Labor (mis?)measurement in agriculture

Labor (mis?)measurement in agriculture PDF Author: Ambler, Kate
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Livelihoods are changing rapidly in rural areas. Measuring and categorizing peoples’ labor activities in relation to the agricultural sector is important for understanding income earning opportunities and designing effective policy. Conventional data collection methods ask about individuals’ main work activities over the past year. Descriptions are recorded in the field, postcoded, and eventually categorized. This approach is costly to collect, fatiguing for respondents, and may create distortions. We show that a more direct approach, asking respondents to categorize their major work activities themselves, provides similar resulting data despite some caveats and lessons for best enumeration practices. We compare these main activities to a series of yes/no questions about participation in a set of specific work tasks. We find a 12% incidence of “missing” work, whereby individuals who reported participation in at least one but did not have any recorded major activities. Looking by sector of work, women and youth are disproportionately more likely to have agricultural contributions “missed,” while we find no corresponding bias in undercounting of non-agricultural work. Finally, we test the effect of randomly positioning the task-based questions before the listing of major activities but do not find significant effects on the number or type of activities reported.

Labor (mis?)measurement in agriculture

Labor (mis?)measurement in agriculture PDF Author: Ambler, Kate
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Livelihoods are changing rapidly in rural areas. Measuring and categorizing peoples’ labor activities in relation to the agricultural sector is important for understanding income earning opportunities and designing effective policy. Conventional data collection methods ask about individuals’ main work activities over the past year. Descriptions are recorded in the field, postcoded, and eventually categorized. This approach is costly to collect, fatiguing for respondents, and may create distortions. We show that a more direct approach, asking respondents to categorize their major work activities themselves, provides similar resulting data despite some caveats and lessons for best enumeration practices. We compare these main activities to a series of yes/no questions about participation in a set of specific work tasks. We find a 12% incidence of “missing” work, whereby individuals who reported participation in at least one but did not have any recorded major activities. Looking by sector of work, women and youth are disproportionately more likely to have agricultural contributions “missed,” while we find no corresponding bias in undercounting of non-agricultural work. Finally, we test the effect of randomly positioning the task-based questions before the listing of major activities but do not find significant effects on the number or type of activities reported.

Harvesting Prosperity

Harvesting Prosperity PDF Author: Keith Fuglie
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9781464813931
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book documents frontier knowledge on the drivers of agriculture productivity to derive pragmatic policy advice for governments and development partners on reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The analysis describes global trends and long-term sources of total factor productivity growth, along with broad trends in partial factor productivity for land and labor, revisiting the question of scale economies in farming. Technology is central to growth in agricultural productivity, yet across many parts of the developing world, readily available technology is never taken up. We investigate demand-side constraints of the technology equation to analyze factors that might influence producers, particularly poor producers, to adopt modern technology. Agriculture and food systems are rapidly transforming, characterized by shifting food preferences, the rise and growing sophistication of value chains, the increasing globalization of agriculture, and the expanding role of the public and private sectors in bringing about efficient and more rapid productivity growth. In light of this transformation, the analysis focuses on the supply side of the technology equation, exploring how the enabling environment and regulations related to trade and intellectual property rights stimulate Research and Development to raise productivity. The book also discusses emerging developments in modern value chains that contribute to rising productivity. This book is the fourth volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers.

Household Structure and Labor Demand in Agriculture

Household Structure and Labor Demand in Agriculture PDF Author: Audra J. Bowlus
Publisher: London : Department of Economics, University of Western Ontario.
ISBN:
Category : Agricultural laborers
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description


Evaluating the adoption and impacts of agricultural technologies

Evaluating the adoption and impacts of agricultural technologies PDF Author: Francisco Areal
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2832541283
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description


Harvesting Prosperity

Harvesting Prosperity PDF Author: Keith Fuglie
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464814295
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Back cover blurbRising agricultural productivity has driven improvements in living standards for millennia. Today, redoubling that effort in developing countries is critical to reducing extreme poverty, ensuring food security for an increasing global population, and adapting to changes in climate. This volume presents fresh analysis on global trends and sources of productivity growth in agriculture and offers new perspectives on the drivers of that growth. It argues that gains from the reallocation of land and labor are not as promising as believed, so policy needs to focus more on the generation and dissemination of new technologies, which requires stepping up national research efforts. Yet, in many of the poorest nations, a serious research spending gap has emerged precisely at the time when the challenges faced by agriculture are intensifying. The book focuses on how this problem can be redressed in the public sector, as well as on reforms aimed at mobilizing new private sector actors and value chains, particularly creating a better enabling environment, reforming trade regulations, introducing new products, and strengthening intellectual property rights. On the demand side, the book examines what recent research reveals about policies to reduce the barriers impeding smallholder farmers from adopting new technologies.Harvesting Prosperity is the fourth volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers.“As rightly argued by the authors, growth in agricultural productivity is the essential instrument to promote development in low-income agriculture-based countries. Achieving this requires research and development, upgrading of universities, reinforcement of farmer capacities, removal of constraints to adoption, and the development of inclusive value chains with interlinked contracts. As important, such efforts also need to be placed within a context of comprehensive agricultural, rural, and structural transformations. However, in many countries implementation of the requisite policies has been lagging. This book, with contributions from many top experts in the field, provides the most up-to-date presentation of this argument and explains in detail how to successfully put its ideas into practice. Governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations need to study it carefully to turn the promise of agriculture for development into a reality.“ Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet Professors of the Graduate School, University of California at Berkeley

Agriculture in Africa

Agriculture in Africa PDF Author: Luc Christiaensen
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464811377
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Stylized facts set agendas and shape debates. In rapidly changing and data scarce environments, they also risk being ill-informed, outdated and misleading. So, following higher food prices since the 2008 world food crisis, robust economic growth and rapid urbanization, and climatic change, is conventional wisdom about African agriculture and rural livelihoods still accurate? Or is it more akin to myth than fact?The essays in “Agriculture in Africa – Telling Myths from Facts” aim to set the record straight. They exploit newly gathered, nationally representative, geo-referenced information at the household and plot level, from six African countries. In these new Living Standard Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture, every aspect of farming and non-farming life is queried—from the plots farmers cultivate, the crops they grow, the harvest that is achieved, and the inputs they use, to all the other sources of income they rely on and the risks they face. Together the surveys cover more than 40 percent of the Sub-Saharan African population.In all, sixteen conventional wisdoms are examined, relating to four themes: the extent of farmer’s engagement in input, factor and product markets; the role of off-farm activities; the technology and farming systems used; and the risk environment farmers face. Some striking surprises, in true myth-busting fashion, emerge. And a number of new issues are also thrown up. The studies bring a more refined, empirically grounded understanding of the complex reality of African agriculture. They also confirm that investing in regular, nationally representative data collection yields high social returns.

Reader's Guide to Women's Studies

Reader's Guide to Women's Studies PDF Author: Eleanor Amico
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135314047
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 1279

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Book Description
The Reader's Guide to Women's Studies is a searching and analytical description of the most prominent and influential works written in the now universal field of women's studies. Some 200 scholars have contributed to the project which adopts a multi-layered approach allowing for comprehensive treatment of its subject matter. Entries range from very broad themes such as "Health: General Works" to entries on specific individuals or more focused topics such as "Doctors."

Equality for Women

Equality for Women PDF Author: Mayra Buvinic
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821374478
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Upon signing the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the international community committed itself to eight development goals with timebound targets and measurable indicators. The third of these eight goals was to 'promote gender equality and empower women'. The third Millennium Development Goal (MDG3) in the Millennium Declaration has spurred national and international efforts to improve women's situation around the globe. 'Equality for Women: Where Do We Stand on Millennium Goal 3?' tracks countries' progress with implementing and financing MDG3 by examining national experiences and successes with policies and programs. It also contains an assessment of the effectiveness of different strategies in achieving MDG3 and the financial requirements needed to attain MDG3 by 2015. 'Equality for Women' will be useful for gender analysts, policy makers, government officials, and others working to promote gender mainstreaming.

Food data collection in Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys. Guidelines for low and middle income countries

Food data collection in Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys. Guidelines for low and middle income countries PDF Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 9251309809
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
The measurement of food consumption and expenditure is a fundamental component of any analysis of poverty and food security, and hence the importance and timeliness of devoting attention to the topic cannot be overemphasized as the international development community confronts the challenges of monitoring progress in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In 2014, the International Household Survey Network published a desk review of the reliability and relevance of survey questions as included in 100 household surveys from low- and middle-income countries. The report was presented in March 2014 at the forty-fifth session of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), in a seminar organized by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Food Security, Agricultural and Rural Statistics (IAEG-AG). The assessment painted a bleak picture in terms of heterogeneity in survey design and overall relevance and reliability of the data being collected. On the positive side, it pointed to many areas in which even marginal changes to survey and questionnaire design could lead to a significant increase in reliability and consequently, great improvements in measurement accuracy. The report, which sparked a lot of interest from development partners and UNSC member countries, prompted IAEG-AG to pursue this area of work with the ultimate objective of developing, validating, and promoting scalable standards for the measurement of food consumption in household surveys. The work started with an expert workshop that took place in Rome in November 2014. Successive versions of the guidelines were drafted and discussed at various IAEG-AG meetings, and in another expert workshop organized in November 2016 in Rome. The guidelines were put together by a joint FAO-World Bank team, with inputs and comments received from representatives of national statistical offices, international organizations, survey practitioners, academics, and experts in different disciplines (statistics, economics, nutrition, food security, and analysis). A list of the main contributors is included in the acknowledgment section. In December 2017 a draft of the guidelines was circulated to 148 National Statistical Offices from low- to high-income countries for comments. The document was revised following that consultation and submitted to UNSC, which endorsed it at its forty-ninth session in March 2018 (under item 3(j) of the agenda, agricultural and rural statistics. The version presented here reflects what was endorsed by the Commission, edited for language. The process received support from the Global Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Statistics. The document is intended to be a reference document for National Statistical Offices, survey practitioners, and national and international agencies designing household surveys that involve the collection of food consumption and expenditure data.

World Economic Outlook

World Economic Outlook PDF Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 9781557756817
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This paper presents an outlook for the world economy for 1997–98. With world output expected to expand by some 41⁄4 percent in both 1997 and 1998, the strongest pace in a decade, the global economy is enjoying the fourth episode of relatively rapid growth since the early 1970s. The expansion is underpinned by continued solid growth with low inflation in the United States and the United Kingdom; a strengthening recovery in Canada; a broadening of recovery across continental western Europe, notwithstanding persistent weakness in domestic demand in some of the largest countries.