Inefficient performance of irrigation systems not only leads to a waste of water resources, but may also affect agriculture production, especially in regions facing a water stress problem. In rural China, only 40% of the water allocated to irrigation is effectively used, a figure much lower than...

Paper replaced with revised version 06/03/08

Studies of total factor productivity in livestock production are rare, but when available provide useful information especially in the context of developing countries such as China where livestock is becoming more important in the domestic agricultural economy. We estimate total factor...

The overall goal of our paper is to understand how WTO will affect the agriculture sector in China. To accomplish this goal we have two specific objectives. First, we seek to provide measures of the distortions in China’'s agricultural sector at a time immediately prior to the nation’s...

Recent research on climate change, within the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, has shown the vulnerability of groundwater resources to climate change and variability. In Senegal, agriculture is among the most important users of groundwater resources, especially in the northern coastal area called...

Recent research on climate change, within the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, has shown the vulnerability of groundwater resources to climate change and variability. In Senegal, agriculture is among the most important users of groundwater resources, especially in the northern coastal area called...

In the face of growing management problems and conflicts over increasing demands and dwindling or increasingly variable supplies of surface and groundwater, the need for revising the conventional water resource allocation methods has been increasingly felt among natural resource managers and...

This paper demonstrates a method for reconstructing flexible form production functions using minimal disaggregated data sets. The policy focus of our approach puts emphasis on the ability of the model to reproduce the existing production system and predict the disaggregate outcomes of policy...

This paper demonstrates a robust method for achieving disaggregation in the estimation of flexible-form farm-level multi-input production functions using minimally-specified data sets. Since our ultimate goal is to address important questions related to the distributional effects of policy...

The Government of India had launched the National Biofuel Mission in the year 2003 as an initiative to limitthe country’s dependence on crude oil imports. An integral part of this mission is the Biodiesel Blendingprogram and Jatropha, a tree-borne biodiesel yielding crop, is the cornerstone of...