Social networks play an important role in generating learning externalities that can drive the diffusion of innovative, and potentially poverty-reducing, technologies. This is particularly the case in developing countries where rural education, extension, and agricultural information services...

Efficient information exchanges between sellers and buyers are essential if prices are to act as a signal for resource allocation in an economy. In the case of seed and planting materials, information on quality traits are often difficult for consumers (farmers) to obtain prior to purchase,...

Irrigation is central to Pakistan’s agriculture; and managing the country’s canal, ground, and surface water resources in a more efficient, equitable, and sustainable way will be crucial to meeting agricultural production challenges, including increasing agricultural productivity...

Two current processes of institutional reform - irrigation management transfer (IMT) and the 18th Amendment to Pakistan's Constitution - are expected to significantly impact agriculture and irrigation in Pakistan. Results are analyzed from a net-map exercise conducted with water-sector experts...

This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region’s agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by...

Ethiopian agriculture is changing as new actors, relationships, and policies influence the ways in which small-scale, resource-poor farmers access and use information and knowledge in their agricultural production decisions. Although these changes suggest new opportunities for smallholders, too...

Public–private partnerships are a potentially important means of conducting pro-poor agricultural research in many developing countries. Yet within the international agricultural research sector, there are few examples of successful collaboration that have contributed to food security, poverty...

This paper examines the role of postsecondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of the region's agricultural innovation systems. Specifically, the paper looks at how AET in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening...

The paper presents a model developed to examine the effects of industry concentration on market power and cost efficiency in the seed industry. In addition, the paper presents preliminary measures of the relative strengths of these effects for the case of the U.S. corn seed industry over the...

Over the past four decades, decision-makers in Ethiopia have pursued a range of policies and investments to boost agricultural production and productivity, particularly with respect to the food staple crops that are critical to reducing poverty in the country. A central aim of this process has...