Biodiversity measurement is necessary to evaluate conservation alternatives and understand how to maximize biodiversity returns on conservation budgets. In the economics literature, most studies focus on species level diversity. Existing measures based on species' pairwise genetic differences do...

Four broad types of studies on rural development and bioenergy technologies are identified. Within these four types, this discussion paper presents a number of existing studies which are most relevant in the context of developing a research focus on the role, feasibility and issues associated...

The effect of voluntary health insurance on preventive health has received limited research attention in developing countries, even when they suffer immensely from easily preventable illnesses. This paper surveys households in rural south-western Uganda, which are geographically serviced by a...

Seasonal variations in agriculture is a major contributor to undernutrition in many agrarian economies. While recent studies have highlighted the role of markets in improving nutrition, the relative importance of markets in smoothing food consumption across seasons remains largely unexamined....

The various calculations of the impacts of biofuel production on the mid-term projections of food and agricultural commodity prices are difficult to reconcile. This is largely due to the intricate set of assumptions, the differences in the baseline scenario and in the projection horizon they are...

Biodiversity measurement is necessary to evaluate conservation alternatives and understand how to maximize biodiversity returns on conservation budgets. In the economics literature, most studies focus on species level diversity. Existing measures based on species' pairwise genetic differences do...

Healthy soils are essential for sustaining economies and human livelihoods. In spite of this, the key ecosystem services provided by soils have usually been taken for granted and their true value - beyond market value - is being underrated. This pattern of undervaluation of soils is about to...

In this paper, we review existing food and nutrition security indicators, discuss some of their advantages and disadvantages, and finally classify them and describe their relationships and overlaps. In order to achieve this, the paper makes reference to the existing definitions of food and...

West African farmers are among those most likely to suffer from climate change, partly due to the agro-climatic characteristics of the regional system and to their limited scope for coping with shocks. Climate change adaptation has thus been touted as a necessary path for rural poverty reduction...