Freshco, a small producer and distributor of hybrid maize seed and macadamia seedlings, was one of the first private companies to enter the Kenya seed market after its liberalization. Currently, the company produces and markets six high yielding maize varieties that are suited for diverse...

Information Communication Technology (ICT)

Smallholder farmers’ access to markets has traditionally been constrained by lack of market information. The need to facilitate farmers’ access to markets has seen the emergence of many projects that employ electronic tools in the provision of market information services (MIS). This study...

Kazakhstan?s agricultural sector plays an important role in the country'seconomy. Not only does it function as an economic output producer, it alsoserves as a social buffer in times of transition to a market economy. Therestructuring process had a strong impact on the economic performance...

The interconnections of agriculture and energy markets have increased through the rise in the new biofuel agribusinesses and the oil–ethanol–corn linkages. The question is whether these linkages have a causal structure by which oil prices affect commodity prices and through these links,...

In this study, the structure of the South African wheat market is analysed using economic theory and econometric modelling techniques. The developed model is used to make baseline projections regarding the supply and use of wheat in South Africa and to analyse the impacts of various policy...

A spatial price equilibrium (SPE) model of the world sugar market is programmed. The model coversmore than hundred regions and contains sugar in as a sole product. It has a detailed coverage ofpolicies and bilateral trade agreements. It is programmed as a mixed complementarity problem(MCP) in...

This article tests the efficiency of the hog options market and assesses the impact of the 1996 contract redesign on efficiency. We find that the hog options market is efficient, but some options yielded excess returns during the live hogs period but not during the lean hogs period. Our findings...

Regarding the nature of yield data, there are two basic characteristics that needs to be accommodated while we are about to model a yield distribution. The first one is the nonstationary nature of the yield distribution, which causes the heteroscedasticity related problems. The second one is the...

Options on agricultural futures are popular financial instruments used for agricultural price risk management and to speculate on future price movements. Poor performance of Black’s classical option pricing model has stimulated many researchers to introduce pricing models that are more...