Do beliefs about agricultural inputs counterfeiting correspond with actual rates of counterfeiting? PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Do beliefs about agricultural inputs counterfeiting correspond with actual rates of counterfeiting? PDF full book. Access full book title Do beliefs about agricultural inputs counterfeiting correspond with actual rates of counterfeiting? by Ashour, Maha. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Ashour, Maha
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 40
Get Book Here
Book Description
Adoption of productivity- and income-enhancing agricultural technologies is conspicuously low in Africa south of the Sahara. Farmers’ beliefs regarding the authenticity of agricultural inputs are important for explaining technology adoption: if farmers do not believe that inputs are genuine, they are unlikely to invest in them. The degree of alignment between beliefs about and actual counterfeiting can help explain both the social costs of the “lemons” problem, and low rates of adoption. This is the first paper to explore whether farmer beliefs regarding counterfeiting align with actual rates of counterfeiting, and we do so across a very large geographic area serving tens of thousands of farmers in Uganda using a more precise measure of counterfeiting than many previous studies. We examine the relationship between beliefs and counterfeiting using quantitative measures of farmer beliefs regarding the authenticity of herbicide in their local market as well as a large random sample of laboratory-tested herbicide samples to measure counterfeiting rates in local markets. We report evidence of considerable counterfeiting of herbicides in local markets, with nearly one in three bottles containing less than 75 percent of the labeled concentration of active ingredient. We find evidence that farmers’ beliefs regarding the extent of counterfeiting of herbicide are significantly associated with measures of the actual prevalence of counterfeiting in local markets. These results indicate that farmers are at least partly informed about the “market for lemons” problem in local input markets. However, the results also suggest that although better informed farmers imply a lower social cost of counterfeiting, the high rate of counterfeiting and the relative accuracy of farmer information contributes to low adoption of agricultural inputs in Africa.
Author: Ashour, Maha
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 40
Get Book Here
Book Description
Adoption of productivity- and income-enhancing agricultural technologies is conspicuously low in Africa south of the Sahara. Farmers’ beliefs regarding the authenticity of agricultural inputs are important for explaining technology adoption: if farmers do not believe that inputs are genuine, they are unlikely to invest in them. The degree of alignment between beliefs about and actual counterfeiting can help explain both the social costs of the “lemons” problem, and low rates of adoption. This is the first paper to explore whether farmer beliefs regarding counterfeiting align with actual rates of counterfeiting, and we do so across a very large geographic area serving tens of thousands of farmers in Uganda using a more precise measure of counterfeiting than many previous studies. We examine the relationship between beliefs and counterfeiting using quantitative measures of farmer beliefs regarding the authenticity of herbicide in their local market as well as a large random sample of laboratory-tested herbicide samples to measure counterfeiting rates in local markets. We report evidence of considerable counterfeiting of herbicides in local markets, with nearly one in three bottles containing less than 75 percent of the labeled concentration of active ingredient. We find evidence that farmers’ beliefs regarding the extent of counterfeiting of herbicide are significantly associated with measures of the actual prevalence of counterfeiting in local markets. These results indicate that farmers are at least partly informed about the “market for lemons” problem in local input markets. However, the results also suggest that although better informed farmers imply a lower social cost of counterfeiting, the high rate of counterfeiting and the relative accuracy of farmer information contributes to low adoption of agricultural inputs in Africa.
Author: de Brauw, Alan
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 49
Get Book Here
Book Description
Adoption of high-quality yet more expensive agricultural inputs remains low, in part because most inputs are experience goods: before purchase, buyers observe only price—not quality—providing sellers with opportunities to cheat on quality. Our lab-in-the-field experiment in Bangladesh replicates markets for such inputs, with input retailers (sellers) choosing price and quality, and farmers (buyers) choosing from which seller to purchase inputs. We analyze market behavior, including buyers’ trust and sellers’ reciprocity, and study the effects of buyer-driven accreditation and loyalty rewards for accredited sellers of high-quality products. Trust and reciprocity remain low: Sellers provide mostly low-quality products, and buyers reveal low demand for more expensive, high-quality inputs. Accrediting sellers when their buyers are satisfied leads to higher input quality and more repeat purchases, but only when combined with loyalty rewards, because buyers’ quality signals are weak and do not incentivize sellers to change their behavior. We conclude that small incentives are effective at improving seller behavior, but this behavior change does not necessarily enhance quality signals and farmer welfare.
Author: Faure, Guy
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 48
Get Book Here
Book Description
Extension and advisory services (EAS) are well recognized as a key factor in contributing to agricultural productivity and growth. However, rigorous evaluation of EAS approaches and assessment of complex national or subnational pluralistic EAS systems are rare. This working paper examines the literature on experiential and empirical insights and explores methods to assess complex pluralistic EAS systems. The authors present conceptual thinking on innovation systems and EAS, and review the IFPRI “best-fit” framework. This framework remains relevant because it is based on a holistic perspective with an impact pathway orientation. The paper aims to operationalize and improve the best-fit framework to guide the evaluation of complex EAS systems. The authors draw on and summarize existing literature to illustrate methods and tools used to analyze each component of the framework. The review pays close attention to the literature and methods for assessing the diversity of service providers and their various delivery tools and learning approaches. The discussion also pays close attention to the interaction of each component and how it affects the performance and impact of EAS from a systems perspective. This paper adds key points and considerations on how to operationalize the best-fit framework to carry out evaluations of pluralistic EAS.
Author: Benin, Samuel
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 56
Get Book Here
Book Description
This paper uses panel data on 46 African countries from 2001 to 2014 to estimate the impacts of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), an agriculture-led integrated framework of development priorities in Africa, on agricultural expenditure and productivity, income, and nutrition. A difference-in-difference treatment-effects model (based on when a CAADP compact is signed and the level of CAADP implementation reached) and different estimation methods and model specifications are used. The results show that CAADP has had a positive impact on agricultural value-added and land and labor productivity. The impact on agriculture expenditure is generally negative, suggesting that there is a substitution effect between the government’s own funding and external sources of funding for the sector. The estimated impact on income and nutrition is generally insignificant. There are some puzzling results from the interaction between specific period of compact signing and level of implementation reached. Implications for maintaining the positive impacts, as well as for further research to understand the puzzling results, are discussed.
Author: Nin-Pratt, Alejandro
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 44
Get Book Here
Book Description
It has been apparent for more than a century that future economic progress in agriculture will be driven by the invention and application of new technologies resulting from expenditure in research and development (R&D) by governments and private firms. Nevertheless, it is conventional wisdom in the economic development literature that there is a significant underinvestment in agricultural R&D in developing countries. Evidence supporting this belief is provided, first by a vast literature showing returns on R&D expenditure to be so high as to justify levels of investment in multiples of those actually found, and second, from available data showing low research effort in developing countries as measured by the intensity ratio (IR), that is, the percentage of agricultural gross domestic product invested in agricultural R&D (excluding the for-profit private sector). This paper argues that the IR is an inadequate indicator to measure and compare the research efforts of a diverse group of countries and proposes an alternative index that allows meaningful comparisons between countries. The proposed index can be used to identify potential under-investors, determine intensity gaps, and quantify the R&D investment needed to close these gaps by comparing countries with similar characteristics. Results obtained using the new R&D intensity indicator with a sample of 88 countries show that the investment effort in developing countries is much higher than the one observed using the conventional IR measure. The new measure finds that countries like China, India, Brazil, and Kenya have similar levels of R&D intensity to those in the United States. To close the R&D intensity gap measured by the new index, developing countries will need to invest US$7.1 billion on top of the $21.4 billion invested on average during 2008–2011, an increase of 33 percent of total actual investment.
Author: Wang, Xinxin
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 32
Get Book Here
Book Description
Demographic transition due to population aging is an emerging trend throughout the developing world, and it is especially acute in China, which has undergone demographic transition more rapidly than have most industrial economies. This paper quantifies the distributional effects in the context of demographic transition using an integrated recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model with top-down behavioral microsimulation. The results of the poverty and inequality index indicate that population aging has a negative impact on the reduction of poverty while its impact is positive with regard to equality. In addition, elderly rural households are experiencing the most serious poverty, and their inequality problems compared with other household groups and within group inequality worsens with demographic transition. These findings not only advance the previous literature but also deserve particular attention from Chinese policy makers.
Author: Khan, Md. Tajuddin
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 28
Get Book Here
Book Description
Zero tillage (ZT) for wheat is one of the most widely adopted resource-conserving technologies in the rice-wheat systems in northern India. In areas of Haryana with rice-wheat systems, 36.5 percent of all farmers practice ZT on 35 percent of their wheat area. Yet the literature measuring the impact of ZT on farmers’ fields is scarce. This study fills this gap by using the data collected from a random sample of 717 farmers from 50 villages in 10 districts of Haryana. It applies the difference-in-differences method to five-year recall data on wheat yields in ZT and conventionally tilled plots of land to quantify the crop loss due to unseasonal rains right before wheat harvests in March 2015. The results reveal significantly lower wheat yield losses in the ZT plots than in the conventionally tilled plots. On average, farmers suffered yield losses ranging between 3.73 and 4.53 quintals per hectare in 2015 due to unseasonal rains. The loss was lower by 1.05–1.10 quintals per hectare in ZT plots. The analysis clearly shows that adoption of ZT helped in reducing crop loss in wheat by 24–28 percent, valued at 1,523–1,595 Indian rupees (Rs.) per hectare (approximately US$22.50 per hectare). The loss avoided due to ZT is nearly equal to the prevailing rental rate of the ZT machine (Rs. 1,500 per hectare) in Haryana. Climate models suggest that the incidence of short-duration acute hydro meteorological events is likely to increase in years to come. Such events are hard to predict and prepare for, and dealing with them hinges mainly on disaster relief. However, our results show that adoption of ZT is one possible way to reduce potential loss from some of these weather events and that ZT is therefore well characterized as a climate-smart technology.
Author: Fiedler, John L.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Get Book Here
Book Description
Household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES) are multipurpose surveys that are routinely conducted to collect data on household food consumption and availability in more than 120 countries. HCES are increasingly being used to calculate proxy estimates of food consumption, nutrient intakes, and nutrition status, often at the individual level. Rarely, however, do they collect information on meal participation, despite growing evidence that it is an increasingly important and variable component of the quantity of food consumed or available in a household. This paper explores the significance of adjusting for meal participation in making inferences about apparent food consumption and nutrient intakes. It focuses on two distinct sets of additional information requirements for enhancing the reliability and precision of measures of food consumption: (1) individual household members’ and household guests’ meal-eating behaviors, and (2) the number and apparent nutritional significance of meals. While the most comprehensive and precise accounting of intakes of individual food consumption and nutrients requires both types of information, the magnitude of the changes required in HCES questionnaires to capture them is likely to be prohibitive. Consequently, for many HCES, a “second best” approach may be the most effective method, at least in the short term. The paper empirically explores some of the relatively few HCES that currently attempt to capture some of these information requirements. In addition, it assesses their value-added to prioritize the global agenda for strengthening HCES measurement of food consumption in support of more evidence-based nutrition policy making.
Author: Laborde Debucquet, David
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 58
Get Book Here
Book Description
Over the past 25 years, economic growth rates in many developing countries have outpaced those in industrialized countries, and per capita incomes of these two groups of countries have started to converge. Growth in developing countries contributed to a dramatic drop—from 37 percent to 13 percent—in the global extreme poverty rate between 1990 and 201. However, the global economic outlook has deteriorated recently. This paper examines the impact of the actual and projected slowdown in the world economy since 2012 on the poor and on the potential for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It builds on the changes between 2012 and late 2015 in the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook projections to provide the basic slowdown scenario. It then uses a global model to assess the impacts of lower rates of productivity growth and consequent lower savings and investment on key price and income variables. The productivity shocks are passed directly to the production activities included in household microsimulation models for almost 300,000 households. These households are also affected by the modeled changes in prices and wages. Simulations allow us to assess the impacts of the slowdown on the real household incomes of the poor, and hence on the poverty rate. The results suggest that the poorest countries will see the greatest slowdown in poverty reduction, with over 5 percent of their population projected to remain below the poverty line. Overall 38 million fewer people will leave extreme poverty compared to earlier projections. Farm households are at particular risk in middle-income countries, with over 1.5 percent more of the farming population potentially not escaping extreme poverty in these countries. By 2030, average extreme poverty in rural areas is now projected to be about 7.5 percent, rather than 7.1 percent. While substantial poverty reduction is still expected between now and 2030, a strong focus on policies for poverty reduction will be vital to achieving the first SDG goal of eliminating poverty.
Author: Dr Shoba Sivasankar
Publisher: Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing
ISBN: 1786761386
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Get Book Here
Book Description
Reviews key developments in understanding crop physiology and genetic diversity and how they have informed advances in breeding new varieties Coverage of advances across the value chain for grain legume cultivation, from variety selection to post-harvest storage Discusses the latest trends in disease, insect pest and weed management
