While there are ample empirical studies that claim the potential disincentive effects of sharecropping arrangements, the existing literature is shallow in explaining why share tenancy contracts are prevalent and diffusing in many developing countries. Using a unique tenant-landlord matched...

Almost two decades have passed since China first enacted legislation to protect farmland from conversion to nonagricultural use. Yet hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land are still developed to urban area each year, raising the question of whether the legislation is effective in...

There is growing interest within the climate change and development community in using seasonal forecast information to reduce the losses to agriculture resulting from climate variability, especially within food-insecure countries. However, forecast systems are expensive to establish and...

Land degradation and soil erosion have emerged as serious challenges to smallholder farmers throughout southern Africa. To combat these challenges, conservation agriculture (CA) is widely promoted as a sustainable package of agricultural practices. Despite the many potential benefits of CA,...

Vietnam is likely to be among the countries hardest hit by climate change, threatening its legacy as a champion in leveraging agriculture for development. This paper examines how a changing climate may affect rice production and how Vietnamese farmers are likely to adapt to various climatic...

This report summarizes the data collected from a survey of government and nongovernment extension service providers (GSPs and non-GSPs, respectively) in 15 sample districts in Malawi. Together with the recently published report that looks at farmers’ perspective, this report is aimed for use...

This study investigates the impact of contract farming (CF) in baby corn production on yield, irrigation costs, fertilizer costs and usage of chemical fertilizer. We find that adoption of CF by baby corn smallholders, after controlling for characteristics of both control and treatment groups,...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is approaching eight years of implementation. Since 2006, it has offered up to 100 days per year of guaranteed public works employment to tens of millions of rural Indian households. It is intended to augment the purchasing power...

This paper examines closely the constraints in productivity improvements and evaluates available rice technologies looking at the heterogeneity of irrigated and rainfed ecologies in 10 regions in Ghana. Employing yield response models, profitability analysis, and adoption models, results show...

Adoption of productivity and income-enhancing agricultural technologies is conspicuously low in Africa south of the Sahara. Farmers' beliefs regarding the authenticity of agricultural inputs are important for explaining technology adoption: if farmers do not believe that inputs are genuine, they...