District-level total factor productivity in agriculture: Western Cape Province, South Africa, 1952–2002

This article measures total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Western Cape agriculture for 31 magisterial districts from 1952 to 2002 to illustrate the benefits of disaggregation compared with national TFPs. There is negative or low growth in the eastern districts and rapid growth in the western districts. The regions with substantial chicken, pigs, dairy, and, especially, export fruit production grew rapidly, whereas the sheep-dominated Karoo had negative growth. Productivity growth correlates mostly with output mix, which in turn depends on irrigation investment. A similar program will be needed at the national level if prosperity is to be extended to black smallholders who currently lack access to water and other modern infrastructure.     

National policies and the sectoral pattern of economic growth

This article presents tests of whether the kinds of "national" policy variables used to explain cross-country variation in the growth of aggregate GDP per capita can also successfully explain per capita growth in the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors of developing countries. There are four main results of interest. First, relative to nonagriculture, convergence is much slower in agriculture and the burden of population growth is generally much higher. Second, while orthodox economic policies share positive associations with economic growth in the nonagricultural sectors of developing countries, such policies fail to robustly predict variation in agricultural growth. Third, size of government indicators often yield an "unexpected" positive association with agricultural growth. And finally, although there is some evidence that fewer price controls are associated with faster agricultural growth, these associations are statistically quite weak and quantitatively quite small.     

Agricultural diversification and integrated pest management in Bangladesh

We study factors associated with a shift toward diversified, high‐valued vegetable crops and the incentives associated with the use of IPM methods for vegetable producers in Bangladesh. The primary objective is to measure how IPM technologies affect the crop and technology choices of low‐income rice farmers. A three‐season household optimisation model is used to study crop and technology choice under price and yield uncertainty. The model is parameterised using data from vegetable farms and experimental IPM trials conducted in Bangladesh. Simulation results show that access to IPM technology and IPM availability combined with access to credit increase household welfare and lead to higher rates of vegetable adoption. Off‐farm employment opportunities work against vegetable cultivation and IPM use by risk‐averse farmers. Implications for policy and extension efforts are highlighted.     

Do farmers benefit from participating in specialty markets and cooperatives? The case of coffee marketing in Costa Rica1

Historically low prices in the conventional coffee market have caused financial and social hardship among coffee farmers. In the face of this crisis, specialty markets have attracted the attention of the international donor community. These market segments have shown consistent growth over the last decade and exhibit price premiums in international markets. Therefore, if higher prices are passed on to farmers, access to specialty markets could help to alleviate the crisis brought on by low prices in the conventional sector. The present study attempts to identify the factors that determine farmers' participation in specialized markets and whether participation in these markets leads to higher prices for farmers. A two-stage model is used to analyze farmers' marketing decisions and their effect on the prices received. This procedure allows us to control for the endogeneity bias introduced by the marketing choice. Our results indicate that farmers participating in the specialty coffee segment do in fact receive higher prices than those participating in conventional channels. Additionally, we find that participation in cooperatives has a positive impact on the probability that a farmer chooses to grow specialty coffee and analogously on the prices that they receive. Based on these results, it seems that efforts to increase participation in the specialty coffee segment and in cooperatives would help to lessen some of the hardships brought on by low prices in the conventional coffee sector.     

Markets and pro-poor agricultural growth: insights from livelihood and informal rural economy models in Malawi

This article presents the development of a set of programming models describing the major features of different rural livelihoods and of the informal rural economy they together make up in Malawi. The models allow for differentiated responses by different household types to change and for the partial equilibrium effects of consequent supply, demand, and price adjustments in labor and grain markets. The models provide insights into the relations between own‐farm and nonown‐farm activities in different households' livelihoods and in the informal rural economy as a whole, and are used to investigate possible impacts of increasing cash crop prices and of a more open rural economy. Impacts of these changes on the poor are found to be critically dependent upon supply and demand elasticities in labor and grain markets, but the poor could potentially suffer significant losses from increased openness of the local economy leading to increased expenditure by less poor households on imported goods and services.     

Costs and benefits of livestock systems and the role of market and nonmarket relationships

In developing countries livestock are kept not only for their physical products, but also for insurance, financing, and to display status. Though this range of purposes is acknowledged, livestock policies nevertheless often emphasize physical production: a limited perspective that hampers the formulation and implementation of effective livestock policies. This article presents a comprehensive appraisal of costs and benefits of livestock systems that takes into account the institutional environment of livestock keepers. Indicators are developed that capture, quantify, and organize not only the benefits resulting from the physical production, but also those from the intangible functions. The method is illustrated by an analysis of cattle in the Western Province of Zambia. The results indicate that the perspective on livestock systems developed more closely reflects the observed decisions of the livestock keepers.     

What comes first,agricultural growth or democracy?

Today, the international community faces two major development challenges: how to ignite growth and how to establish democracy. Economic research has identified two plausible hypotheses regarding this association. The first hypothesis emphasizes the need to start with democracy and institutions that secure property rights. The second hypothesis emphasizes the need to start with physical and human capital accumulation. In this article, we discuss some of the econometric evidence on the relationship between institutions, human capital, and agricultural productivity growth across developed and developing countries with the objective of finding support for one or the other hypothesis. We find that most variables used in the literature to capture the effect of institutions are not independent of the process of growth. While no evidence of causation from political institutions to agricultural productivity growth is found, human capital accumulation emerges as an important source of growth.     

A Note on Targeting by Predatory Leaders: Evidence from Rural Liberia

We consider the impact of rice-thieving chiefs on investments by smallholder farmers in Liberia. In an earlier study, we found that chiefs who steal reduce aggregate investment levels by villagers. In this paper, we refine this result, and establish that predatory leadership only matters for households with a different ethnic identity from the chief. Co-ethnics of the chief are much less responsive to a context of predation, suggesting that thieving leaders target individuals along ethnic lines.     

Productivity growth in Indian agriculture: is there evidence of convergence across states?

This paper explores the question of convergence in total factor productivity (TFP) in agriculture across fourteen major agricultural states of India. Using a Törnqvist–Theil index for TFP growth for the period 1973–1993, we find no evidence to support convergence to a single TFP level (σ‐convergence). After grouping the various states on the basis of their productivity performance, we find that the high‐performing states show a gradual movement towards the trend, whereas the low‐performing states generally show more volatility. Testing for long‐run convergence in levels of agricultural productivity, we find evidence of conditional beta‐convergence after controlling for state‐specific factors and idiosyncratic year‐specific volatility. The results are robust to alternative specifications of tests of unit root in panel data developed recently.     

The conditions of collective action for local commons management: the case of irrigation in the Philippines

We examine factors affecting the success and failure of collective action toward the management of local commons. Using cross‐section survey data on the activities of irrigators' associations in the Philippines, regression analysis is conducted to identify factors underlying the success and failure in farmers' organizing collective action for the maintenance and operation of irrigation systems. We find that collective action is difficult to organize where (a) water supply is uniformly abundant; (b) water supply is greatly different between upper and lower streams in lateral; (c) the size of the association is large; (d) population density is low; (e) the share of nonfarm households is high; and (f) the history of irrigated farming is short. Our findings suggest that these difficulties can be overcome with adequate supports of state agencies to promote community‐level cooperation.     

Acreage response in Pakistan: a co-integration approach

This paper seeks to quantify the acreage responses of wheat, cotton, sugarcane and rice in Pakistan using co‐integration techniques and impulse response analysis. Results indicate that acreages of wheat and basmati rice do not respond significantly to shocks in own‐price while cotton, sugarcane and high yielding variety (HYV) rice do, and that long‐run equilibrium is re‐established after about 4 years. Irrigated area is an important determinant of acreage.     

Accounting for agricultural decline with economic growth in Taiwan

In this paper, we develop an empirical model to decompose the evolution of the agricultural share of GDP into three components: price changes, factor endowment changes and technological change. Our results suggest that relative prices have a positive but small influence on the share of agriculture in GDP in both the long‐run and the short‐run. An increase in capital per unit of labor, on the other hand, is associated with a smaller agricultural share. Technical change has been biased in favor of the agricultural sector but this effect has been swamped by the magnitude of the input effects, in particular, the changes in the capital‐labor ratio.     

Local Identities and Global Flows of Objects and Images

This is a theoretical exploration of an approach to cultural aspects of external dimensions of self-determination movements (SDMs) and their relationship to economic aspects. An underlying theme is the possible relationships between "identity" and global flows of objects, information and images. This general theme connects exiles and diasporas, new global media, material culture and the politics of identity. In the context of global cultural influences on SDMs, we draw attention to the significance of the relationships between people and objects, images and ideas, in the sense of the pathways via which these are spread and exchanged, and in the sense of the symbolic values and meanings attributed to them. Not only ideas but also material objects, images and experience, and the global and local processes via which they are acquired, imbued with value and exchanged, play a major part in reinforcing and/or altering people's sense of who they are, of the world beyond them, their place in it, and the ideology and practice of a SDM. Global processes by which objects, images and experience move do not necessarily imply a unidirectional flow of objects and images of global mass consumption towards and into the SDM and its people. Local objects and images can also go out, potentially influencing not only diasporic and the outside world's views of and policies towards the SDM, but also its view of the outside world and, in turn, its course of action. In sum, the flow of objects and images--as things with meaning and as commodities--is, like diaspora and new media, an important mechanism by which the global and local interact. The paper outlines one route for analysis and indicates possible themes for further research, drawing on empirical data from the author's study of SDMs in Burma.     

China's booming livestock industry: household income, specialization, and exit

China's production of livestock products has generally kept pace with her rapidly increasing demand. Over-supply and market corrections for various livestock products took place over the latter part of the 1990s and large numbers of householders exited this type of production. Using household survey data, we estimate the relationship between a household's specialization in livestock production and household net income in 1995, and use a logit model to explore some predictors of household exit from livestock production over the following decade of market instability. We conclude that specialist livestock households with access to necessary skills, technologies, and markets increase their incomes from further livestock specialization in the base year, whereas those to whom livestock production is relatively unimportant can increase household incomes by diverting their resources away from animal husbandry. It was specialist rather than diversified livestock households that tended to bear the brunt of the adjustment to unfavorable price movements over the decade post-1995. Policy concerns include the exit of larger-scale specialized producers who tended to earn relatively high household incomes in 1995, barriers to the effective formation and operation of horizontal and vertical integration options to help mitigate market instability, the further development of insurance programs and markets for livestock producers, and development assistance to livestock households that for various reasons cannot increase scale and specialization.