Since the late 1980s, technological advances and policy reforms have opened up new opportunities for growth in India's seed and agricultural biotechnology industries. The impacts of such changes have been significant in India's cotton sector, but less so for the country's main cereal crops,...

The rapid expansion of hybrid rice cultivation in China has contributed significantly to improving food security in the country since the 1980s. However, few other Asian countries have seen similar expansions in hybrid rice cultivation or the associated yield and output gains. This paper...

Efforts to unlock the genetic potential of both rice and fish, when combined with efforts to improve the management of rice-fish systems, have considerable proven potential for increasing agricultural productivity and food security. In Bangladesh, estimates suggest that the country’s potential...

The genetic improvement of food staple crops cultivated by small-scale farmers is a well-established route to increasing agricultural productivity and improving rural livelihoods. But in developing countries where seed markets are commercially active or advancing in that direction, undue...

In many developing countries, agricultural extension services are generally biased towards men, with information targeted mainly to male members of a farming household and in formats that are rarely tailored to female members. Nevertheless, female farmers may also benefit from such services as...

Despite a rapidly growing enthusiasm around applications of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to smallholder agriculture in developing countries, there are still many questions on the effectiveness of ICT-based approaches. This study assesses the effects of videomediated...

Agricultural advisory services generally rely on interpersonal knowledge transfers in which agricultural extension agents visit farmers individually or in groups to provide information and advice. This approach is not always effective and has often proved hard to bring to scale, particularly in...

Can more vigorous political competition significantly raise rural land values, or contribute to more robust land rental markets? Exploiting exogenous variation in the national popularity of Pakistan’s political parties during the 2008 elections, we show that provincial assembly constituencies...