African governments and international development groups see boosting productivity on smallholder farms as key to reducing rural poverty and safeguarding the food security of farming and non-farming households. Prompting smallholder farmers to use more fertilizer has been a key tactic. Closing...

Inorganic fertilizer use across Sub-Saharan Africa is generally considered to be low. Yet, this belief is predicated on the assumption that it is profitable to use rates higher than currently observed. However, there is little rigorous empirical evidence to support this notion. Using a...

The 2007-2008 global food crisis has renewed interest in post-harvest loss, but estimates remain scarce, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper uses self-reported measures from nationally representative household surveys in Malawi, Uganda, and Tanzania. Overall, on-farm post-harvest loss...

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the degree of co-movement among the nominal price returns of 11 major energy, agricultural and food commodities based on monthly data between 1970 and 2013. A uniform-spacings testing approach, a multivariate dynamic conditional correlation model...

This paper uses farm panel data from Indonesia to examine dynamic patterns of land use, capital investments, and wages in agriculture. The empirical analysis shows that an increase in real wages has induced the substitution of labor by machines among relatively large farmers. Large farmers tend...

Private sugar processors in Andhra Pradesh, India use an unusual form of vertical coordination. They issue'permits'to selected cane growers a few weeks before harvest. These permits specify the amount of cane to be delivered during a narrow time period. This article investigates why processors...