Will digital technologies transform agriculture in developing countries?

Mobile phones and the internet have significantly affected practically all sectors of the economy and agriculture is no exception. Building on a recent World Bank flagship report, this article introduces a concise framework for describing the main benefits from new information and communication technologies. They promote greater inclusion in the broader economy, raise efficiency by complementing other production factors, and foster innovation by dramatically reducing transaction costs. The article reviews the recent literature on corresponding technology impacts in the rural sector in developing countries. Digital technologies overcome information problems that hinder market access for many small‐scale farmers, increase knowledge through new ways of providing extension services, and they provide novel ways for improving agricultural supply chain management. While there are many promising examples of positive impacts on rural livelihoods—or “digital dividends”—these have often not scaled up to the extent expected. The main reason is that technology can always only address some, but not all of the barriers faced by farmers in poorer countries.     

Technology adoption,impact, and extension in developing countries’ agriculture: A review of the recent literature

Given the stagnant agricultural productivity and persistent food insecurity in low-income countries—notably in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)—there has been continued interest in the adoption of new technology and its impact on productivity in these regions. To increase crop yields and sustain yield gains, recent case studies of technology adoption unanimously recommend the adoption of integrated farm management systems, particularly in SSA. On the other hand, there have been increasing numbers of studies on social network or farmer-to-farmer technology extension. These studies explore more efficient extension systems than traditional public-sector extension approaches. This article reviews both recent case studies of technology adoption and its productivity impacts as well as studies on agricultural extension to identify common findings, shortcomings, and major remaining issues.     

Does multilateral trade liberalization help reduce poverty in developing countries?

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the impact of multilateral trade liberalization on poverty in developing countries from a macroeconomic perspective. The empirical analysis suggests that multilateral trade liberalization is conducive to poverty reduction in developing countries. This outcome therefore suggests that greater multilateral cooperation on trade matters among countries, in particular the Members of the World Trade Organization, would allow further trade liberalization at the multilateral level to the benefit of poor people in developing countries.     

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.     

How does outward foreign direct investment contribute to economic development in less advanced home countries?

In view of the rapid increase of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from emerging economies in recent years, this study examines how OFDI supports economic development in the world’s less advanced home countries. Drawing on theories of FDI, available literature of relevance and some recent evidence from emerging economies, this study finds that the objective of multinational enterprises to pursue assets and advantages abroad through OFDI can yield financial, intangible capability and tangible capacity returns. In the right circumstances, these returns generate important macroeconomic gains, mitigate some of the typical problems of economic development and provide broader benefits to societies. Despite some limitations, OFDI complements, sometimes in distinct ways, the development benefits many countries already realise through trade, migration and inward FDI. Emerging economies are best placed to benefit from the returns generated by OFDI.     

Conservation tenders in developed and developing countries − status quo,challenges and prospects

Conservation tenders − or procurement auctions − are a competitive mechanism, in which payment for ecosystem service contracts are allocated to landholders based on their submitted bids. These encompass a price and sometimes a measure for the environmental services the landholder offers to provide. This special edition comprises a set of papers from a workshop on conservation tenders across developed and developing countries. These papers assess the status quo, and the challenges and prospects of tendering approaches. Four high level lessons emerge: 1) Conservation tender performance has been robust; 2) Developed − developing country conservation tender differences are modest; 3) Conservation tender prospects are dependent on political and institutional support; and 4) Optimal conservation tender design is circumstance specific.     

Are preserved farms actively engaged in agriculture and conservation?

This study addresses the question of whether farms enrolled in land preservation programs are actively engaged in agricultural or conservation activities. Data are drawn from an original survey administered to preserved farm owners in the states of New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in 2011. “Actively engaged” is defined as investment in conservation projects, buildings, equipment, or irrigation since the land was preserved. Affirmative answers to the survey's investment questions range from a low of 19% for irrigation to a high of 69% for equipment. Special attention was paid to differences between lifestyle farmers and small and large commercial farmers, which are classified using the USDA typology developed in 2000. Regression analysis estimates differences in investment behavior across these groups as well as farm tenure categories, controlling for farm size, program/state location, and demographic variables. Only owners who employ tenants or managers exclusively on their land were found to invest significantly less than the largest professional farmers, and they did so across all four types of investment.This study's findings support preservation goals articulated by legislators and program administrators, because (1) agricultural and land stewardship investments appear to be widespread on preserved farms, partly due to administrators’ preference for larger parcels, (2) there is no evidence that “hobby farmers” are disproportionately attracted to farmland preservation programs – in fact the opposite seems to be true – while those that exist in our sample behave similarly to the largest commercial farmers, (3) although tenant farming is associated in the sample with lower rates of investment, it is less common on preserved farms than on all farms in the three study states. The matter of land tenure, highlighted in this as in other studies, has not yet become a primary focus of either farm-behavioral research or state agricultural policy.     

Spatial dependence in agricultural land prices: does it exist?

Trade-offs arise between spatial dependence and choice of functional form in agricultural land price hedonic models. We discuss these trade-offs and how they can create spurious spatial dependence. Using a land sales dataset with apparent spatial dependence, we implement a semiparametric approach avoiding potential problems with the functional form. The results show that in addition to being nonlinear, the impacts are also characterized by significance thresholds that are difficult to capture in a parametric model. More importantly, we fail to detect any spatial dependence demonstrating that inappropriate functional form can indeed be responsible for finding spatial dependence in hedonic models.     

An institutional and policy framework to foster integrated rice–duck farming in Asian developing countries

Asia has accounted for the vast majority of the world's rice and meat-duck production. In the integrated rice–duck farming (IRDF) system, ducklings are released into rice paddies in order to maximize the use of renewable resources in a closed-cycle flow of nutrients during rice vegetation periods. Rice–duck farming used to be widely adopted in tropical and subtropical eastern Asian countries, but has remained unpopular in the wake of prevailing agricultural productivism characterized by specialization, intensification, mechanization and excessive dependence on agrochemicals. This paper sets out institutional pathways that can redevelop IRDF in Asia. These include organic food certification systems, organic farmers' cooperatives, community-wide organic farming, localized technical extension and educational services, and between-farm rice–duck integration. A comprehensive package of these institutional tools would further expedite the expansion of IRDF particularly in low-income Southeast Asia where the rice or duck farming landscape is overwhelmingly dominated by smallholders.     

Awareness and adoption of conservation agriculture in Malawi: what difference can farmer-to-farmer extension make?

Despite the potential of conservation agriculture (CA) for increased crop yields, energy savings, soil erosion control, and water-use efficiency, smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa have been slow to adopt. Farmer-to-farmer extension (F2FE) may have a role to play in overcoming the information access problems and lack of knowledge that may preclude widespread adoption. This study uses data for 180 lead farmers linked to their 455 followers to investigate how F2FE influences awareness and adoption of CA technologies in Malawi. Results from a bivariate probit model for follower farmer awareness and adoption of the three CA principles (minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention, and crop diversification) reveal four main findings: First, lead farmer motivation increases their effectiveness at diffusing CA practices to their followers. Second, lead farmer familiarity with and adoption of CA both matter to the spread of CA practices, but familiarity appears more important. Third, lead farmers play a more critical role in increasing awareness than adoption of the CA practices. Finally, F2FE is a complement rather than a substitute for other sources of agricultural extension in Malawi's pluralistic extension system and should support but not replace current systems. Research and policy implications are discussed.     

The public R&D and productivity growth in Australia's broadacre agriculture: is there a link?

This paper investigates the dynamic relationships between research and development (R&D) expenditure and productivity growth in Australian broadacre agriculture using aggregate time series data for the period 1953 to 2009. The results show a cointegrating relationship between R&D and productivity growth and a unidirectional causality from R&D to TFP (total factor productivity) growth in Australian broadacre agriculture. Using the dynamic properties of the model, data from beyond the sample period are analysed by employing the variance decomposition and the impulse response function. The findings reveal that R&D can be readily linked to the variation in productivity growth beyond the sample period. Furthermore, the forecasting results indicate that a significant out‐of‐sample relationship exists between public R&D and productivity in broadacre agriculture.     

Central versus local states: Which matters more in affecting China's urban growth?

To date, many geography studies have identified GDP, population, FDI, and transportation factors as key drivers of urban growth in China. The political science literature has demonstrated that China's urban growth is also driven by powerful economic and fiscal incentives for local governments, as well as by the political incentives of local leaders who control land use in their jurisdictions. These parallel but distinct research traditions limit a comprehensive understanding that can result in partial and potentially misleading conclusions of urbanization in China. This paper presents a spatially explicit study that incorporates both political science and geographic perspectives to understand the relative importance of hierarchal administrative governments in affecting urban growth. We use multi-level modeling approach to examine how socio-economic and policy factors – represented here by fiscal transfers – at different administrative levels affect growth in “urban hotspot counties” across three time periods (1995–2000, 2000–2005, and 2005–2008). Our results show that counties that are more dependent on fiscal transfers from the central government convert less cultivated land to urban use, controlling for other factors. We also find that local governments are becoming more powerful in shaping urban land development as a result of local economic, fiscal, and political incentives, as well as through the practical management and control of capital, land, and human resources. By incorporating fiscal transfers in our analysis, our study examines a factor in the urban development of China that had previously been neglected and provides an improved understanding of the underlying processes and pathways involved in urban growth in China.     

Does female human capital formation matter for the income effect of remittances? Evidence from developing countries

The existing literature has focussed extensively on the development outcomes resulting from international migrant remittances. Yet, the human capital channel promoting remittance effectiveness has received little attention. Given the multilateral policy drive to promote female literacy in recent decades, it is relevant to examine whether female human capital formation improves the effectiveness of remittances in terms of its impact on per capita income. Using a panel of 103 developing economies over the period 1970–2012, this paper attempts to answer this question empirically. The paper finds that female human capital affects the remittance-growth relationship differently according to whether it is the primary, secondary or tertiary level of human capital. Our estimates of the marginal impacts of remittances show that while higher levels of skilled human capital (secondary and tertiary enrolments) enhance the marginal impact of remittances on per capita income, low-skilled human capital (primary enrolments) fails to do so. Our conclusion stresses the need to encourage female human capital beyond the promotion of literacy rates in developing countries.     

Rural electrification in Cambodia: does it improve the welfare of households?

This study uses subsamples of socio-economic surveys from 2004 and 2011 to construct village panel data and apply the difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine the impact of rural electrification on household consumption and children’s education in Cambodia at the village level. Conditional on the DID assumption and observed village and household characteristics, rural electrification increased household consumption by approximately 16.6%. This study also finds that higher-quintile households benefited more. Additionally, rural electrification increased boys’ years of schooling completed by 0.85 and girls’ years of schooling completed by 0.62. It also increased the probability of having ever been enrolled in primary school for boys by approximately 9.7% but did not increase the probability of having ever been enrolled for girls.     

Welfare impacts of climate-smart agriculture in Ghana: Does row planting and drought-tolerant maize varieties matter?

This study provides new evidence of the impact of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) – row planting and drought-tolerant maize varieties - on farm and welfare outcomes by estimating a multinomial endogenous switching regression model that corrects for selection bias and farmer heterogeneity in CSA choice. Application of our model to panel observations of 438 households in Ghana show that adoption of CSA increases both yield and intensity of maize commercialization but negatively affect own consumption. Specifically, the magnitude of the impact is relatively higher for adopters of row planting relative to adopters of drought-tolerant maize seeds. These results suggest the need for development practitioners to increase awareness and emphasize the importance of row planting as a key component of climate-smart agriculture.     

Biofuels and developing economies: is the timing right?

In this article, we discuss some key aspects of biofuel production in developing countries, and where constraints and tradeoffs are likely to occur. We use the example of two countries, Senegal and India, to highlight some of the issues of cost competitiveness, problems with ensuring stable supply of feedstock as well as critical missing links in the biofuels value chain that pose problems to scaling up national programs in these countries. We discuss the particularly problematic nature of jatropha, as a biodiesel feedstock, and underline some helpful guiding principles that can help country‐level policy. We point to an underlying “duality” between a well‐functioning food system and favorable conditions for agribusiness enterprises, such as biofuels, and the relevance it has to achieving food security goals.     

Strawberry fields forever? Conflict over neo-productivist Spanish polytunnel technology in British agriculture

This paper uses the example of Spanish polytunnels to demonstrate how the deployment of ‘neo-productivist’ agricultural technologies to meet the demands of food security and sustainability within a globalised food chain is likely to precipitate greater countryside conflict. Field-scale ‘Spanish polytunnels’ for strawberry growing have become a new feature of the British agricultural landscape. This has been driven primarily by supermarkets searching for high quality and quantity supplies of soft fruit. With production becoming industrialised, conflict has ensued in some rural communities where polytunnels have appeared. Interviews with prominent strawberry growers and protestors against polytunnels illuminate a vociferous and embittered wrangle. Within it, land use planners are labelled as ‘strawberry fools’ by both sides for failing, until recently, to provide decisive regulation to prevent conflict and effect its resolution. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the future characteristics of conflicts precipitated as new agricultural technologies are implemented rapidly, impact unevenly and are received acrimoniously.     

Whither the pin factory? Modern food supply chains and specialization in India

What is the relationship between smallholder participation in modern food supply chains and their degree of economic specialization? We investigate this research question by looking at whether there is a systematic relationship between whether a household grows crops for a supermarket chain—participation in the supermarket channel—and how concentrated among fewer crops are that household's total landholdings and its output. Using longitudinal data from India, we find that there is no relationship between whether a household participates in the supermarket channel and that household's Herfindahl–Hirschman index for land, but there is a robust statistically significant and negative relationship between whether a household participates in the supermarket channel and that household's Herfindahl–Hirschman index for output. These findings hold true at both the extensive margin (i.e., when considering whether a household participates in the supermarket channel) and the intensive margin (i.e., when considering how much of a household's marketed output is sold through the supermarket chain). This suggests that instead of fostering a greater degree of specialization, participation in modern food supply chains might lead to greater diversification.