An analysis of crop choice: Adapting to climate change in South American farms

This paper explores how South American farmers adapt to climate by changing crops. We develop a multinomial logit model of farmer's choice of crops. Estimating the model across 949 farmers in seven countries, we find that both temperature and precipitation affect the crops that South American farmers choose. Farmers choose fruits and vegetables in warmer locations and wheat and potatoes in cooler locations. Farms in wetter locations are more likely to grow rice, fruits, potatoes, and squash and in dryer locations maize and wheat. Global warming will cause South American farmers to switch away from maize, wheat, and potatoes towards squash, fruits and vegetables. Predictions of the impact of climate change on net revenue must reflect not only changes in yields per crop but also crop switching.     

Effects of agricultural market policy on crop production in China

This paper investigates the effects of Chinese market policy on crop production in the reform process. After a brief review of the policy changes due to the reform, the theoretical significance of Chinese market policies for crop production is demonstrated diagrammatically. It is shown that under the current market system the production of main crops is significantly influenced by both market and quota prices. While relatively high quota reduces the influence of market prices on production, relative price changes between competing crops will lead to shifting farmers’ cultivation preferences if inputs are constant. Empirical analysis, based on cross-section data for the period 1985–1997 from the province of Zhejiang, confirms these hypotheses. The effects of policy variables, however, prove to be crop-specific. If the potential of crop production in China is to be better used, an even more market-oriented agricultural policy is required.     

Vulnerability to stunting in the West African Sahel

This paper presents a simple simulation framework for understanding and analyzing vulnerability to stunting. We utilize Demographic and Health Surveys merged with satellite data on climatic shocks. Children aged 0–5 years are grouped into three categories: consistently stunted, vulnerable, and non-vulnerable. The first group constitutes those who are stunted and will also be stunted in any hypothetical period. Non-vulnerable are those whose likelihood to be stunted is zero. The vulnerable face a probability between 0 and 1 of being stunted. The probability is calculated as the share of years in which the child would be stunted, given the village level distribution of weather shocks over the period 2000–2013. We provide estimates of vulnerability to stunting in Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Mali, Northern Nigeria, and Senegal by aggregating over villages, districts and countries.     

New perspectives on farm size and productivity

The farm size and productivity debate has been limited by the focus on land or labor productivity, generally showing respective productivity advantages to smaller or larger sized farms. Our purpose is to provide new perspectives on the debate by bringing together evidence from a set of novel case studies in both rich and poor countries. Common to them are the adoption of total factor productivity (TFP) as the comparative performance measure, and the reliance on panels of farm micro data. The present article presents a synthesis of findings from five case studies in (i) Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda; (ii) Bangladesh; (iii) Brazil; (iv) Australia; and (v) the United States. The preponderance of evidence from these studies suggests that there is no single economically optimal agrarian structure; rather, it appears to evolve with the stage of economic development. Certain farm sizes face relative productivity advantages, such as small farms in Africa. But with economic and market growth, that smallholder advantage will likely attenuate, moving toward constant and eventually increasing returns to size. Yet, importantly, small farms may be quite dynamic, and need not be a drag on agricultural growth until perhaps well into the development process.     

Are USDA reports still news to changing crop markets?

This study investigates whether major USDA reports still provide important news to changing crop markets. The news component of each report, or market “surprise,” is measured as a difference between the USDA estimate and its private expectation in corn, soybeans, and wheat markets. Changes in the relevance of USDA information are assessed by examining changes in the magnitude of market surprises and shifts in the futures price reaction to these surprises, which isolates the impact of each report. The stable size of market surprises over time suggests that competition from alternative data sources has not reduced the news component of USDA crop reports. Increasing price reaction to most reports, including those facing competition from alternative information sources, suggests that value of public information may be enhanced in uncertain markets affected by structural changes.     

U.S. Crop Farmers' Use of Market Advisory Services

Abstract

This study reports that Market Advisory Services (MAS) are used by about 82% of commercial U.S. crop producers, based on the results of a recent survey. Only 43% of MAS users rely on a single service, while the other 57% subscribe to multiple services. MAS users' profiles in terms of their (1) demographic characteristics, (2) risk attitude, and (3) marketing behavior are presented. The results indicate that MAS users can be differentiated based on their location and use of computers, though not on age and farm size. MAS users are shown to be significantly more risk seeking than non-users. Furthermore, MAS users apply significantly more forward-pricing techniques, but are no different from non-users in terms of marketing frequency.     

Modern variety adoption and risk management in drought prone areas: insights from the sorghum farmers of eastern Ethiopia

Adoption rates of improved or modern varieties (MV) of sorghum in eastern Ethiopia are generally low. Although these MV may represent an effective means of coping with droughts, given their early maturing traits, landraces could prove to be more drought‐tolerant and better adapted to marginal production conditions. Whether MV adoption is a risk reducing technology is very much an empirical question which this article investigates using a unique dataset from eastern Ethiopia in a year of extreme weather conditions. Results show that risk‐factors coupled with access to markets and social capital drive farmers’ decisions to adopt MVs. On the one hand, it appears that farmers use MVs to mitigate moderate risks. On the other hand, farmers who have been most vulnerable to extreme weather events are less likely to use MVs suggesting that MV adoption does not necessarily represent an effective means of coping with drought. Finally, findings show that MV growers are more likely to be affected by sorghum failure once controlling for exogenous production factors.     

Agrobiodiversity,farm profits and land fragmentation: Evidence from Bulgaria

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the role of land fragmentation, crop biodiversity and their interplay with farm profitability. Original primary data are drawn from a survey conducted in the Plodiv region of Bulgaria. The econometric results stress the ambiguous role of land fragmentation on farm profitability. On one hand, land fragmentation reduces farm profitability. On the other hand, land fragmentation fosters crop diversification. We also find that crop biodiversity plays a beneficial role in farm profitability. Policies that aim to increase land consolidation and reduce fragmentation may overlook the positive link between diversity and plot heterogeneity. Policies that encourage land consolidation should, therefore, consider the crucial role that this has on other variables such as farm biodiversity.     

The effects of climatic variation on rice production in Sri Lanka

We study the responsiveness of rice production to climatic variation using a recent pseudo-panel data set from Sri Lanka. Output per farm is modelled as a non-linear function of temperature and rainfall (and other standard controls) using fixed effects regressions. We find that both climatic variables have concave, non-monotonic effects upon production, and that output is close to maximized at current climatic values. This implies that variations in growing conditions are likely to have negative effects upon production. Random simulations are used to model these impacts under various climate change scenarios, and we find that increasing temperatures will adversely affect rice production much more than varying rainfall, although the effects of a small ceteris paribus rise in temperature are positive. As rice production is a key component in economic output for Sri Lanka and other developing countries, our results have implications for food policy and poverty management in the future.