控制变量中农业经济水平、农村资本投入、对外开放程度、工业化率对农民收入具有显著正向的直接效应,且农村资本投入对农民收入具有显著正向的间接效应。结论 建议政府大力发展农业现代化,促进城乡一体化;盘活农村土地资源,加快农村城镇化;拓宽农民就业渠道,缩小城乡差别。     

Gold mining and development in Côte d’Ivoire: Trajectories,opportunities and oversights

Over the past four decades, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have undergone different waves of mining sector reform in a bid to catalyse growth. The focus of these exercises has been mainly to attract foreign investment to develop and at times, rejuvenate, export-led large-scale mining and accompanying mineral exploration activity. This despite yielding disappointing improvements, developmentally and economically of the sector. Perhaps even more significantly, however, is that under reform, most of the region’s governments have overlooked the importance of formalising and supporting artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), which, by comparison, has a much greater impact locally and in many instances, developmentally. This article contributes to the body of literature on mining sector reform in sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the case of Côte d'Ivoire. Drawing on findings from an extended period of fieldwork, the article examines critically how a large scale mining bias in Côte d’Ivoire has contributed to the marginalization of ASM. Consistent with most analysis of mining sector reform in sub-Saharan Africa, in Côte d’Ivoire, the government has successfully established an attractive investment climate and put aside vast parcels of land for multinational companies while simultaneously neglecting the needs of artisanal and small-scale operators.     

竹林“碳汇模式”经营研究:农户接受意愿及其驱动机制

在理性人假设下构建了分析框架,从成本和收益两个角度提出了影响农户采用"碳汇模式"意愿的可能因素。主要采用Logistic模型,利用浙江省临安和安吉两个县市的209个调查样本,对理论分析进行了实证检验。分析结果表明:家庭非农产业就业人数越多、非农收入占家庭收入比例越高,农户越不愿意采用"碳汇模式";把"材用林"作为对照组,经营"笋材两用林"的农户与"碳汇模式"采用意愿正相关,经营"笋用林"的农户与之负相关,说明引起劳动投入以及机会成本增加的因素,会降低农户采用"碳汇模式"的意愿。竹林经营面积与竹林收入占家庭收入比例两个变量没有通过显著性检验,说明农户对竹林的可持续经营等问题重视不够等主要结论。同时,提出了相关的政策建议。     

论南非矿业本土化的立法规制与风险防范

南非是世界五大矿产国之一,也是中国在非洲投资规模最大的国家。南非矿业的增加值约为2305亿兰特,占其G D P的7.3%。矿业已占据中国对南非投资比重的四分之一以上。南非矿业历史悠久,法律制度完善,受殖民主义和种族隔离影响,矿业成为了南非黑人经济振兴政策的重要领域。因此,南非矿业本土化的立法与评估体系对矿业所有权、矿山社区发展、当地采购、住房和生活条件、人力资源开发和就业平等六大方面提出了更高的要求。在赴南非投资矿业的进程中,中国企业必须高度关注其矿业本土化立法的规制,积极做好提升本土化评估等级、履行环境保护义务的举措。     

Farm size,land ownership,and fertility in rural Egypt

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a household level analysis of land availability and fertility variation among farm families in rural Egypt. Data were drawn from a survey conducted in 2 predominantly rural governorates in Lower Egypt in 1978, Beheira and Kafr El Sheikh. They were purposely selected in an attempt to obtain areas representing a range of socioeconomic and demographic conditions. The analytical model that underlies the study postulates that fertility variation in rural areas is influenced by family access to land for cultivation purposes and the conditions governing that access, as well as socioeconomic and demographic control variables. Among the 561 households sampled, the mean value for land ownership was .47. The mean value for household income measured in Egyptian pounds was 112.83 with a standard deviation of 84.76 pounds. The females had been employed 9.7% of the years since marriage. On the average, women had completed less than 3 months of formal education--.32 years. Access to land cultivation was significantly related to the other variables. Land ownership increased with farm size. Family income was closely linked to cultivated area. Landless laboring families had the lowest fertility. Wives of landless laborers were on the average younger, slightly better educated, and less likely to have worked for wages since marriage. The results support the hypothesis that the amount of land available to the family for cultivation is positively related to fertility. Land ownership was negatively related to children ever born. Per capita family income also exerted a negative influence on the number of children ever born. This indicates that income levels were such that the positive nutrition-induced income effect on fertility does not seem to prevail. Age at marriage was negatively associated with fertility and was statistically significant. The strongest variable was the woman's age.     

Market structure and the demand for veterinary services in India

The livestock sector is emerging as one of the fastest growing agricultural sub‐sectors in India and the expectations are that this growth could further accelerate due to growing incomes and the high income elasticity of demand for livestock products. Given the size and relatively equitable distribution of livestock in India, this presents an excellent opportunity for the country to boost rural incomes and accelerate the pace of poverty reduction. But, successful capitalisation of such opportunities requires a policy regime that facilitates growth in productivity at the farm level as well as in the processing sector. The productive potential of animals depends crucially on the quality of nutrition, genetic material and the animal health system, and on all these counts, India has a poor record. The public sector continues to be the primary provider of veterinary services, and the deteriorating fiscal situation of most state governments is making it extremely difficult to either expand the reach of these services or improve the quality of service delivery. Although, on efficiency grounds, there is good rationale for commercialised delivery of these services, serious concerns prevail in India about the equity implications of private sector delivery or full cost recovery within the government system. Evaluation of the desirability of user fees or private delivery of livestock services requires an understanding of the factors influencing the demand for these services. This paper examines the nature of demand for veterinary services in three states of India and presents first estimates of demand elasticities for veterinary services. The results indicate that price is not an important determinant of the decision to use these services. Also, practically no variation is found in price elasticities across income groups. These results suggest that the fears of sharp declines in the use of these services as a result of full cost recovery and/or private sector delivery are unfounded.     

Share Tenancy, Ownership Structure, and Prevented Planting Claims in Crop Insurance

A conceptual model based on opportunity cost and expected utility principles establishes linkages between the likelihood of prevented planting claims in crop insurance and existing share leasing arrangements/internal farm business structures. Results of heteroskedastic probit estimation procedures indicate that simpler internal business structures and more dominant farmer–tenant leasing position can increase the probability of submitting a prevented planting claim.     

Industrial upgrading and development in Lesotho’s apparel industry: global value chains,foreign direct investment,and market diversification

Many low-income countries are integrated into apparel global value chains through foreign direct investment (FDI), including Lesotho, which has become the largest Sub-Saharan African apparel exporter to the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. More recently, South Africa has emerged as a new apparel export market in Lesotho. The two markets are supplied by different types of FDI firms – affiliates of Taiwanese transnational producers and South African manufacturers – which are part of different value chain variants. The paper assesses the implications for industrial upgrading and development of integration into these two value chain variants in Lesotho, drawing on firm-level and institutional interviews. We show that their different characteristics in terms of investors’ motivation, governance structure, end markets, firm set up and most importantly and causally, ownership and embeddedness have crucial impacts on functional, product and process upgrading, local linkages, and skill development.     

Aid to Agriculture, Growth and Poverty Reduction

Agriculture and rural growth promotion show a recent 'comeback' in development cooperation, but action on the ground so far is not sufficient. After years of neglect, policy makers have recognized that poverty reduction in many low income countries can only be achieved if development efforts are clearly focused on the sector which employs most of the poor, and the space where most of the poor live. The importance of agricultural growth was amply demonstrated during the economic transformation of Asia. Forty years ago, Asia was a continent of widespread poverty. Today, most Asian countries are experiencing significant growth and poverty reduction. Rapid growth in productivity in the small-farm sector helped drive this process. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, failed to achieve rapid agricultural growth and remains mired in poverty and hunger. If Africa is to halve poverty by 2015 in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), agriculture will need to maintain an annual growth rate of 6 per cent between 2000 and 2015. China's experience from 1978 to 1984 shows such growth is possible. Achieving the desired rapid rates of growth in Africa will require coherent policies by governments and donors, a substantial investment of public resources in rural infrastructure and access to agricultural technology, and significant improvement in national governance.     

Options for African agriculture in an era of high food and energy prices

In a world of high food and energy prices, Africa has an imperative to do a better job feeding itself and ensuring that its people are food secure. At the same time, there is a new business opportunity to work with the private sector in developing the continent's potential to produce significantly more food, raw materials, and biofuels for regional and world markets. A challenge for African policy makers is to find the right balance between a food security and a business agenda, and to ensure that the business agenda engages with large numbers of small farms. Agricultural development requires many things, but the fundamentals for Africa are developing markets, increasing agricultural productivity, and managing volatility. This cannot happen at sufficient scale and speed without strong public sector leadership, enabling policies and investments, and well‐focused implementation strategies.