Factors determining intercropping by rubber smallholders in Sri Lanka: a logit analysis

Variables related to farmers' awareness and attitudes towards intercropping of immature rubber (Hevea brusiliensis) stands, extension contacts, education level, and experience with farming other crops are positively associated with the probability of adoption. Higher levels of off‐farm income are associated with reduced intercropping in immature rubber stands. Farmers who are sole owners of the land and engaged in full or part‐time rubber farming show lower adoption rates than other land ownership groups. Social participation, family size, experience with farming rubber, immature and mature rubber stands size, and the nature of the land (flat/sloped) do not significantly influence adoption. These conclusions were obtained from a logit model estimated by employing the results of a survey of 588 smallholder rubber farmers from five major rubber‐growing regions in Sri Lanka.     

Household nutrition and income impacts of using dairy technologies in mixed crop–livestock production systems

Technologies like improved breeds of dairy cows and improved forages have the potential to significantly increase dairy cow productivity and farmers’ profits in developing countries. However, adoption of such technologies has been low in Ethiopia, despite numerous efforts to disseminate the technologies in the past. Some studies argue that adoption of technologies is low because welfare effects of the technologies could be insignificant or negative to certain groups of farmers. This article employed propensity score matching and inverse probability weighting estimator with regression adjustment to examine the difference in household nutrition and income between adopters and nonadopters of dairy technologies in rural Ethiopia. We find that adoption of cross‐bred dairy cows and improved forages increases household nutrition and income. The significant household nutrition and income impact for adopters support the notion that many Ethiopian smallholders have not adopted dairy technologies because adopters and nonadopters of dairy technologies have inherent differences in welfare outcome potentials. The results suggest that interventions that enhance access to farm resources and address barriers to input and output value chains could improve adoption of dairy technologies.     

Sustainable agricultural practices,environmental risk mitigation and livelihood improvements: Empirical evidence from Northern Ethiopia

Using sustainable agriculture practices has various economic, social and environmental benefits. Determining the attitude of farmers toward risk is an important first step in understanding their behaviour and coping strategies to mitigate environmental risks. This paper investigates the dual impacts of some agricultural practices on agricultural yields and farmers’ livelihoods considering sustainable farmland. Cross-sectional data is collected from farmers in six rural villages in Tigray region, Northern Ethiopia using structured questionnaires. Results show that education, labour supply, agricultural extension services, attitudes, social capital, risk mitigation attitudes, farming experience and soil conditions are factors that significantly affect farmers’ decisions to adopt these practices. The practices are adopted either in isolation or jointly of integrated sustainable practices that increase crop production, household income and asset. Therefore, government and other development actors should promote their adoptions especially in drought-prone, degraded and water-stressed areas     

Assessing the effectiveness of rural credit policy on the adoption of integrated crop-livestock systems in Brazil

This study analyzes the effectiveness of rural credit policy to increase the adoption of ICLS. Analyzes are based on a survey with 175 farmers in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Our estimates suggest that rural credit has positive and relevant impacts on the adoption of ICLS. In turn, the adoption of these systems may also involve investments in fixed capital and increases in operational costs, which create additional demand for rural credit. Other factors, such as access to extension policy, production scale, ex-ante perceptions, and market infrastructure also explain ICLS adoption. The access to rural credit policy is also determined by dependence on farm income, farmer’s perception of transaction costs, and supply of credit in the municipality. The study finally discusses important implications for the devising of rural credit policies and the diffusion of sustainable production systems in developing countries.     

Reasons for adoption of sustainable land management practices in a changing context: A mixed approach in Thailand

A farmer’s decision to adopt sustainable land management practices often takes place in a changing context. In the Northeast Region of Thailand, rural areas face a deagrarianization process and the dominant farming system – small-scale rice farming under rainfed conditions – is losing its role as the main provider of household income. The study applies a mixed approach to investigate the reasons why farmers adopt sustainable land management practices in this region. This approach involved a quantitative assessment of factors that influence adoption and a qualitative analysis of local actors’ opinions regarding these reasons. Two major reasons were identified: the engagement in diversifying production and the willingness to reduce the amount of time household members spend farming. These two reasons relate to two strategies farmers use to adapt to ongoing changes: getting involved in changing the farm or maintaining it while limiting the effort they spend running the farm. Initiatives to enhance the uptake of sustainable land management practices in the Northeast Region of Thailand would benefit from structuring the support provided taking these two strategies into account.     

The Adoption of Genetically Modified Cotton and Poverty Reduction in Pakistan

This article employs a propensity score‐matching approach to examine the direct effects of adoption of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton on yields, pesticide demand, household income and poverty, using cross‐sectional data from a survey of farmers in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Generally, the findings reveal that adoption of the new technology exerts a positive and significant impact on cotton yields, household income and poverty reduction, and a negative effect on the use of pesticides. The positive and significant impact of the technology on yields and household income is consistent with the potential role of new agricultural technology in directly reducing rural poverty through increased farm household income.     

收入不确定性对节水技术采用动态决策的影响研究——来自政府推广模式的调节

[目的]农户节水技术采用的长效机制对保障长期粮食安全、促进农业可持续发展具有重要意义。[方法]文章基于粮食主产区微观调研数据,衡量农户家庭收入风险,运用Heckman样本选择模型实证分析收入不确定性对农户节水技术初步采用与持续采用行为决策的影响,进一步考察不同政府推广模式在其中的调节效应。[结果]收入不确定性增加会降低农户持续采用节水技术的意愿,不利于节水技术的长期应用,政府推广对农户节水技术持续采用行为具有正向激励作用;从调节效应来看,收入不确定性对农户节水技术持续采用的负向影响可通过政府补贴和技术培训的调节缓解,其中以灌溉基础设施补贴为典型的政府节水补贴发挥了积极作用。[结论]要降低农村居民家庭收入风险,保持农业政策的延续性和稳定性,加强节水教育和技术培训,同时完善配套服务体系,推动农业生产长效节水。     

A meta-analysis of intercropping in Africa: impacts on crop yield,farmer income,and integrated pest management effects

Poverty and hunger in Africa are prevalent and will increase in absolute terms with population growth and continued land degradation. Therefore, there is a need for sustainable agricultural strategies, such as conservation agriculture (CA) and integrated pest management (IPM). Among CA practices, intercropping holds the promise of providing benefits to smallholders through increased crop yields and income as well as improved resource use. We review intercropping’s effects on crop yield, income, and output of IPM practices in Africa. On average, intercropping increases crop yields by 23% and gross income by 172 USD/ha, but effects vary significantly depending on management practices and agro-ecological factors. There was no evidence that yields and gross income for intercropping treatments increase when leguminous intercropping combinations, minimum/reduced tillage, pesticides, or fertilizers were utilized. Dual use of herbicides and intercropping practices garnered 1442 USD/ha more in gross income and yielded 1422 kg/ha more compared to those in conventionally managed fields, signifying the positive influence supplemental inputs can have on intercropping’s effects. Although IPM practices increased yields by 20%, on average, IPM systems integrated with intercropping yielded 24% less than IPM systems that did not. This meta-analysis indicates that intercropping is an advantageous sustainable agricultural practice, but that its effective implementation would depend on considering other factors such as adequate control of competing vegetation. There is a clear need for more scientific studies which examine intercropping’s role in complex sustainable agricultural systems, in order to understand its effects in differential environmental and socioeconomic situations and to optimize the practice’s transfer and benefits.     

Effects of intercropping rice and water spinach on net yields and pest control: an experiment in southern China

Strategies encouraging the use of fewer agrochemicals while maintaining high yield are highly demanded for smallholder rice farmers. Intercropping helps to suppress pests and disease in upland farming systems. However, information on the role of intercropping in pest suppression and crop productivity in irrigated rice farming systems is sparse. To explore the possibility of establishing diversified agriculture management strategy that requires lower agrochemical inputs, a field study was conducted to evaluate the effect of rice and water spinach intercropping on the occurrence of pests, disease, and land-use efficiency. Results demonstrated that the occurrence of rice blast disease, sheath blight disease, and Cnaphalocrocis medinalis was substantially lower than pure stands. Compared with rice monoculture, the tiller number, net photosynthetic rate, and leaf chlorophyll content were significantly increased in rice at the edge rows adjacent to water spinach in intercropping. Intercropping increased the per unit area yield of rice without significant reduction in that of water spinach. Land equivalent ratio (LER) was 1.13, showing that intercropping was 13% more productive than rice monocropping. Net income for intercropping was 5.04 times higher than for rice monocropping. These findings suggest that rice and water spinach intercropping is a viable alternative for sustainable rice production with a small farming scale in southern China.     

Land tenure (in)security and crop-tree intercropping in rural Xinjiang,China

The relationship between land tenure security and long-term land-related investment is of great importance especially given the current flux in property rights systems of agricultural land in China. This paper empirically examines the role of land tenure security in farmers’ crop-tree intercropping decisions, and is based on a comparative analysis between contract land and wasteland holders in rural Xinjiang, China. Data from a survey, carried out in 2008 among 352 households in Awati County in Xinjiang, is used to estimate the factors that affect the adoption of crop-tree intercropping. The results indicate that, for those households that only have contract land, land tenure security positively affects their adoption of crop-tree intercropping. However, for those that hold both contract land and wasteland, land tenure security negatively impacts upon their adoption of crop-tree intercropping on wasteland, as the crop-tree intercropping on wasteland can increase the perceived tenure security of wasteland. The results also suggest that the comprehensive effect of labor organization on intercropping is moderate as a result of the presence of counteracting effects.     

Advancing climate-smart-agriculture in developing drylands: Joint analysis of the adoption of multiple on-farm soil and water conservation technologies in West African Sahel

Water stress and soil infertility are the greatest constraining factors for higher agricultural productivity in drylands, prompting the current interest in soil and water conservation (SWC) practices in water-constrained regions. To provide a more comprehensive understanding of challenges surrounding the adoption of SWC practices in these regions, we used a joint analysis framework combining both multivariate and ordered probit models to analyze adoption-decisions for eleven on-farm SWC practices. Our case study, involving 500 farmers from a representative West African Sahelian zone, revealed that although the adoption of SWC practices is widespread in the West African drylands, there is still an important potential to improve and upscale their specific adoption rates. Almost all farmers (99%) used at least one of the eleven practices considered in this study, whereas specific adoption rates ranged from 5% for contour vegetation barriers to 87% for manure application. More than 70% of the farmers used up to three practices only, and less than 30% used between four to nine practices. Many practices are interdependent, with some practices being complementary and others substitutable. The analysis of the determinants of the adoption and the intensity of adoption revealed that SWC practices are labor-, knowledge- and capital-intensive. We found that the major drivers of farmers’ decisions to adopt, as well as to intensify the use of, most SWC practices are the presence of children (aged 6 to 14) in the household, land holding, land tenure, awareness and training on SWC and access to alternative – but non-agricultural labor constraining – cash sources such as remittance and cash farming. A higher number of migrating household members increases the probability of intensifying the use of SWC practices, but only when this is in line with the household’s land endowment and labor needs for farm activities. This comprehensive study will be of significance for a finer understanding of SWC practices in West African Sahel. More generally, it will likely help policy makers to upscale the adoption of sustainable SWC practices for the advance of climate-smart agriculture in developing drylands.     

我国天然橡胶种植户生产行为的影响因素分析——基于橡胶价格持续低迷的背景

[目的]通过分析在天然橡胶价格持续低迷背景下种植户的生产行为,从农户及家庭特征、生产特征、市场因素和政策因素4个方面选取16项指标,研究影响天然橡胶种植户生产行为的因素。[方法]选取2015年在天然橡胶主植区云南、海南的农户调研数据,运用多元Logit模型分析天然橡胶种植户生产行为改变的影响因素。[结果]种植户生产行为选择降低和提高割胶频率是种植户权衡各类因素追求利益最大化而产生的不同行为模式,其中橡胶收入占比、种植年限、投入肥料变化、雇工割胶、生产成本、后期价格态度、补贴满意度、收益满意度8项因素对种植户选择降低割胶频率具有显著影响;受教育子女数量、种植规模、雇工割胶、是否享受补贴4项因素对种植户选择提高割胶频率具有显著影响。[结论]天然橡胶种植户的生产行为受多种因素共同作用,并且天然橡胶价格持续低迷破坏了天然橡胶产业的可持续发展。     

Perceptions and outlook on intercropping coffee with banana as an opportunity for smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda

Coffee and banana are important cash and food crops in Uganda and the surrounding East African highland region. Production is dominated by smallholders that have limited arable land and often coffee and banana are intercropped. No significant research and development efforts have been undertaken over the last few decades on this coffee/banana intercropping system. Because recent studies suggest that this system could be a practice with high benefits to the farmers, we decided to study the perceptions of stakeholders along the coffee value chain starting with farmers. Perception analysis based on open-ended interviews following interview guides revealed that a major limitation for the sustainability of this system was poor soil fertility conditions. Perceptions on the benefits of intercropping differed little among coffee actors; that is, banana intercropping provides additional food and income from smallholders’ limited land and helps farmers reduce risks related to drought, pest/disease attacks and coffee price volatility. However, farmers’ desire to minimize risks does not match the objective of stakeholders higher up the coffee value chain to maximize coffee production. Furthermore, research by public institutes, both national and international, is primarily organized for single crops and not systems. We conclude that the institutional setting of the coffee sector hampers the promotion of intercropping, despite the benefits for the farmer.     

Adoption and Impacts of Sustainable Agricultural Practices on Maize Yields and Incomes: Evidence from Rural Zambia

This paper uses a multinomial endogenous treatment effects model and data from a sample of over 800 households and 3,000 plots to assess the determinants and impacts of adoption of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) on maize yields and household incomes in rural Zambia. Results show that adoption decisions are driven by household and plot level characteristics and that the adoption of a combination of SAPs raises both maize yields and incomes of smallholder farmers. Adoption of improved maize alone has greater impacts on maize yields, but given the high cost of inorganic fertiliser that limits the profitability of adoption of improved maize, greater household incomes are associated rather with a package involving SAPs such as maize–legume rotation and residue retention.     

信息质量、交易成本与农户的销售价格——基于海南、云南466个橡胶种植户的调研数据

利用466个农户的调查数据,以农户行为理论为支撑,研究信息质量、交易成本、农户特征对农户所获得销售价格的影响。研究结果表明:信息质量、生产专业化程度的提高以及高水平的橡胶收入有助于农户获得更高的价格;议价能力、组织化程度与销售价格呈现负相关,销售产品形式、交易对象的选择会在一定程度上影响销售价格;交易环境的熟识度、交易距离的远近以及农户受教育程度对农户所能获得价格的高低没有显著的影响。因此,提出加强天然橡胶市场建设和产业信息技术服务、鼓励农户专业化经营等建议。     

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.     

陕西省农民收入增长问题研究

当前,在我国经济下行压力下,陕西省农民收入增长出现趋缓,收入结构发生较大变化。如何确保农民增收取得新的突破是一个值得研究的重要问题。文章利用文献分析与统计的方法,对陕西农民收入增长情况进行分析,结果显示:2001~2007年农民收入持续增长,2008年后开始回落。而在对农民收入结构特征分析中表明,家庭经营性收入仍是陕西省农民家庭收入的主要来源,但2012年以后有所下降,取而代之的是工资性收入成为农民收入最重要动力因素,农民转移性净收入呈逐年上涨趋势,财产性收入增长幅度波动较大。同时分析目前新常态下影响陕西省农民增收的关键因素,并从大力发展特色农业,建立农业品牌优势;促进农民就业,推动工资性收入增长;加快城乡统筹建设,促进农民转移性收入;深化农村产权改革,推动财产性收入有序增长;提高农村经济质量,完善农民增收长效机制等方面提出了促进农民增收的对策措施。     

Peanut Research and Poverty Reduction: Impacts of Variety Improvement to Control Peanut Viruses in Uganda

A procedure is developed and applied for predicting ex ante impacts of agricultural research on aggregate poverty, using as an example the poverty-reducing impact of peanut research in Uganda. Market-level information on economic surplus changes is combined with a procedure for allocating income changes to individual households. Characteristics of farmers that affect their likelihood of technology adoption are used to create a technology adoption profile. Associated changes in poverty resulting from adoption are computed using poverty indices. Predicted income changes at the household level are aggregated to the market level and reconciled with calculations of economic surplus changes.     

Climate-resilient practices and welfare impacts on rice-cultivating households in Vietnam: Does joint adoption of multiple practices matter?

Farmers have a long history of adjusting their production practices in response to changing production conditions. Using a multinomial endogenous treatment effects model that accounts for observable and unobservable heterogeneity, this study investigates the adoption and welfare impacts of climate-resilient practices on Vietnamese rice-cultivating households. We found evidence of clear and positive welfare impacts from the adoption of canal irrigation (CI) and the joint adoption of agricultural conservation practices (CP) and CI as the main adaptation strategies to increase water stress. More importantly, although farmers with access to CI systems obtained the highest returns, the joint adoption of multiple practices still had substantially high adoption rates and significantly positive effects on rice yield, rice revenue and household income. Our findings indicate that farms' and farmers' characteristics, market information and climatic conditions are generally the main factors driving rice farmers' decisions to adopt climate-resilient technologies, both individually and jointly. Follow-up policy interventions should focus on improving CI systems and promoting the joint adoption of climate-resilient technologies to improve rice farmers' well-being and enhance their resilience capacity to cope with incoming climatic uncertainty.