Accounting for the Gender Technology Gap Amongst Smallholder Rice Farmers in Northern Ghana

Narrowing the gender technology gap in agricultural production has become a critical policy issue in sub‐Saharan Africa. A better understanding of the gender technology gap is essential for policy formulation and programme planning to ensure equity in resource allocation, and household‐level food security in low and middle income countries, such as Ghana. We employ a metafrontier approach to analyse the differences in the efficiency of male and female farmers, recognising the endogeneity of some of the variables in the inefficiency effects model, in particular the credit constraints of the rice farmers under study. Our findings show that while the rice farms themselves are very similar, average yields for male managed farms tend to be significantly higher than female managed farms reflecting higher seeding and fertiliser application rates on male managed farms. However, there is no significant difference between the genders in either land used for rice or total output per farm household. We find some evidence that relative to the metafrontier, male managed farms are less efficient than female managed farms. The results further show gender technology gap amongst the smallholder rice farmers with females’ technology gap ratio being significantly greater than that of males, with females operating on a production frontier closer to the metafrontier. Policies that provide females more access to productive resources and other agricultural services could assist in the generation of relatively higher output.     

四川省水稻产投特征变迁及技术进步对单产的影响

[目的]了解四川水稻产投特征和技术进步对单产的影响,促进水稻可持续生产。[方法]分析了改革开放以来四川省水稻产投特征和技术特征变动,并基于索洛余值法测算了1980~2015年四川省科技进步对水稻单产的贡献情况。[结果](1)全省水稻单产水平及物质与服务费用投入均呈现波动增长趋势,人工投入逐年递减,但人工成本在生产成本中的比重较大;(2)四川省水稻品种选育、栽培管理技术、推广技术、稻作经营方式和农业政策不断变迁,更适应当前以普通家庭生产和新型经营主体共同发展的局面对技术的需求;(3)整体来看,近36年技术进步对四川省水稻单产水平提高的贡献率较低,生产经营较为粗放;(4)分时期看,2005年前,技术进步对全省水稻单产水平提高的贡献率较高,但之后尤其是近5年,技术进步并未对水稻单产水平提高产生影响,要素投入是水稻单产水平提升的主要因素。[结论]提出了加强科技研发及投入水平、"一主多元"联合推广、生产管理技术培训和丘区节本增效生产的政策建议。     

System of crop intensification for more productive,resource-conserving,climate-resilient,and sustainable agriculture: experience with diverse crops in varying agroecologies

With continually increasing demand for food accompanied by the constraints of climate change and the availability and quality of soil and water, the world’s farmers are challenged to produce more food per hectare with less water, and with fewer agrochemical inputs if possible. The ideas and methods of the system of rice intensification which is improving irrigated rice production are now being extended/adapted to many other crops: wheat, maize, finger millet, sugarcane, tef, mustard, legumes, vegetables, and even spices. Promoting better root growth and enhancing the soil’s fertility with organic materials are being found effective means for raising the yields of many crop plants with less water, less fertilizer, reduced seeds, fewer agrochemicals, and greater climate resilience. In this article, we review what is becoming known about various farmer-centred innovations for agroecological crop management that can contribute to agricultural sustainability. These changes represent the emerging system of crop intensification, which is being increasingly applied in Asian, African, and Latin American countries. More research will be needed to verify the efficacy and impact of these innovations and to clarify their conditions and limits. But as no negative effects for human or environmental health have been identified, making these agronomic options more widely known should prompt more investigation and, to the extent justified by results, utilization of these methodologies.     

Influence of livelihoods on climate change adaptation for smallholder farmers in the Mekong Delta Vietnam

Farmers in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta face a wide range of climate-related and hydrological factors which threaten rice production. Smallholder farmers must adapt to climate change to sustain rice production as their central and most important livelihood activity. A sample was stratified across agro-ecological areas in the Delta affected by flooding, alluvial soils, acid sulphate soils, and saline water intrusion and by derived farmer typologies. A rural livelihoods approach was used in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to identify and enumerate enabling and constraining adaptation factors. Smallholders experienced diverse natural hazards such as floods, abnormal rains, high temperatures, water scarcity, and salinity intrusion specific to the agro-ecological areas. Adaptation was constrained by labour shortages, water quality, topography, access to combine harvesters, transportation infrastructure, dryers and household savings. Adaptation was enabled by farming techniques and experience, cooperative groups, water quantity, access to information, and ability to purchase agro-chemicals through credit. Small farmers (< 1?ha) were more constrained than large farmers (> 1?ha) who had an expanded livelihood asset base. A range of policy implications are discussed, but adaptation is not just about technological fixes but requires overall improvements in a range of human, social and financial components.     

China feels the heat: negative impacts of high temperatures on China's rice sector

We analysed a county‐level data set of single‐season rice yield and daily weather outcomes in China to examine the effects of temperature on China's rice sector. We found that rice yield exhibited highly nonlinear responses to temperature changes: rice yield increased with temperature up to 28°C and decreased sharply with higher temperatures. Holding current growing seasons and regions constant, average rice yield in China is projected to decrease by 10–19 per cent by 2050 and 11–33 per cent by 2070 due to future warming under the global climate models HadGEM2‐ES and NorESM1‐M. These results imply that future warming poses a major challenge for Chinese rice farmers and that the effectiveness of adaptations will depend on how well they reduce the negative temperature impacts on rice yield because of very hot days.     

Is fertiliser use inconsistent with expected profit maximization in sub‐Saharan Africa? “Evidence from Nigeria”

This article revisits a conventional wisdom that inorganic fertiliser use across sub‐Saharan Africa is too low. This expectation that more farmers should be using inorganic fertiliser, and at higher rates, implies it is profitable to use rates higher than observed if farmers are rational expected profit maximisers. We obtain consistent estimates of the effects of applied nitrogen on rice production. We find the yield response to applied nitrogen to be low in the main rice growing farming system. Farmer behaviour is not inconsistent with expected profitability which is limited by a low yield response to applied fertiliser, high transportation costs, and low selling prices for rice in rural areas. In particular, we do not find any farmers for whom applied nitrogen is profitable that are not using fertiliser in the study sample for each of our survey years (2010 and 2012).     

Trends in Approval Times for Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States and the European Union

Genetically engineered (GE) crops are subject to regulatory oversight to ensure their safety for humans and the environment. Their approval in the European Union (EU) starts with an application in a given Member State followed by a scientific risk assessment, and ends with a political decision‐making step (risk management). In the United States (US) approval begins with a scientific (field trial) step and ends with a ‘bureaucratic’ decision‐making step. We investigate trends for the time taken for these steps and the overall time taken for approving GE crops in the US and the EU. Our results show that from 1996–2015 the overall time trend for approval in the EU decreased and then flattened off, with an overall mean completion‐time of 1,763 days. In the US in 1998 there was a break in the trend of the overall approval time. Initially, from 1988 until 1997 the trend decreased with a mean approval time of 1,321 days; from 1998–2015, the trend almost stagnated with a mean approval time of 2,467 days.     

The Costs of Coexistence Measures for Genetically Modified Maize in Germany

We estimate the perceived costs of legal requirements (‘coexistence measures’) for growing genetically modified (GM) Bt maize in Germany using a choice experiment. The costs of the evaluated ex‐ante and ex‐post coexistence measures range from zero to more than €300 per measure and most are greater than the extra revenue the farmers in our survey expect from growing Bt maize or than estimates in the literature. The cost estimates for temporal separation, the highest in our evaluation, imply that the exclusion of this measure in Germany is justified. The costliest measures of the ones that are currently applied in Germany are joint and strict liability for all damages. Our results further show that neighbours do not cause a problem and opportunities for reducing costs through agreements with them exist. Finally, we find that farmers’ attitudes towards GM crops affect the probability of adoption of Bt maize. Our results imply that strict liability will deter the cultivation of Bt maize in Germany unless liability issues can be addressed through other means, for example, through neighbours agreements.     

社会经济及气象因素对水稻产量的影响研究——以三江平原为例

[目的]系统分析三江平原水稻产量的影响因素,对指导三江平原农业生产和耕地保护及减少未来粮食安全风险具有现实意义。[方法]文章利用1988—2018年三江平原水稻产量、气象观测和社会经济数据,结合利用经济学模型——柯布-道格拉斯生产函数和统计学方法 Lasso回归模型,分别分析社会经济因素和自然因素对三江平原水稻产量的影响。[结果]（1）在社会经济因素方面,单位面积农村用电量和农业科研经费投入的单位面积增产效应比较明显,单位面积劳动力投入和化肥施用量对水稻产量具有负效应。（2）在自然因素方面,生长季内平均最低气温和平均日照时数对水稻产量有正向影响,生长季内总降水量和平均日相对湿度对水稻产量有负向影响。[结论]为水稻生产提供政策建议：可以通过合理施肥、加大机械化和农业科技创新的投入来提升水稻产量。同时,适当人工增加光照时间和加强冻害防治对提高水稻产量也具有重要意义。     

浅谈改性乳化沥青的道路养护应用

改性乳化沥青在高等级路面已经普遍使用,结合实际介绍了改性乳化沥青及其应用,以及乳化剂、改性剂种类及选择时影响因素。