Department of Global Value Chains and Trade
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Item Promoting the adoption of climate-smart agricultural technologies among maize farmers in Ghana: Using digital advisory services(Springer Nature, 2024-03) Asante, BO; Ma, Wanglin; Prah, S; Temoso, OAlthough policy and advisory communities have promoted the use of digital advisory services (DAS) to stimulate technology adoption among smallholder farmers, little is known about whether DAS use encourages farmers to adopt climate-smart agricultural (CSA) technologies. This study addresses the gap by estimating data collected from 3197 maize-producing households in rural Ghana and considering three CSA technologies: row planting, zero tillage, and drought-tolerant seeds. A recursive bivariate probit model is utilized to mitigate selection bias issues. The results show that DAS use significantly increases the probabilities of adopting row planting, zero tillage, and drought-tolerant seeds by 12.4%, 4.2%, and 4.6%, respectively. Maize farmers’ decisions to use DAS are influenced by their age, gender, education, family size, asset value, distance to farm, perceived incidence of pest and disease, perceived drought stress, and membership in farmer-based organizations (FBO). Furthermore, the disaggregated analysis reveals that DAS use has a larger impact on the row planting adoption of female farmers than males.Item Agricultural mechanization and non-farm employment of rural women(2024-02-07) Ma, WanglinThis study analyzes the impact of the adoption of agricultural mechanization and its intensity on the non-farm employment of rural women using the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey data. The study captures mechanization adoption as a dichotomous decision and adoption intensity using three types of farming strategies: non-mechanized, semi-mechanized, and fully-mechanized. Non-farm work is categorized based on work types (self-employment or wage employment) and work locations (local or migrated non-farm work). Both inverse probability weighting with regression adjustment (IPWRA) estimator and multivalued treatment effects (MVTE) model are utilized to address selection bias. The IPWRA estimates reveal that mechanization adoption increases the probability of rural women participating in non-farm work in general and wage employment and local and migrated non-farm work in particular. The impact is greater for unmarried women than for their married counterparts. The MVTE estimates show that relative to non-mechanized farming, the adoption of semi-or fully-mechanized farming increases the probability of rural women participating in non-farm work, wage employment, and local and migrated non-farm work, with fully-mechanized farming playing a larger role. Meanwhile, relative to semi-mechanized farming, adopting fully-mechanized farming does not have a significant impact on any type of non-farm work.Item Do we need to worry about the nutrition security of indigenous communities?: Empirical evidence from Northeast India(2023) Jamir, C; Ratna, Nazmun; Jagannath, P; Longkumer, MThe Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is home to many indigenous communities, each with its own distinctive culture and traditions. Many cultures have evolved around agriculture and food and have rich food heritage and agricultural practices. Despite this, more than 30% of the population suffers from food insecurity, and around 50% face some form of malnutrition, with women and children suffering the most. In this study, we investigate the difference in the food consumption pattern and dietary diversity across rural and urban households of the Ao-Naga Community in Nagaland. Analyzing survey data for 404 female household heads in Mokukchong district, we have three preliminary findings. One, rural households have higher Food Diversity Score (FDS) than urban households with much higher consumption of traditional foods like organs and insects, which are good protein and nutrient sources. Two, household income had more impact on FDS among urban households than their rural counterparts, but there is a positive association between income and consumption of fruits, snacks, and food away from home for both communities. Three, although the meat consumption is higher for urban households in general, there is a positive association between female education and meat consumption in the rural areas. Currently, we are analysing the data to provide policy insights on how indigenous women’s agency can influence the preference for traditional food and thereby address the challenges for food and nutrition security among indigenous communities in Northeast India.Item Identifying value chain trade-offs from fruit and vegetable aggregation services in Bangladesh using a system dynamics approach(Public Library of Science, 2024-01-24) Choudhury, DK; Cooper, GS; Rich, KM; Shankar, B; Sadek, S; Ratna, Nazmun; Kadiyala, S; Alam, MJ; Chowdhury, SSignificant progress has been made in cereal production in Bangladesh due to an agricultural policy environment that prioritizes the productivity of staple crops over fruit and vegetables (F&V). However, many smallholder farmers remain poorly connected to markets, which may lead to a limited supply response of F&V that can reduce opportunities for sufficient intake in neglected, consumer-facing, smaller retail markets. To address this issue, aggregation schemes have been conceived that collect and transport F&Vs on behalf of multiple farmers. Given the volume of horticultural produce produced and the reliance on developed transport infrastructure, aggregation schemes tend to supply wholesale and urban markets rather than underdeveloped rural and isolated markets. To this end, we investigated how a particular aggregation intervention ('Loop') could potentially improve the distribution of F&V to smaller markets whilst improving farmer benefits. We used an innovative system dynamics modeling approach based on Loop's aggregation services in Jashore, Bangladesh, and to identify the potential trade-offs between consumer outcomes in retail markets and farmer benefits. We find that combining aggregation with a quota at the smaller market, transport subsidy, and current price growth does not result in trade-offs between consumer purchases and farmers'- benefits. However, combining aggregation with current price growth can increase demand without losing farmers'benefits. The findings emphasize that standalone and multiple market-oriented interventions generate broader win-win benefits to promote inclusive food systems.Item Farmers’ adoption of multiple climate-smart agricultural technologies in Ghana: Determinants and impacts on maize yields and net farm income(Springer Nature, 2024-02-23) Asante, BO; Ma, Wanglin; Prah, S; Temoso, OThis study investigates the factors affecting maize farmers’ decisions to adopt climate-smart agricultural (CSA) technologies and estimates the impacts of CSA technology adoption on maize yields and net farm income. Unlike most previous studies that analyze a single technology, we consider different combinations of three CSA technologies (zero tillage, row planting, and drought-resistant seed). A multinomial endogenous switching regression model addresses selection bias issues arising from observed and unobserved factors and analyses data collected from 3197 smallholder farmers in three Ghana regions (Brong-Ahafo, Northern, and Ashanti). The findings show that smallholder farmers’ decisions to adopt multiple CSA technologies are influenced by farmer-based organization membership, education, resource constraints such as lack of land, access to markets, and production shocks such as perceived pest and disease stress and drought. We also find that adopting all three CSA technologies together has the largest impact on maize yields, while adopting row planting and zero tillage as a combination has the largest impact on net farm income. Governments should collaborate with farmer-based groups and extension officers to improve farmers’ awareness and understanding of the benefits associated with CSA technologies and help them adopt multiple technologies that generate higher benefits.