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on Agricultural Economics |
| By: | Gautam, Madhur; Martin, Will; Nia, Reza; Vos, Rob |
| Abstract: | India’s rice policies have played a crucial role in shaping the country’s agricultural sector and ensuring food security for its vast and diverse population. Since rice is a staple food for millions, policies governing its production, pricing, and distribution are vital to maintaining sufficient supplies, stabilizing prices, and making rice affordable and accessible to everyone. However, as dietary patterns change and there is increasing concern about nutrition and environmental sustainability, it is important to consider whether shifting existing rice support toward more targeted or diversified strategies could better promote food security and healthier diets in India. This paper explores this question by evaluating, in advance, the effects of different ways of allocating current support using model-based scenario analysis. The study shows that eliminating all current support would do little to improve the affordability of rice and other foods or to make production more sustainable in India. In contrast, redirecting just a portion of input subsidies—the main type of domestic agricultural support—toward increased investment in research and development for productivity-boosting and climate-resilient technologies could drive meaningful change. This shift could promote more sustainable agricultural practices, lower food prices and the cost of a healthy diet and, ultimately, enhance food security and nutrition across the country. |
| Keywords: | healthy diets; rice; production; sustainable agriculture; sustainable production; price stabilization; India; Southern Asia; Asia |
| Date: | 2026–07–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183826 |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Integrating trees into agricultural landscapes can enhance farm resilience, support biodiversity, and contribute to long-term environmental performance. Policies increasingly promote tree planting and related forest management on agricultural land. These measures range from small-scale support for on-farm tree management to programmes enabling large-scale forestry plantations. Policies that support large-scale tree planting and target carbon sequestration offer the highest average payment rates, at around USD 1 800 per hectare (excluding outliers). In contrast, policies that target additional environmental benefits within agricultural production, mainly to support incremental changes, tend to offer lower average payment rates, at approximately USD 235 per hectare per year (excluding outliers). To enhance the design, implementation, and overall effectiveness of tree planting and related forest management policies, decision makers should reduce key barriers by aligning socio-economic incentives, supporting practices tailored to local environmental conditions, accounting for permanence risks for carbon offsets, and ensuring the availability of suitable seedlings. |
| Keywords: | Agri-environmental policies, Agroforestry, Biodiversity conservation, Carbon offsetting, Sustainable land management |
| JEL: | Q15 Q18 Q23 Q57 O13 |
| Date: | 2026–08–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:agraaa:229-en |
| By: | Olivier Lepiller (UMR MoISA - Montpellier Interdisciplinary center on Sustainable Agri-food systems (Social and nutritional sciences) - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CIHEAM-IAMM - Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier - CIHEAM - Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement); Estelle Fourat (MSH Sud - Maison des Sciences de l'Homme "Les Sciences Unies pour un autre Développement" - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - IRD [Occitanie] - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - délégation Occitanie - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - UM - Université de Montpellier - UMPV - Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry) |
| Keywords: | Food System |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05686462 |
| By: | Benfica, Rui; Davis, Kristin E.; Azzarri, Carlo; Boukaka, Sedi Anne; Geoffrey, Baragu; Fadda, Carlo |
| Abstract: | Agrifood systems (AFS) in Colombia and Peru generate substantial economic value but also impose significant environmental and social externalities that remain unpriced and largely invisible in policy and market decisions. Using the Global Impact Database (GID) and a True Cost Accounting (TCA) framework, this paper quantifies the hidden costs embedded in 19 AFS sectors, with a focus on seven major crop sectors. As one of the first cross-country applications of GID data in Latin America, the analysis offers a harmonized and comprehensive assessment of the true costs of food production, processing, and distribution. Results show that externalities are equivalent to 12 percent of AFS output in Colombia and 13 percent in Peru—a substantial burden that is not captured by conventional economic indicators. Environmental externalities dominate in both countries, driven primarily by land occupation, climate change, air pollution, and use of scarce water. Social externalities—especially underpayment, child labor, and gender wage gaps—are smaller in aggregate but become markedly more significant within crop sectors, as labor intensity and informality characterize production systems. Livestock, dairy, and bovine meat products consistently emerge as the most externality‑intensive sectors, while cereals, rice, sugarcane, oilseeds, and fruits and vegetables exhibit comparatively lower externality costs. Value‑chain decomposition shows that most externalities originate at the production stage (at farm level). These findings highlight several clear leverage points for targeted policy and investment: reducing environmental pressures in livestock systems, improving labor conditions in crop sectors, and integrating TCA metrics into national planning and sustainability strategies. Making the hidden costs visible is essential for advancing more sustainable, equitable, inclusive, and resilient food systems in Colombia and Peru. |
| Keywords: | agrifood systems; environmental impact; socioeconomic impact; value chains; true cost accounting; Colombia; Peru; Latin America; South America |
| Date: | 2026–07–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183786 |
| By: | Brudevold-Newman, Andrew Peter; Boxho, Claire Elise; Montalvao Machado, Joao H. C.; O'Sullivan, Michael; Proenca, Matheus |
| Abstract: | Insecure land rights and limited access to modern inputs are often seen as key constraints on smallholder investment in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper studies both in a three-year field experiment with women farmers in Mozambique, cross-randomizing a statutory land registration intervention with a subsidized package of agricultural inputs and climate-smart agriculture training, and eliciting willingness to pay for the package at randomized prices. Demand for registration was high, but its effects were limited: it produced only a temporary gain in perceived tenure security and did not raise willingness to pay for inputs or down-stream investment. Despite gender-targeted titling, it also did not improve women’s intra-household security or decision-making power. The input-and-training package raised input use but reduced harvests, with exploratory evidence of a shift toward a more shock-prone crop; the losses persisted even after households fully reverted to pre-program practices. Consistent with negative social learning, non-recipients with more treated network connections also reduced their adoption of climate-smart practices over time. Relaxing both constraints together produced no effects beyond either intervention alone. |
| Date: | 2026–06–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11421 |
| By: | Abate, Gashaw T.; Kramer, Berber; Porter, Maria; Regassa, Mekdim D. |
| Abstract: | Crop genetic improvement is central to raising agricultural productivity and resilience in low- and middle-income countries, yet use of improved varieties remains limited due to persistent supply- and demand-side constraints. We evaluate whether relaxing constraints to experimentation and subsequent expansion through production and consumption trial packs of wheat and teff can accelerate use, using a cluster randomized trial with a 2×2 factorial design among 1, 800 smallholder farmers in 120 villages in Ethiopia. Seed trial packs enable farmers to experiment and harvest seed for replanting, thereby enabling expansion in subsequent seasons, while consumption trial packs allow assessment of consumption attributes. We find that seed trial packs accelerate use in the following season, as farmers replant and expand the area under promoted varieties. Consumption trial packs alone have no significant effect, likely due to limited availability of promoted varieties in local seed markets. However, combining both interventions yields modest additional gains, suggesting that consumption traits may influence production decisions when seed access constraints are relaxed. Thus, for open- or self-pollinated crops, lowering experimentation costs and enabling expansion through farmers’ own seed use can accelerate varietal turnover in settings with underdeveloped seed systems. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404780 |
| By: | Elbakidze, Levan; Lee, Young Gwan; Bawa, Arun; Gassman, Phil; Srinivasan, Raghavan |
| Abstract: | Agricultural nutrient runoff remains a major source of water quality impairment in the United States despite extensive conservation efforts. While previous studies have evaluated the technical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of best management practices (BMPs), most analyses treat BMP adoption as exogenous and do not account for market-mediated adjustments in production and land use. This study develops an integrated hydro-economic framework that endogenizes BMP adoption alongside crop allocation, fertilizer use, and irrigation decisions. The model extends the Integrated Hydro-Economic Agricultural Land Use (IHEAL) framework by incorporating eight major U.S. field crops, jointly modeling nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, and integrating large-scale Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) simulations across the Mississippi–Atchafalaya River Basin, Chesapeake Bay watershed, and Maumee River watershed. The framework combines a price-endogenous partial equilibrium model with spatially explicit biophysical parameters to evaluate the economic and environmental consequences of nutrient runoff reduction policies. Preliminary results indicate that simulated commodity prices and crop production generally align with historical observations, supporting the validity of the modeling framework. The completed analysis will quantify the opportunity costs of nutrient runoff abatement, evaluate the economic efficiency of alternative BMP adoption strategies, and assess cross-watershed spillover effects arising from endogenous market adjustments. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404447 |
| By: | Hettiarachchi, Upeksha; Nehring, Ryan; Zhang, Wei; Davis, Kristin E.; Einbinder, Aron; Gelli, Aulo |
| Abstract: | School meal programs (SMPs) are among the largest public investments in child well-being worldwide, and they have untapped potential to act as levers for sustainable food systems transformation. This discussion paper provides an overview of evidence on linkages between regenerative agriculture and SMPs, and also presents a framework to guide future analytical work on integrating regenerative agriculture and SMPs for food systems transformation. We conducted a scoping review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA). The reviewed literature reveals a geographically diverse but uneven distribution of research on how SMPs incentivize regenerative agriculture. The review reports emerging evidence on the ability of SMPs to generate positive outcomes for livelihoods and community development. That evidence, however, is limited in scope as it is dominated by studies on Brazil’s SMP. Beyond Brazil, our review found no evidence that conclusively establishes a causal relationship between SMPs and the uptake of regenerative agriculture. Much of the literature focuses on smallholder procurement, organic production, or agroecological practices more broadly, with relatively few studies explicitly measuring regenerative outcomes such as soil health restoration, biodiversity gains, or carbon sequestration. |
| Keywords: | school feeding; regenerative agriculture; environment; nutrition; Brazil; South America |
| Date: | 2026–07–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183803 |
| By: | Zheng, Linyi; Zhang, Jiahao; Zhao, Hanqi; Su, Liufang |
| Abstract: | Tenure security exerts a profound influence on factor allocation efficiency and the behavioral decisions of economic agents. Nevertheless, few scholars have examined the quantitative relationship between land tenure insecurity and farmers’ cropland abandonment behavior—despite the fact that rural China is currently confronting both challenges concurrently. To address this research gap, this study adopts a panel random effects model, utilizing three waves of panel data from the China Rural Household Panel Survey (2015–2019), and measures land tenure insecurity through farmers' perceived security regarding land certification and titling, to empirically investigate the impact of land tenure insecurity on cropland abandonment. The results show that land tenure insecurity significantly exacerbates cropland abandonment. The primary reason is that land tenure insecurity suppresses agricultural capital investment, reduces agricultural labor input, and impedes land transfer, thereby accelerating the spread of cropland abandonment. However, the adverse effect is more pronounced among higher-income farmers and older farmers, while lower-income farmers and younger farmers remain largely unaffected. Furthermore, formal institutions—exemplified by land certification—help mitigate the adverse effects of land tenure insecurity on cropland abandonment, while informal institutions, represented by village regulations, prove ineffective. These findings hold significant reference value for developing countries grappling with the dual challenges of land tenure insecurity and cropland abandonment. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404408 |
| By: | Braide, Tamunotonye M.; Thomas, Timothy S.; Robertson, Richard D. |
| Abstract: | This study develops a crop yield emulator as a computationally efficient alternative to the DSSAT process-based model, enabling fast, large-scale assessments of how temperature, rainfall, CO2, and nitrogen influence crop yields. Implemented using fixed-effects polynomial regression in R, the emulator was trained on DSSAT outputs and validated across seven globally important crops, maize, wheat (spring and winter), rice (indica and japonica), soybeans, sorghum, groundnuts, and potatoes. It showed high predictive accuracy (R2 > 0.90) for most crops, especially spring wheat, groundnut, and potato, and performed reliably under climate scenarios such as RCP7.0. The emulator captured key crop-specific responses, such as maize’s sensitivity to heat and nonlinear yield responses to nitrogen inputs. While its performance is slightly lower for maize and Indica rice compared to other crops, it remains a scalable and cost-effective tool for climate scenario analysis. This tool offers valuable support for agricultural decision-making and climate adaptation planning by enabling rapid, data-driven insights into yield outcomes under future conditions. |
| Keywords: | agricultural productivity; climate change; crop yield; yield forecasting; nitrogen; carbon dioxide; regression analysis |
| Date: | 2026–07–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprwp:183869 |
| By: | Castellani, Davide; Tavoni, Alessandro; D'Odorico, Paolo |
| Abstract: | Economic access is a central dimension of food security, yet cross-country empirical work has limited measures that link the purchasing power of low-income populations to food expenditure across countries. We introduce the socio-economic index of food security (SEF), defined as the ratio between the per capita income of the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution and average per capita food expenditure. Using data from 110 countries, we examine the ability of SEF to explain cross-country differences in the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU), the Food and Agriculture Organization indicator of insufficient dietary energy intake. SEF explains a substantial share of cross-country variation in undernourishment. On average, a 1 percent increase in SEF is associated with a 0.25 percent lower PoU. The relationship is non-linear, with quantile regressions showing stronger effects at higher levels of food insecurity, where estimated elasticities range from −0.19 at the 25th percentile to −0.34 at the 95th percentile. Interestingly, an affordability measure based on the purchasing power of the poorest quintile captures cross-country differences in dietary-energy undernourishment more accurately than measures based on national-average income. SEF is therefore best understood as a globally comparable indicator of economic access to food, complementing household-level and multidimensional food security measures. |
| Keywords: | food security index;undernourishment;country-level comparison;economic access to food |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–07–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140358 |
| By: | Tanner, Sophia; Lupi, Frank; Pratt, Bryan; Wallander, Steven; Bowman, Maria; Swinton, Scott |
| Abstract: | Using cover crops within row-crop agricultural systems offers many potential ecosystem service benefits including potential water quality and soil health benefits. While cover crops are supported under many payment for ecosystem service programs exist in the U.S., adoption rates remain low—according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture only 4.7 percent of total cropland was planted with cover crops in 2022. Thus, there is policy interest in how conservation contracts can be designed to improve the uptake of cover cropping. We report preliminary estimates of the supply of cover cropping under alternative conservation contracts that vary features such as contract length, frequency, stringency, payment provider (e.g., government, NGO, private sector), and payment amounts. The data come from an OMB-approved survey of Midwestern farmers using a combined push-to-web and paper survey that achieved response rate of 28%. The sample uses USDA Farm Service Agency records to identify a stratified random draw of corn and soy farmers with strata based on acreages. A choice experiment that varies contract features is used to estimate farmer adoption of conservation contracts for cover cropping. Preliminary results suggest features that payment levels, increased contract flexibility, and reduced transaction costs can significantly enhance enrollment. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404401 |
| By: | Yuvika Chaudhury; Aritri Chakravarty (Assistant Professor, Madras School of Economics, Chennai, India.) |
| Abstract: | Access to formal credit plays a crucial role in enhancing agricultural productivity and mitigating risks in rural India. Despite sustained policy interventions, a significant share of agricultural households continues to rely on informal credit sources, often under unfavorable terms. This study investigates the determinants of formal credit access in Indian agriculture using unit-level data from the 77th Round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) on the Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households, covering the 2018–19 agricultural year and comprising around 58, 000 rural households. The analysis addresses three core dimensions: (i) household-level determinants of the percentage share of formal loans, (ii) factors influencing the likelihood of obtaining a loan for agricultural purposes, and (iii) the elasticity of credit demand with respect to interest rates. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), logistic regression, and log-log models are employed to analyze the demand side factors influencing the above dimensions. OLS results indicate that institutional linkages such as access to Kisan Credit Cards (KCC), crop insurance, and membership in farmer organizations substantially increase the share of formal loans. Higher consumption expenditure and larger landholdings are also positively associated. The logistic regression model reveals that households engaged in crop production are significantly more likely to access agricultural loans, especially when supported by KCC and insurance coverage. The log-log model shows credit demand to be inelastic with respect to interest rates, reflecting structural constraints. These findings underscore the critical role of institutional inclusion and economic capacity in enabling formal credit access, while highlighting the persistent limitations in expanding credit demand in rural IndiaLength: 52 pages |
| Keywords: | Agriculture, Access to Credit, Farm Households, Interest SensitivityClassification-JEL: Q1, Q12, Q14 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2026-307 |
| By: | Obaikol, Esther; Iraoya, Augustine Okhale |
| Abstract: | In Kenya, the legal foundation for land governance was transformed by the country’s 2010 Constitution and reinforced by several subsequent laws that provide important entry points to strengthen women’s land rights. However, gaps in implementation remain significant; titles held by women represent less than 2 percent of all titled land, and women are less likely than men to own agricultural land and be named on title documentation. Evidence shows that women’s tenure security improves when legal recognition is matched with accessible implementation. The community land agenda is equally urgent; community land covers a major share of Kenya’s land area, especially in arid and semi-arid lands, yet the transition from former group ranches to registered community land has been slow. Investments should focus on five mutually reinforcing pathways: 1) strengthening sex-disaggregated land administration data, 2) supporting community land registration and inclusive bylaws, 3) combining legal literacy with paralegal support and alternative justice systems that meet constitutional standards, 4) promoting gender-transformative household and community approaches that shift norms around inheritance, joint titling, and decision-making, and 5) integrating women’s land rights into agricultural productivity, climate resilience, and market systems interventions. |
| Keywords: | capacity building; land tenure; tenure security; land rights; gender; women; policies; Kenya; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:gcanpn:184071 |
| By: | Obaikol, Esther; Iraoya, Augustine Okhale |
| Abstract: | Ethiopia’s land rights regime has evolved from an unequal imperial system, through nationalization, to a contemporary federal framework that recognizes secure, inheritable, registrable, and transferable land-use rights for women and men farmers and pastoralists. Ethiopia has undertaken one of Africa’s largest rural land certification reforms over the past three decades, beginning with provision of household certificates and progressing to geospatial mapping of parcels and a digital registry of landholdings. By 2024, an estimated 23 million certificates had been produced. While the certification reforms are a huge achievement, key challenges to transforming recognized rights into usable rights remain, especially for women, pastoral communities, and peri-urban households. Progress towards gender equality in land rights is real, but uneven. Women are still less likely to have documented ownership compared to men, and they face constraints in controlling farmland, accessing credit, and benefitting from climate finance. Future policies and investments should focus on keeping rights current through registry maintenance, enforceable, gender-equitable, and adaptable to pastoral, peri-urban, and climate-vulnerable contexts. |
| Keywords: | capacity building; land tenure; tenure security; gender; land rights; women; policies; Ethiopia; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:gcanpn:184072 |
| By: | Gollin, Douglas; Wolfersberger, Julien |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study how new roads affect the spatial patterns of agricultural production and consequently impact deforestation and development outcomes, focusing on the historical experience of Brazil. We find that the expansion of Brazil’s road network since the 1990s can account for a tenth of the total amount of deforestation that the country has experienced, with significant variation across regions. Perhaps surprisingly, our results suggest that the increase in agricultural income attributable to road construction has been more limited. Focusing on complementarities with technical change, we examine how improved market access combined with new agricultural technologies impacted land conversion. |
| Keywords: | Trade frictions; Quantitative spatial economics; Natural resources; Agriculture trade |
| JEL: | F18 O13 Q10 R12 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19710 |
| By: | Ãlkers, Tim; Musshoff, Oliver |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence from a randomized controlled trial evaluating two digital agricultural interventions among smallholder maize farmers in southern Mali. The first intervention consists of a standalone mobile-delivered weather index-insurance product, while the second intervention provides a movile-delivered bundled package combining weather index-insurance with localized weather forecasts and agricultural advisory services delivered via SMS. Using data from approximately 1, 400 farming households across diverse agro-climatic zones in Mali, we find that both interventions, weather index-insurance alone and the bundled product, improve agricultural outcomes, with substantially stronger effects observed for the bundled product relative to the control group. These larger effects are primarily driven by changes in agricultural input use and production practices induced by the tailored agronomic advice and weather information. Together, these complementary services enable farmers to make more informed production decisions, better manage climate-related risks, adopt more productive farming strategies, and ultimately improve agricultural productivity and household welfare. A cost-benefit analysis further indicates that the bundled intervention is highly cost-effective. The findings highlight the potential of combining financial instruments with digital information services to strengthen agricultural productivity and resilience in low-income settings, while also pointing to promising avenues for future bundled agricultural service models. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404328 |
| By: | Vakil, Mohd Kamil; Mukherjee, Deep; Almeida, Alexandre Nunes |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates the economic impact of Zero Tillage (ZT) adoption on wheat production in Bihar, a key agricultural region in India’s Indo-Gangetic Plains. Zero Tillage practices, which eliminate plowing and enable direct seeding, hold promise for reducing production costs and enhancing resilience amid growing challenges such as climate variability, soil degradation, and labor scarcity. Despite its potential, ZT adoption in Bihar has been uneven, hindered by limited access to equipment and uncertainty regarding its performance. Using panel data from 961 wheat-producing households across four agricultural seasons, the study applies a difference-in-differences approach that accounts for staggered adoption and time-varying treatment effects. The results show that the timing of adoption significantly influences outcomes: early adopters experienced short-term productivity gains and reduced input use, but these effects weakened in years with adverse weather. In contrast, later adopters demonstrated more consistent improvements in productivity and efficiency, likely reflecting learning effects and better environmental alignment. Robustness checks using placebo tests reinforce the credibility of the findings. This research provides valuable insights for policies aimed at promoting sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture in vulnerable regions of South Asia. |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404711 |
| By: | Myriam Kessari (UMR MoISA - Montpellier Interdisciplinary center on Sustainable Agri-food systems (Social and nutritional sciences) - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CIHEAM-IAMM - Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier - CIHEAM - Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement, CIHEAM-IAMM - Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier - CIHEAM - Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes); Magalie Marais (Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School); Maryline Meyer (Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School); Florence Palpacuer (UM - Université de Montpellier, MRM-ORGA - Montpellier Research in Management - Organisations - MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - UM - Université de Montpellier, MRM-MPR - Management et Pratiques Responsables - MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - UM - Université de Montpellier); Leïla Temri (UMR MoISA - Montpellier Interdisciplinary center on Sustainable Agri-food systems (Social and nutritional sciences) - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CIHEAM-IAMM - Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier - CIHEAM - Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement); Marie Walser (Chaire Unesco Alimentations du Monde - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement) |
| Abstract: | There are two forms of corporate commitment within the food system: the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). While these two movements have developed independently of each other, at present both are contributing to the transformation of food systems. Among the many actors able to influence the sustainability of food systems, businesses have a key role to play. Their ways of doing so are as diverse as the companies themselves, which differ in both their functions (production, processing, distribution, services etc.) and their profiles (status, size, mission, geographical location, mode of governance etc.). The question then becomes how much room for manoeuvre these companies have, what their motivations are and which concomitant forms of commitment to food system sustainability exist (Marais, 2014). The economic, social and environmental responsibility approaches of companies operating in the food system follow two main routes: the social solidarity economy (SSE) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). This chapter looks at the benefits and limitations of these two frameworks and discusses the opportunities afforded by their articulation. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05695883 |
| By: | Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Kirui, Oliver K.; Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Popoola, Olufemi; Fasoranti, Adetunji |
| Abstract: | Aquaculture is an important source of food and income in Nigeria, but evidence on gender differences in labor participation and output allocation remains limited. Using nationally representative microdata from the National Agricultural Sample Survey and weighted ordinary least squares (OLS) and fractional logit models, this study examines whether the gender of the aquacultural manager is associated with labor participation, production, and allocation of output to home consumption and sales. The results show that after controlling for observable characteristics, households managed by women are not less engaged in aquaculture and do not produce less than households managed by men. Instead, gender differences appear in how farms operate and distribute their output. Households managed by women employ a substantially higher share of women’s labor and allocate approximately 4 percentage points more of their output to home consumption, even after conditioning on production scale, a result that is robust across OLS and fractional logit specifications. Sales shares, however, do not differ significantly by the manager’s gender. The consumption share results may suggest that women’s management is associated with greater home retention of output, which could carry food security implications not captured by standard income-focused metrics, although the survey does not permit direct assessment of food security or nutritional outcomes. The findings suggest that policies aimed at strengthening women's participation in aquaculture should consider differences in how labor is organized and output allocation, alongside efforts to improve productivity and market participation. |
| Keywords: | aquaculture; gender; labour; animal production; food production; consumption; Nigeria; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Western Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183852 |
| By: | Fisher, Ian |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how uncertainty arising from land tenure insecurity shapes household income diversification strategies in rural Vietnam. Although a substantial body of literature examines the effects of insecure property rights on agricultural productivity and food security, relatively little attention has been given to its influence on income-based livelihood diversification. This study addresses that gap by analyzing Vietnam’s 2013 Land Law, which extended household agricultural land use rights by an additional 50 years. Using nationally representative household panel data, the analysis leverages variation in exposure to land tenure insecurity generated by the reform across households cultivating different crops. Event study regressions are used to assess how households adjust their livelihood strategies in response to land tenure uncertainty, as well as how these responses differ across household characteristics. The results indicate some evidence of income diversification prior to the reform that is mainly driven by an increased share of household labor allocated to off-farm wage labor, though the estimated effects are generally modest in magnitude. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that factors such as household distance to nearest road, member size, and farm size influence the the degree of adaptation to land tenure insecurity. Overall, the findings suggest that households respond to tenure-related uncertainty primarily by diversifying into off-farm income sources, rather than solely through on-farm intensification. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404659 |
| By: | Obaikol, Esther; Iraoya, Augustine Okhale |
| Abstract: | Nigeria’s land governance system has not delivered secure, affordable, and inclusive land documentation for most citizens, which is needed for agricultural productivity, food security, housing, climate resilience, peacebuilding, and women’s economic empowerment. Despite wide consensus on the need for land reform, the pluralistic system and the constitutionally entrenched Land Use Act have limited advances. Formal land registration remains limited in Nigeria, with more than 90% of land estimated to be unregistered. Customary, Islamic, and informal institutions continue to govern many land relations, but women and pastoralists frequently face weaker or inadequately documented rights. The lack of systematic gender- and conflict-sensitive recognition and tracking of land and resource rights at the national level contributes to the gender gap and to violent farmer–herder conflicts. A significant opportunity for reform has been opened by national attention to Land4Growth, state-level digitization, experience with systematic land titling and registration (SLTR), Supreme Court rulings on women’s inheritance, and growing evidence on gender-transformative land programming. A high-impact land reform program in Nigeria should invest not only in surveying, digitization, and title issuance, but also address the legal overlap of statutory and customary tenure, the gendered effects of inheritance and marital property norms, practical barriers that reduce women’s land rights, and the rights of pastoral communities. |
| Keywords: | capacity building; land tenure; tenure security; gender; land rights; women; policies; Nigeria; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Western Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:gcanpn:184070 |
| By: | Guimbeau, Amanda (University of Sherbrooke); Ji, James (University of Guelph); Menon, Nidhiya (Brandeis University); Witoelar, Firman (Australian National University) |
| Abstract: | Mangroves provide vital ecosystem services, including fisheries support, carbon sequestration, and natural protection against coastal erosion, but their health consequences are less well understood. We study their impacts on mental health and cognitive functioning in Indonesia, which has the most extensive and biodiverse mangroves in the world. Decades of deforestation, fueled by climate pressures, oil palm expansion, and aquaculture, have led to widespread mangrove loss in the country, disproportionately affecting vulnerable coastal communities. By merging high-resolution satellite data on coastal land use change with individual-level panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), we find that a one-standard-deviation increase in local mangrove cover reduces the likelihood of clinical depression by 4.5 percentage points. These effects operate through reduced flood exposure, higher household income, and improved food consumption. We also find that restoration potential matters more than blue carbon potential, cash transfers, or social capital in shaping the mangrove-mental health relationship. Our results show that mangrove conservation and restoration can generate important local human capital and welfare benefits. |
| Keywords: | Mangroves, mental health, depression, CESD-10, cognitive ability, ecosystem, aquaculture, restoration, conservation |
| JEL: | Q57 Q50 O1 O13 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18818 |
| By: | Dewy Verhoeven; Deniz Kilic; Suphi Sen; Hans-Peter Weikard |
| Abstract: | Draining peatlands to allow agricultural production causes subsidence through peat oxidation, which is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing this tradeoff, we develop an optimal control model of peat subsidence accounting for emissions, water management costs, and agricultural productivity. We apply this model to the Dutch peat meadows by constructing a new dataset at the parcel level using a geospatial model of land subsidence. We find that immediate rewetting or strong drainage reduction is socially optimal for most of the parcels. The optimal policy reduces subsidence and emissions by about 55 percent, saving about 1 Mt of CO2 annually. Relative to maintaining current drainage practices, accounting for climate costs increases net social benefits by 4 to 12.3 billion Euros depending on the carbon price. |
| Keywords: | optimal control, peatlands, land subsidence, greenhouse gas emissions, groundwater management, rewetting, peatland restoration |
| JEL: | C61 Q15 Q24 Q25 Q50 Q54 Q57 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12838 |
| By: | Choe, Kyoungin; Goodwin, Barry K. |
| Abstract: | A large empirical literature uses historical weather-yield relationships to assess the potential impacts of climate change on agricultural production. Technological change, however, may alter the sensitivity of agricultural production to climate stress in ways not fully captured by the simple time trends commonly used in empirical models. This paper examines whether climate-yield relationships in US corn production exhibit structural changes following the commercialization and widespread diffusion of biotechnology traits. Using county-level panel data on corn yields and weather variables from 1950–2024, we estimate fixed-effects models incorporating a structural break in 2003, corresponding to the commercialization of rootworm-resistant biotechnology traits in US corn production. The analysis incorporates alternative drought measures, precipitation controls, and nonlinear climate specifications. The results provide consistent evidence that corn yields became less sensitive to heat stress, drought conditions, and precipitation variability after 2003. The findings remain robust across alternative model specifications and structural break years between 2001 and 2005. Overall, the results suggest that technological advances may have altered historical climateyield relationships, with important implications for climate-impact assessments and projections of future agricultural damages. |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404708 |
| By: | Wojnarowski, Fred |
| Abstract: | Speculation through enclosure and irrigation at the edges of Jordan's urban expansion into the desert has coincided in recent years with an ever-louder discourse of water scarcity, and a moral concern over the use of groundwater via illegal wells, eroding the viability of small-scale agriculture. Tracing a specific case of a speculative gambit and placing it in relation to a nearby agricultural community experiencing the disastrous effects of water scarcity, I explore how rural and peri-urban Bedouin anxiously anticipate various uneasily coexisting futures around land and water, between personal enrichment and wider social and environmental ruination. |
| Keywords: | accumulation;anticipation;Jordan;land rush;property speculation;value;water scarcity |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–06–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140297 |
| By: | Chandra, Soumi; Rejesus, Roderick M.; Burchfield, Emily; Chen, Le; Che, Yuyuan; Ferraro, Gregory |
| Abstract: | Efforts to increase crop yields and make farming more efficient have led to largerscale production and more simplified agricultural landscapes. This raises an important question: do landowners prefer the efficiency gains of simple, large scale farming systems, or the long term ecological benefits that come from more diverse and complex landscapes? This paper aims to explore the effect of complex landscapes on farmland valuation in Iowa. We utilize 2008-2018 county-level panel data with information on landscape complexity, farmland values and other soil, weather and economic controls. We apply linear fixed effect models and a number of robustness checks in the empirical analysis( i.e., alternate specifications, study area, land value and complexity measures). Our results suggest that counties with higher landscape complexity tends to have lower farmland valuation. Findings suggest that agricultural land markets value the short term efficiency gains with less complex landscapes rather than the long term ecological benefits from complex landscapes. The results show that both ecological and economic trade-offs should be considered when making land-use decisions or designing policies to support more diverse and sustainable agricultural landscapes. This study contributes to the literature by providing one of the first empirical assessments linking ecological landscape structure to asset pricing in agricultural land markets. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404703 |
| By: | Minten, Bart; Masias, Ian; Curtis, Matt; van Asselt, Joanna; Goeb, Joseph; Aung, Zin Wai; Htar, May Thet; Linn, Khin Mar; Oo, Theingi; Synt, Nang Lun; Ei Win, Hnin; Zu, A Myint |
| Abstract: | Myanmar's agrifood system is central to the country's economy and to the livelihoods of most of its population, having historically accounted for roughly almost half of GDP and two-thirds of employment. Since 2021, the political crisis, intensifying conflict and insecurity, climate shocks, and a major earthquake have placed the system under sustained and compounding stress. Drawing on evidence collected between 2021 and 2025, this paper provides a snapshot of where the system stands following this period of crisis and identifies opportunities for strengthening its resilience going forward. Private sector actors have been central to sustaining the agrifood system's resilience since 2021. Input retailers have maintained the physical availability of fertilizer, seeds, and agro-chemicals, even in insecure areas, while mechanization service providers have continued to supply labor-saving services through flexible payment arrangements. Private agribusinesses have absorbed the contraction in formal credit, now accounting for roughly three-quarters of fertilizer credit sources, and have become the dominant providers of extension, both in-person and digital. These actors are operating under significant financial stress, but they have sustained farmers’ access to inputs, services, credit, and advice during a period when these would otherwise have likely collapsed. Input costs have risen significantly since 2022, with agricultural wages, mechanization costs, and fertilizer prices all rising substantially. Farmers have responded by partially shifting toward lower-cost production practices, including direct seeding, which carries an estimated yield penalty of approximately 15 percent compared to transplanted rice. Promoting appropriate agricultural technologies in conflict- and climate-affected areas requires targeted attention, particularly for smallholders and more remote households. Sustaining and expanding development assistance alongside humanitarian assistance will be important to support the transition toward more productive and sustainable farming systems, with scaling domestic production of organic soil amendments and expanding mechanization services. Agricultural extension use rebounded to 38 percent in the 2025 dry season, with the private sector now the dominant provider and digital channels expanding rapidly. Given persistently low and unequal access to extension services, more inclusive outreach combining targeted in-person support in underserved areas with strengthened digital delivery is needed, with particular attention to women, less educated, remote, and conflict-affected farmers. As agrochemical distributors dominate both in-person and digital advisory services, promoting high-quality agronomic content and ensuring clear separation between technical advice and product promotion is important. The rapid expansion of digital platforms creates opportunities but requires investments in digital literacy, content quality, and monitoring systems to assess impact. Partnerships between digital platforms and large firms could also support traceability and quality requirements for export markets. |
| Keywords: | agrifood systems; resilience; stress; conflicts; Myanmar; Asia; South-eastern Asia |
| Date: | 2026–06–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprwp:183199 |
| By: | Jo, Jungkeon; Adjemian, Michael; Etienne, Xiaoli |
| Abstract: | We study how U.S. biofuel policy shocks transmit through agri-food supply chains to downstream markets, including consumer prices, food prices, and food expenditures. Drawing on the institutional structure of U.S. biofuel policy and high-frequency price movements around regulatory announcements, we construct a novel biofuel policy news series and use it as an instrument to estimate the causal effects of biofuel policy shocks on upstream commodity and downstream retail markets. A stringent biofuel policy shock leads to statistically significant inflation across both upstream and downstream markets. In response to the shock, biofuel, oil, and agricultural commodity prices rise substantially; in the downstream market, consumer food prices and the headline CPI increase, while real food expenditures decline. Specifically, fats and oils prices rise more than other food subcategories. Consumer inflation expectations rise following the shock. Weaker statistical evidence indicates that producer food price subcategories respond more strongly than their CPI counterparts. These findings reveal a fundamental trade-off in biofuel policy. While higher commodity prices support agricultural producer revenues, consumers finance these gains through higher retail prices for both fuel and food, with lower-income households bearing a disproportionate burden. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404350 |
| By: | Wu, Yongyang; Duan, Yuxin; Pan, Cong; Xu, Wenyan; Xuan, Zhichong; Zhao, Qiran |
| Abstract: | This study examines the impact of China's High-Standard Farmland Construction (HSFC) program on machinery input costs in rural agriculture, a crucial issue for mechanization and productivity. Using household-level survey data from 2019 to 2022, we employ a two-way fixed effects model to assess the policy’s effectiveness. Our findings indicate that HSFC significantly reduces machinery input costs per unit of land by improving infrastructure, particularly through land consolidation and field road construction. The reduction in costs is more pronounced in major grain-producing regions and areas with stronger fiscal capacities. The study contributes to the literature by identifying mechanisms that enhance agricultural efficiency through infrastructure investment, providing new empirical evidence for the role of public investment in improving agricultural mechanization. Furthermore, the results suggest that HSFC’s cost-reducing effects are contingent on regional conditions, highlighting the importance of tailored policies in promoting mechanization. This research offers insights into policy design that could improve the long-term sustainability of agricultural productivity. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404386 |
| By: | de Zwarte, Ingrid; Moret, Helmi; de Zwart, Pim |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the dynamics between hunger and warfare during the Indonesian War of Independence (1945-49). We compiled a dataset comprising over 8, 000 prices for staple foods (rice, maize, cassava) covering the entire Indonesian archipelago from 1939-49, allowing us to estimate the effects of the main Dutch military campaigns on food prices. We then use a second dataset on wartime wages to estimate nutritional standards. Our study shows that the war’s impact on food prices was significantly greater than previously assumed, both in and outside Java. We argue that Operation Product was partly motivated by high rice prices, and we demonstrate that these were significantly reduced across Java and Sumatra after the end of the military campaign. Our findings further suggest that local food crises, and possibly famine conditions, occurred across different parts of the archipelago, strongly supporting the notion that food and hunger were central issues during the Independence War. |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19797 |
| By: | Long, Weitong; Zhu, Xueqin; Hou, Yong; Peña-Lévano, Luis M.; Garcia-Covarrubias, Luis; Boy, Karl-Friedrich |
| Abstract: | Shifting to healthier diets and afforestation can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance carbon sequestration. However, when implemented unilaterally by China, these measures may support domestic carbon neutrality while triggering emission leakages through trade-induced land-use changes. Using an integrated environmental- economic model, we found that China’s proposed dietary shift towards lower meat and higher dairy consumption may induce 14 Mha of additional agricultural land use abroad and cause 364 Tg CO₂-eq of emission leakage, almost four times the domestic mitigation. Similarly, China’s afforestation policy may displace food production abroad, resulting in 16 Mha of additional agricultural land use and 424 Tg CO₂-eq of emission leakage, exceeding its domestic mitigation. Such leakages may undermine the feasibility of the 2 °C climate target and necessitate more stringent mitigation in non-agricultural sectors. Combined with the 2 °C climate target, China’s dietary shift and afforestation policies may amplify insecurity and gross domestic product losses than the 2 °C climate target alone. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404467 |
| By: | Koffi Zougbédé; Alban Mas Aparisi; Jill Bouscarat; Philipp Heinrigs |
| Abstract: | In West Africa, intra-regional food trade plays a much greater role in food and nutrition security and economic development than official statistics suggest. This paper argues that persistent gaps in trade data obscure the true scale, composition, and strategic importance of regional food flows. Recent estimates indicate that up to 85% of intra-regional food trade goes unrecorded, representing nearly USD 10 billion annually. This lack of visibility undermines policymaking by distorting assessments of markets, food and nutrition security, regional value chains, and progress towards commitments under ECOWAS agricultural frameworks, CAADP, and the AfCFTA. The report highlights the structural reasons why trade goes unrecorded, including traders’ avoidance of formal borders, limited incentives for customs authorities to record duty-free flows, sparse monitoring coverage, and weak institutional co-ordination. While technical solutions and practical country experiences already exist, scaling up these efforts remains primarily a political and institutional challenge. Addressing these challenges will require harmonised regional data systems, stronger national capacities, and more policy-relevant analysis. |
| Keywords: | Africa, data, data systems, food, food trade, intra-regional food trade, West Africa |
| JEL: | F13 J46 L26 Q17 R12 |
| Date: | 2026–08–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:swacaa:54-en |
| By: | Giglio, Stefano; Kuchler, Theresa; Ströbel, Johannes; Wang, Olivier |
| Abstract: | We study the economic effects of the interaction of nature loss and climate change in a model that incorporates important aspects of both processes. We capture the distinct ways in which they affect economic activity—with nature constituting a key factor of production and climate change destroying parts of output—but also the ways in which they interact: climate change causes nature loss, and nature provides both a carbon sink and adaptation tools to reduce climate damages. Our analysis of these feedback loops reveals a novel amplification channel—the Twin-Crises Multiplier—that systematically affects optimal climate and nature conservation policies. |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19935 |
| By: | Jeong, Junyoung; Hertel, Thomas; Liu, Jing |
| Abstract: | To meet the growing demand of biofuels in the U.S., in particular, soybean-based diesel, soybean processing facilities have expanded, notably, into the Northern and Western U.S. in addition to the Heartland. Such geographic evolution has implications for rural economies, as proximity to crop processing plants can increase the local crop prices, expand cropland, and boost employment. Empirical studies have well documented these local responses, yet with limited consideration of national or global economy. Simulation-based studies, by contrast, have focused more on the national-level trends in land use changes and associated environmental impacts, but often ignore location-specific biofuel demand shocks. This study leverages the fine-resolution partial equilibrium model, SIMPLE-G, to bridge these two groups of studies by incorporating agricultural production and crop demand at a granular spatial scale, thus capturing heterogeneous responses in key outcomes, such as land use, crop production and land rents, while having global economy in the background. A preliminary experiment evaluates the impacts of soybean crushing expansion between 2017 and 2025. The results demonstrate the framework’s ability to incorporate location-specific crop demand changes and capture local market responses. The study will further explore implications for rural economies, environmental impacts, and the nuanced spatial assessment needed for policymakers to establish ecologically sound targets and safeguards for the expanding U.S. biofuel portfolio. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404374 |
| By: | Aloka, Atta Selorm; Ejimakor, Godfrey |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the financial distress within the North Carolina crop sector caused by sudden climatic shocks. Traditional insurance models often fail to anticipate catastrophic losses because they rely on linear historical averages that smooth over biological tipping points. This research addresses this gap by developing an early warning system that identifies the specific environmental and financial thresholds that push county-level insurance claims past the break-even point. Using a 15-year panel of North Carolina agricultural data, the study compares the predictive performance of a non-linear ensemble framework against traditional benchmarks to evaluate the reliability of the current crop insurance safety net. The results demonstrate that machine learning significantly improves the detection of extreme loss events by identifying financial scarring, the path dependency of previous losses, as the primary driver of current farm-level fragility. The analysis reveals that extreme heat waves and cumulative thermal stress act as triggers that push financially weakened counties into regional insurance shortfalls. These findings suggest that transitioning from reactive disaster relief to proactive, threshold-based risk management can stabilize the agricultural credit market and protect the savings of rural communities. This study provides a scalable framework for farmers, lenders, and insurers to mitigate the economic damage caused by climate-driven volatility in regional agribusiness sectors. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404323 |
| By: | Bai, Chengxi; Liu, Naixi; Dai, Wenrui |
| Abstract: | Over the past two decades, the number of natural villages in China has declined from approximately 3.5 million to about 2.3 million. Using nationwide 30-meter resolution satellite remote sensing data combined with county-level panel data for more than 2, 700 counties from 2000 to 2023, this study examines the relationship between village merging and agricultural productivity growth. The results reveal a robust and positive association between the intensity of village merging and agricultural total factor productivity, and this relationship remains stable across a wide range of robustness checks. The positive effect is also observed in the context of three major policy interventions that significantly accelerated village merging: the Urban-Rural Construction Land Linkage Policy, Poverty Alleviation Relocation, and Village Merging Pilot programs. Mechanism analysis shows that village merging enhances agricultural productivity mainly by optimizing the spatial layout of agricultural facility land to support contiguous large-scale operations, promoting the specialization of agricultural producers, and improving human capital. Further heterogeneity analysis indicates that the magnitude of these effects varies across different stages of economic development, agricultural industrial structures, and geographic regions. Overall, this study provides new insights into China’s development experience in alleviating land misallocation and improving agricultural productivity in the contemporary era. |
| Keywords: | Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404753 |
| By: | Cheng, Haotian; Liu, Yuanyuan |
| Abstract: | China is at a critical stage of dietary structure upgrading and food system transformation. Traditional livestock production has resulted in a significant carbon footprint in China’s meat supply chain. Cultured meat is considered an emerging alternative protein source to maintain the meat consumption experience and potentially reducing carbon footprints. However, consumers’ willingness to pay for cultured meat is also influenced by surrounding environmental information. This study explores whether information credibility increases Chinese urban consumers’ willingness to pay for cultured meat. Using 1262 survey questionnaires from four major international consumer cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing), we divided the respondents into three groups based on information credibility and used a Double-bound Contingent Valuation method. The results show that Chinese urban consumers are generally willing to pay a premium for level AA certification label, high protein content, and low carbon footprint cultured meat, but the magnitude of willingness to pay depends on the information consumers receive. Importantly, respondents in the no information group showed the highest average willingness to pay. All information prompts consumers to conduct cautious and risk-aware evaluations, while insufficient information (Tainted Truth Effect) introduces credibility ambiguity, weakening consumers' reliance on factual details. This study has significant implications for evaluating the feasibility of China’s diversified food security strategy, Big Food View and demand-side low-carbon consumption policies. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404528 |
| By: | Chen, Kevin Z.; Huang, Yuanmao; Yan, Zhen |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the historical performance, evolutionary trends, and future opportunities and challenges of China’s agrifood system (AFS) from 2012 to 2023. By constructing multi-year social accounting matrices (SAMs), the study quantifies the economic scale and structural characteristics of the AFS, as well as its historical contribution to broader economic transformation and growth. Utilizing the China Agrifood System Model, the study evaluates the effectiveness of productivity enhancements across different value chains in promoting multidimensional development goals, such as GDP growth, job creation, and poverty eradication. The findings indicate that the transformation of the AFS is a core component of China’s economic transformation. Although the AFS’s share of the national economy has declined during industrialization, its contribution to inclusive economic transformation remains substantial. This continued importance is closely linked to profound structural shifts within the sector, as value creation has increasingly moved from primary production toward downstream segments such as processing, trade, and food services. General equilibrium simulations indicate that some agricultural sectors, including maize, vegetables, and fisheries, generate strong multiplier effects on non-agricultural employment, helping to absorb labor and alleviate transition pressures. The study concludes that continuously optimizing the internal structure of the AFS and strengthening integrated value chain synergies are critical pathways for addressing future resource and environmental constraints while achieving sustainable and inclusive development. |
| Keywords: | food systems; agrifood systems; economic growth; economic development; inclusive growth; sustainable development; large language models; development economics; China; Asia; Eastern Asia |
| Date: | 2026–06–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183570 |
| By: | LaFave, Daniel; Peet, Evan; Thomas, Duncan |
| Abstract: | The agricultural household model, in which decisions about production and consumption are made simultaneously, lies at the heart of many models of development. Empirically modelling these simultaneous choices is not straightforward. The vast majority of empirical studies assume that farm-households behave as if markets are complete in which case decision-making simplifies to a recursive system where consumption choices can be treated as if they are made after all production decisions. Previous empirical tests of this assumption have relied on restrictions on production decisions. We develop a new approach to testing based on household consumption choices and implement the procedure using data from rural Indonesia. Relative to production-side tests, the consumption-based test is well-suited to identifying those farm-households in any setting whose behavior is consistent with complete markets and those for whom the assumption is rejected. We find the recursion assumption is not rejected for larger farmers but is rejected for small farmers. The tests are straightforward to implement and the results of the tests provide new opportunities to identify the behaviors that households adopt in the face of incomplete markets. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19588 |
| By: | Jia, Jingru; McNamara, Paul E. |
| Abstract: | Integrated livelihoods programs are central to rural poverty eradication in low-income countries, but how to strengthen their resilience to climate shocks remains critical to preventing reimpoverishment. We draw on data from two survey rounds covering 1, 805 ultra-poor households in Zambia during the historic 2023–2024 El Ni˜no drought to test whether layering water access infrastructure on top of livelihood training strengthens resilience. Using a field quasi-experiment with three treatment arms and a control group, we assess resilience by examining food and nutrition security and income for households facing the drought. We compare a livelihood-only package against a multi-sectoral package that adds improved water access, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions. The results show a clear gap between self-reported food access and diet quality. While all treatment arms significantly reduced the psychosocial experience of food insecurity (HFIAS), the livelihood-only packages did not protect material welfare. Only the Multi-Sectoral Package (T1) sustained dietary diversity (HDDS) and significantly reduced the duration of acute hunger. This resilience was accompanied by a sizable income gain: T1 households generated approximately four times more incremental income than the livelihood-focused arms. Mechanism analysis points most strongly to the relaxation of a binding labor constraint. The water infrastructure reduced the drought-induced time tax, allowing households to reallocate labor from water collection toward productive non-farm income generation. These findings suggest that in the era of climate volatility, training- and market-oriented programming is more effective when paired with protective infrastructure. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404661 |
| By: | Kiesel, Kristin; Lee, Hyunjung |
| Abstract: | This study examines how consumers across income groups respond to sustainability-related food labels and claims in local food purchasing decisions. Using a field experiment conducted in Solano County, California, the analysis combines stated preference measures, including perceived quality and willingness to pay (WTP), with revealed preference measures based on actual purchase decisions. Participants evaluated strawberry baskets before and after exposure to different combinations of sustainability-related labels and claims, including the USDA Organic seal and the Sustainable Solano logo. The results suggest that sustainability-related labels generally increase both perceived quality and WTP relative to unlabeled products, although the effectiveness of different labeling strategies varies. The USDA Organic seal generates the strongest improvements in perceived quality, while combining local sustainability claims with the USDA Organic seal produces largest increase in WTP, suggesting that monetary valuations reflect not only perceived product quality but also broader consumer values, such as support for local farmers and regional food systems. The findings also reveal substantial heterogeneity across income groups, with lower-income consumers exhibiting stronger responses to label information than higherincome consumers. At the same time, the results highlight an important distinction between stated and revealed preferences. Although labels improve product evaluations and valuations, their effects on actual purchase decisions remain relatively limited, suggesting that consumer purchasing behavior may be more resistant to change than stated evaluations alone would imply. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404533 |
| By: | Adhikari, Prabin; Kassas, Bachir; Nayga, Rodolfo |
| Abstract: | Rising temperatures may influence everyday food choices in ways that have important implications for nutrition and public health. This paper studies how short-run exposure to extreme temperatures affects the composition of household grocery purchases in the United States. Using a nationally representative household panel dataset of grocery transactions merged with local weather information, we exploit within-household variation and estimate two-way fixed effects models to identify causal effects. We find that hotter weeks consistently shift food purchases toward less healthy items and reduce overall diet quality, with little change in total grocery spending. In contrast, unusually cold weeks lead to slight increases in total spending but do not significantly alter the nutritional composition of purchases. These results suggest that heat exposure primarily induces households to reallocate spending toward less healthy foods rather than to change how much they spend, whereas cold exposure mainly affects the volume of groceries purchased. The heat-induced effects on healthiness of food purchases are modest in the short run but are highly robust and more pronounced for households with less healthy baseline purchasing patterns. These findings highlight an underexplored channel through which rising temperatures may degrade diet quality, underscoring the potential public health and welfare costs of climate change. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404461 |
| By: | Dennis, Elliott James; Okunola, Akinbode |
| Abstract: | Trade agreements shape the global agricultural trade landscape, encompassing both tariff and non-tariff measures. Among the latter, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures such as maximum residue limits (MRLs) are gaining attention. As trade tensions escalate, there is growing concern that countries could use SPS measures as a tool of retaliation in international agricultural markets, as they are often a focal point in trade negotiations (Disdier and Marette, 2010; Disdier and van Tongeren 2010; Grant et al., 2015). |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade, Livestock Production/Industries, Supply Chain |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:nbaece:404862 |
| By: | Chang, Rui; Lu, Hanjun; Rejesus, Roderick |
| Abstract: | Empirical evidence on the effect of cover crops on row crop yields in the United States (US) remain mixed, likely because of the various locations where past studies were conducted. Focusing on corn in the continental US, this study comprehensively examines state-level spatial heterogeneity in the impact of cover crop use on corn yields. Based on a novel county-level panel dataset from 2015 to 2023 that links satellite-derived measures of cover crop adoption to corn yields (and other control variables), we are able to employ a suite of econometric methods — including linear panel fixed effects models, a double machine learning approach, and an instrumental variable procedure — to achieve the study objective. We document substantial state-level spatial heterogeneity in corn yield response to cover crops. Positive yield effects are concentrated in the Plains and the western Midwest, whereas effects in most other regions are statistically insignificant or negative. We further show that soil pH levels and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the soil are strongly associated with these spatial patterns. Our results indicate that the productivity impacts of cover crops are not uniform across states and it likely depends systematically on soil conditions and production environments. These findings provide important policy implications in terms of targeting the level of support or subsidy required to encourage cover crop use across different states with varying soil endowments. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404333 |
| By: | Zhang, Liyuan; Ahmadiani, Mona; Valizadeh, Pourya; Woodward, Richard; Boehm, Rebecca |
| Abstract: | Understanding how households adapt to rising temperatures is central to evaluating the economic costs of climate change, yet evidence on adaptation in food consumption and expenditure remains limited. This paper studies behavioral adaptation in food-at-home spending to climate change by distinguishing short-run responses to weather fluctuations from long-run responses to persistent warming in the United States. Using household-level grocery transaction data matched with high-resolution temperature records, we decompose realized temperature into a slow-moving climate norm and a short-run weather deviation and estimate behavioral responses on both the extensive margin, the decision to shop, and the intensive margin, expenditure conditional on shopping. We find that food-at-home spending declines with higher temperatures in both short and long-run, but the long-run climate response is much larger. A 1℃ increase in weekly temperature above the norm lowers expected weekly spending by about 13 cents per capita, while a 1℃ increase in the climate norm lowers weekly spending by about 50 cents. This implies that behavioral adaptation intensifies, rather than attenuate the short-run effect of heat. Responses vary across income groups, regions, and food categories, and differ between cold and heat exposure. These results highlight the importance of household consumption behavior for accurately measuring economic impact of climate change and the role of behavioral adaptation in adjusting long-run welfare cost. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404514 |
| By: | Olurotimi, Osaretin; Liverpool-Tasie, Saweda |
| Abstract: | Violent conflict is an increasingly pervasive global threat to livelihoods and food security, affecting a growing share of the world’s population. At the same time, food supply chains across Africa are rapidly expanding, serving as critical conduits for food access, employment, and income generation. Yet the midstream segments of food supply chains (such as trading and processing), which are also vulnerable to conflict-related disruptions, are understudied generally, and particularly in conflict-affected settings. Leveraging a unique dataset on food wholesale markets across Nigeria, we examine how exposure to violence in surrounding communities and within market spaces shapes market functioning. Our results show that while aggregate local fatalities do not significantly affect market outcomes, specific conflict events, especially riots and protests, are associated with measurable declines in food availability. Market-based violence has particularly pronounced effects: each additional violent crime within a market is associated, on average, with a roughly two-percentage-point reduction in food supply. We further show that the types and intensity of violent events affecting markets vary markedly across regions within the country. Our results highlight differentiated effects of violence types and locations on market performance and underscore the importance of strengthening supply chain resilience to support food security and economic stability. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404539 |
| By: | Adesina, Bukade; Bauchet, Jonathan; Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Food safety failures in informal food markets remain widespread, driven by the unobservability of food contaminants, information asymmetries between producers and consumers, and the lack of incentive to supply safe foods. Whether market-based mechanisms can support food safety improvements, and under what conditions such markets can emerge, remains unclear. These issues are salient in cyanide-safe cassava product markets, leading to serious health risks for hundreds of millions who consume cassava foods as a staple. We implemented a randomized controlled trial combined with experimental auctions among 1, 200 small-scale cassava processors and 792 consumers in Nigeria to estimate supply and demand conditions that can lead to a market for safe gari (a cassava flour). We specifically evaluated whether training, price incentives, and information can spur the supply and demand of cyanide-safe gari in the same market. At midline, training alone and training combined with price incentive reduced cyanide concentrations by 14.7 and 17.5 ppm respectively, increasing WHO compliance by 35 and 70 percentage points. At a six-month follow-up, both effects persisted with near-equal magnitude 15.4 and 15.5 ppm reductions, and compliance gains of 69 and 74 percentage points.. Consumers were willing to pay more than processors required as a premium to produce safe gari, by a margin large enough to suggest that a market for safe food exists given simple processor training and consumer information. Overall, results show informal food markets can internalize safety when the costs of producing safe foods are low, and training and information are provided. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404544 |
| By: | Barrett, Tina N. |
| Abstract: | Section headers: Net Income Recovery Falls Short of Historical Highs Household Spending Steady Amid Income Fluctuations Rising Debt and Shifting Balance Sheets Liquidity Pressures Worsen Interest Costs Add to Financial Strain Capital Purchases Shift: Less Equipment, More Land Crop Enterprise Analysis: Losses Mount Despite Input Savings Crop Enterprise Analysis: Losses Mount Despite Input Savings |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:nbaece:404855 |
| By: | Nkhoma, Nomore; Chen, Xiaonan |
| Abstract: | Digital technologies are widely promoted as tools for raising smallholder agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa, yet existing causal evidence is geographically fragmented and rarely accounts for high-dimensional selection into adoption, leaving the magnitude of productivity returns uncertain. This study estimates the causal effect of mobile phone ownership on both farm production value and maize yield using the Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS5, 2019-2020) and a Double Machine Learning (DML) framework. We implement partially linear regression (PLR) and interactive regression models (IRM) with a suite of machine learners to flexibly control for high-dimensional confounders. Our stacked DML estimates indicate that mobile phone ownership raises log farm production value by 10.7 percent and log maize yield by 5.9 percent, with consistent results across learners and IV specifications using a leave-one-out community mobile ownership instrument. Pathway analysis identifies fertilizer use and formal credit access as the dominant mechanisms, with secondary contributions from ICT-based extension and improved seed adoption. Productivity gains are concentrated among youth-headed households and in the Centre and Southern regions, where complementary market infrastructure amplifies the returns to digital connectivity. We contribute new causal evidence that mobile phones function as productive agricultural infrastructure and document that the yield and production channels operate through distinct but reinforcing pathways. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404385 |
| By: | Deka, Anubrata; Meerza, Syed Imran Ali; Yiannaka, Amalia |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Public Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:nbaece:404861 |
| By: | Hovhannisyan, Vardges; Sahakyan, Shavarsh; Devadoss, Stephen |
| Abstract: | Obesity is a significant problem in the U.S., with most adults considered overweight or obese due to poor diet and high sugar consumption. To address this issue, policies have been implemented to subsidize healthy foods and tax unhealthy ones. However, much of the research backing these policies has focused on sugar-sweetened beverages, neglecting other sugary foods that also contribute to weight gain. Understanding how consumers interact with these sugary products is crucial for creating effective obesity prevention strategies. To this end, we investigate demand for various sweet foods and sweeteners using a two-stage budgeting approach based on an advanced demand model. It captures complex Engel curves while accounting for consumption pre-commitments and unobserved differences among consumers. Additionally, instead of unit values, we use the GEKS price index1, which effectively manages product churn, reduces bias from substitution and chain drift, and aligns with economic principles. Results show precommitment to sugary foods in consumers' diets and indicate that foods in this group substitute for one another. We further simulate the effects of hypothetical ad valorem taxes on sugary food consumption, consumer body weight, health, and welfare. This information can help consumers and policymakers reduce consumption of sugary foods and combat the obesity epidemic. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404616 |
| By: | Jing, Chunxiao |
| Abstract: | Structural transformation, the reallocation of labor from low-productivity agriculture to higher-productivity non-agricultural sectors, is widely viewed as a key driver of economic development. Yet in many African countries, labor leaving agriculture does not always transition into productive employment. This paper examines how agricultural productivity shocks affect labor reallocation and why similar shocks generate different employment outcomes across countries. Using household panel data from Niger, Malawi, and Ethiopia, combined with geospatial climate data, we construct a continuous measure of weather-driven agricultural productivity changes based on rainfall and temperature using a machine learning approach. Empirical results show that favorable weather productivity shocks reduce agricultural labor shares, but the employment outcomes of workers leaving agriculture vary substantially across countries: labor shifts into non-agricultural activities in Niger, spatial barriers limit access to jobs in Malawi, and institutional constraints lead to surplus labor in Ethiopia. To explain these patterns, we develop and estimate a microfounded model that combines a Lewis-type labor release mechanism with a Harris–Todaro–type job absorption process. Counterfactual policy simulations show that the effectiveness of policies—such as food subsidies, infrastructure improvements, and institutional reforms—depends on both country-specific labor market constraints and climate conditions. These findings highlight the importance of designing development policies that account for institutional context and climate variability when promoting structural transformation. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404662 |
| By: | Fan, Fan; Lee, Seowoo; Liu, Yong |
| Abstract: | Understanding how hurricanes translate into agricultural insurance losses is important for crop insurance design and agricultural risk management. We estimate the local causal effect of hurricane wind exposure using a spatial boundary regression discontinuity design. Using NOAA best-track and wind-radius data, we construct realized hurricane wind-field boundaries and compare counties just inside and just outside these boundaries within narrow geographic bandwidths. Combining these exposure measures with county-level crop insurance data from the USDA Risk Management Agency over 2004–2024, we find that crossing into the realized 34-knot wind field increases the hurricane loss-cost ratio by approximately 0.85 percentage points at the boundary. A broader storm-related loss measure produces a larger estimate, suggesting that narrow hurricane cause-of-loss categories may understate the insured loss response. A fuzzy RD specification further indicates that insured losses increase with within-county exposure share, and crop-specific estimates show meaningful heterogeneity across major crops. Estimates at the 64-knot boundary are larger but less precise. Descriptive comparisons with HIP-WI suggest that its effective indemnity footprint may not fully align with the broader realized exposure footprint over which agricultural losses occur. Our findings provide local causal evidence on hurricane losses and inform hurricane-specific crop insurance design. |
| Keywords: | Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404410 |
| By: | Goeb, Joseph; Minten, Bart; Aung, Nilar; Ei Win, Hnin |
| Abstract: | Access to timely credit is widely viewed as an important determinant of improved agricultural investment and productivity. However, little is known about how agricultural credit markets function during prolonged conflict. This paper examines how conflict shapes both the receipt of agricultural credit and the provision of informal credit by agrifood businesses in Myanmar, where conflict has been widespread in after 2021. Using rare data from both farmers and firms, we document a substantial decline in formal credit after conflict, but stable receipt of informal credit. In conflict-affected areas, formal credit receipt declined sharply – most notably from government-supported schemes and from microfinance institutions – while informal credit was more resilient – especially from friends and family and agribusinesses. Using direct elicitation methods of credit constraint classifications, we show that farmers in high conflict areas are more likely to voluntarily withdraw from credit markets and shift to self-financing. On the supply side, conflict has insignificant relationships to farm-credit provision by input retailers and rice mills. Taken together, our findings highlight the informal segment of agricultural credit markets as an underappreciated source of resilience in conflict-affected settings. |
| Keywords: | credit; conflicts; agricultural credit; access to finance; investment; Myanmar; Asia; South-eastern Asia |
| Date: | 2026–06–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprwp:183542 |
| By: | Zhang, Xinyue; Zheng, Hongyun; Li, Jingyi |
| Abstract: | While promoting small-scale grain farmers’ market participation has been widely recognized as an effective way to improve farm performance, little is known about how different marketing channels affect production and sales outcomes. This study categorizes grain farmers’ marketing channel choices by the type of buyers they sell to: farmgate (door-to-door), non-farmgate informal, and non-farmgate formal channels. We examine the effects of grain farmers’ marketing channel choice on chemical input use, production costs, and sales behavior. Using a multivalued treatment effects (MVTE) framework with the inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) estimator, we address selection bias and estimate open-access data from the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey. Results show that, compared with selling through the farmgate channel, selling through the non-farmgate informal channel significantly increases sales frequency. However, compared to selling through both farmgate and non-farmgate informal channels, selling through the non-farmgate formal channel significantly reduces fertilizer and pesticide expenditures, production costs, and sale frequency, with these patterns varying by distance to town. This indicates that formal marketing channels may encourage more efficient input use and cost-saving practices, but involve fewer transactions. This study provides evidence for designing marketoriented policies that promote inclusive commercialization among small-scale grain farmers. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404705 |
| By: | Ulimwengu, John M. |
| Abstract: | Large language models (LLM) are increasingly used in applied economics to convert unstructured text into structured empirical measures. This paper examines their use as measurement instruments through a 10-country public-discourse panel on food and nutrition security in Africa from 2010 to 2025. The panel covers Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and contains 206 document-level records drawn from public early-warning, humanitarian, government, and technical sources. Each record is organized by country, date, source type, geography, benchmark type, benchmark phase where available, leakage risk, and a set of generated coding variables describing food-security dimension, text severity, narrative frame, tone, attribution, and evidence type. The paper treats LLM-coded outputs not as ground truth, but as generated variables subject to measurement error, source-selection bias, benchmark leakage, and uncertainty arising from incomplete or uneven source text. A conservative validation sample is limited to records with completed source-grounded excerpts, while an exploratory validation sample uses the broader metadata-supported corpus to examine phase coverage across benchmark categories. The results illustrate both the promise and the limits of LLM-assisted public-discourse measurement. Public documents can be transformed into transparent, auditable indicators of food-security stress, but their validity depends on document sampling, excerpt quality, benchmark independence, source diversity, and careful distinction between technical classifications and independent discourse. The paper contributes to the emerging literature on LLMs in economics by shifting attention from general productivity uses toward the practical conditions under which LLM-assisted text measurement can support applied research and policy analysis. A reproducibility package accompanies the study and includes the coded data, validation samples, codebook, data dictionary, AI-use disclosure, leakage documentation, and scripts for reproducing the descriptive results. |
| Keywords: | large language models; food security; economics; measurement; Somalia; South Sudan; Sudan; Congo, Democratic Republic of; Nigeria; Ethiopia; Kenya; Niger; Mali; Burkina Faso; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2026–06–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183571 |
| By: | Osman, Eliyasu Y.; Bergtold, Jason S.; Lindamood, Jackson; Caldas, Marcellus M. |
| Abstract: | Expanding solar energy production requires access to land; however, relying on productive farmland raises concerns about competing with food production. Identifying alternative sites, such as Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands or marginal lands, offers an alternative sustainable solution. Yet, little is known about how much compensation landowners require to lease such lands for small-scale solar installations. This study examines the determinants of farmers' willingness to accept (WTA) payments for solar leases on CRP or marginal lands in the U.S. Southern Great Plains. Using survey data and a heteroskedastic interval regression model, results show a mean WTA of $665 per acre per year, with significant heterogeneity across states and farmer characteristics. Rangeland area and livestock ownership increase WTA, while CRP participation lowers it. Higher pastureland rental rates also significantly reduce WTA, and state fixed effects indicate notably lower WTA in Colorado and New Mexico. Perceptions of renewable technologies and land-use intensity further shape compensation demands. These findings offer guidance for policymakers and solar developers in structuring lease offers tailored to land type, regional context, and market conditions. |
| Keywords: | Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404750 |
| By: | Mastrianni, Morgan; Atkinson, Sarah; Fiechter, Chad |
| Abstract: | In 2024, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) helped generate $2.25 billion in agricultural credit through their Guaranteed Farm Loan Program (FLP)s. One key stipulation of the FSA Guaranteed FLPs is that banks cannot obtain a guarantee for loans issued over a certain principal amount. A share of all FSA Guaranteed Farm Ownership Loans have been issued at the maximum lending limit since 2012. This study uses FSA data on guaranteed loans issued by commercial and Farm Credit System (FCS) lending institutions. We show that the lending limit have heterogeneous impacts across loan, lender, and borrower types, regions, and years. These results help us understand how different producers would be affected by the The $3.5 million guaranteed lending limit proposed by the PACE Act (Reps. Finstad, Craig, Sens. Hoeven, Klobuchar Reintroduce Legislation Modernizing Loan Limits for Ag Producers, 2025). We show that an increase in the maximum lending limit would relieve much of the excess credit demanded from borrowers. However, we estimate that a smaller increase would also significantly reduce the credit constraints faced by borrowers who take out loans at the maximum lending limit. The FSA is a critical player in agricultural credit markets for beginning farmers and ranchers, and yet the effect of its Guaranteed Farm Loan Programs’ maximum loan limits on the supply of agricultural credit has not been previously researched. This study will inform FSA and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) policymakers of the role that lending limits have on demand for guaranteed farm loans and highlight the potential for these programs to further expand access to credit for eligible borrowers. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404345 |
| By: | Renato Molina; Juan Carlos Villaseñor-Derbez; Juan Agar |
| Abstract: | Hurricanes routinely traverse water and land along the Southeastern United States, bringing with them hazardous weather conditions at sea, which presumably hinder fishing operations. Yet, work examining the impact of hurricanes on fisheries has mostly focused on supply chain analyses and post-disaster recovery, without paying attention to the first link in a long chain of events: how hazardous weather affects fisheries production. Here, we quantify the economic toll of hurricanes on commercial fisheries in the Southeastern United States. We construct a novel, high-frequency county-level panel linking daily commercial landings and revenue to hurricane exposure from 2005 to 2022. Our results indicate that county-level wind exposure reduces daily commercial landings and revenue by up to 60 and 70% under major-hurricane-force winds. Monetizing responses indicate cumulative revenue losses of $162.4 million over 2005--2022 due to hurricanes. These findings underscore the persistent vulnerability of coastal fisheries to extreme weather and provide an empirical foundation for targeted disaster preparedness and climate adaptation policy. |
| Keywords: | extreme weather, environmental hazards, seafood, food production |
| JEL: | Q22 Q51 C54 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12871 |
| By: | Ling, Kai; Won, Sunjae; Sawadgo, Wendiam |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the dynamic impact of multi-year weather histories on the adoption of conservation practices in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. Using county-level panel data from the Census of Agriculture (2012, 2017, 2022) and monthly weather records from 2007 to 2022, we employ a two-way fixed effects distributed lag model (TWFE-DLM) and a modified Almon-Ridge (AR) estimator. This modified estimator allows us to recover smooth, interpretable lag profiles while mitigating the multicollinearity inherent in multi-ysear climate variables. Our results demonstrate that weather shocks exert persistent effects on adoption for up to five years. Notably, we find that variations in precipitation during the crop planting season trigger distinctly different responses: historically abundant spring rainfall consistently fosters the adoption of conservation tillage techniques, yet it is negatively correlated with the adoption of cover cropping. These findings underscore that climate adaptation is a path dependent process, one in which short-term operational constraints often precipitate long-term shifts in behavioral patterns. Consequently, effective agricultural conservation policies must move beyond purely static incentive mechanisms to fully account for these seasonally asymmetric effects, striving instead to support flexible and forward-looking long-term management strategies. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404482 |
| By: | McLaughlin, Eoin; Sharp, Paul; Skovsgaard, Christian; Vedel, Christian |
| Abstract: | Agricultural cooperation is seen as a way to solve collective action problems and has been associated with high social capital and other beneficial impacts in the countryside beyond productivity increases. But what if it comes into conflict with existing private concerns? The Irish dairy cooperatives from the 1890s entered a contested market for milk, and soon became associated with various degrees of conflict: legal disputes and physical violence. We hypothesize that this led to poor social capital, manifesting in conflict during the Irish War of Independence. We analyze novel data on cooperative and private creameries, as well as measures of conflict. Our findings indicate a significant positive correlation between the presence of cooperatives and local conflict intensities, persisting even after controlling for various confounders. An instrumental variable approach based on prior specialization in dairying validates this. Cooperation might thus both reflect social capital but also have pernicious impacts on it. |
| Keywords: | Ireland; Cooperatives |
| JEL: | N53 N54 Q13 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19714 |
| By: | Harris, J. Michael; Johnson, James; Dillard, John; Williams, Robert; Dubman, Robert |
| Abstract: | Income and wealth for farm businesses have changed noticeably this decade. Debt levels have been rising, asset levels have outpaced debt despite a recent fall in land prices, and equity has more than doubled for farm businesses. However, recent declines in farm income and falling land prices have raised concerns about the financial position of U.S. farms. Total farm sector debt reached a record $240 billion in 2008, a $26-billion increase over 2007. Debt is expected to decline to $234 billion in 2009. The distribution of debt among farm operators has also been changing. In 1986, nearly 60 percent of farms used debt financing. By 2007, the number had dropped to 31 percent. In essence, farm debt has become more concentrated in fewer, larger farm businesses. Lenders and farm operators indicate that real estate accounts for the largest use of farm debt. Debt repayment capacity utilization (DRCU) of farm operators has dropped since the 1980s. DRCU dropped from 27 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2007. Larger farms are more likely to use more of their debt capacity. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Financial Economics, Land Economics/Use |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uersmp:407659 |
| By: | Qin, Zhiran; Merel, Pierre |
| Abstract: | China’s transition from prudent pilots to nationwide commercialization of genetically modified (GM) corn and soybeans represents a potentially consequential shift in global crop supply, given the country’s outsized role in world feedgrain and oilseed demand and trade. How a domestic GM rollout transmits through international markets to change production, trade flows, and welfare outcomes is a central but under-studied question, with particular relevance for export-dependent producers and import-dependent consumers. Two foundations motivate the analysis. First, China is actively scaling GM corn and soybean cultivation under a national food-security strategy that prioritizes “bio-breeding”. Second, China’s large demand profile and bilateral trade shares imply that any supply-side shock originating in its domestic agriculture transmits to world prices and welfare in proportion to that exposure. We develop and calibrate a partial equilibrium model of world crop demand and supply, disciplined by observable production, consumption, and trade shares together with behavioral elasticities. We apply a 20% yield improvement to China’s soybean acreage and obtain three main findings. The domestic supply response is large in percentage terms but transmits weakly to consumer-relevant prices, because imports supply the majority of baseline Chinese soybean volume. World-price spillovers are modest, with the largest non-China producer-price decline below 1%. Welfare gains are concentrated in China; Brazil and the United States bear the largest producer losses, though domestic consumer gains partially offset these at the national welfare level. |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404675 |
| By: | Huy Nguyen; Celine Thevenot |
| Abstract: | Fuel and food constitute significant portions of consumer baskets, yet their prices are highly volatile. The renewed energy price shock in March 2026, driven by geopolitical disruptions and supply constraints, has highlighted the macroeconomic and distributional importance of how international price shocks transmit to domestic markets. Spikes in these prices can have major social, political, and economic implications. The conventional policy approach is to allow domestic retail prices to align with international prices while protecting the most vulnerable. However, many countries intervene in price settings to shield their domestic markets from global fluctuations. This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the passthrough from global to domestic retail prices for four commodities: gasoline, diesel, wheat, and rice over the past two decades in many countries. We employ a dynamic model of local projections building on the work of Kpodar and Abdallah (2017). Our findings indicate that average passthrough is incomplete, with fuel exhibiting higher and faster passthrough than food. The extent of passthrough varies by period, region, and between commodity exporters and importers. We also examine asymmetric responses to global price shocks and find evidence of a ratchet effect: price increases are more likely to be passed through than decreases. |
| Date: | 2026–07–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2026/148 |
| By: | Desiraju, Naga Lavanya; Delgado, Michael |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we explore the roles of migration frictions, land constraints, and international agricultural trade in uneven wage growth across districts in India. To answer this question, the paper combines reduced-form econometric methods with a quantitative spatial equilibrium model calibrated to a district-level monthly panel for 2010–2022. There are two stages to the empirical strategy. First, we estimate a Spatial Durbin model (SDM) to quantify the effects of local and neighboring districts’ conditions on district-level agricultural wages. These reduced-form estimates provide evidence of spatial spillovers and give elasticities that will be used in calibrations in the next step. In the second stage, we calibrate a quantitative spatial equilibrium model with costly labor migration, fixed land endowments, and heterogeneous productivity across districts. The calibration is performed using a simulated method of moments to match observed wage dispersion, spatial autocorrelation, and the responsiveness of wages to weather and trade shocks. This approach helps decompose the relative contributions of migration frictions, land scarcity, climate variability, and trade exposure to the divergence in wages. Finally, we also conduct counterfactual simulations measuring how changes in mobility barriers, export demand, or climate risk could alter the distribution of agricultural wages in India. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404637 |
| By: | Amiri, Somayeh; Olson, Frayne; Pates, Nicholas |
| Abstract: | Agricultural cooperatives operate in increasingly uncertain environments characterized by production risk, market volatility, and recurring external shocks. In this context, revenue diversification is often viewed as a strategy for reducing financial vulnerability and strengthening resilience. This study examines whether cooperatives with more diversified revenue portfolios were better able to withstand and recover from the 2012 U.S. drought, a major shock to agricultural production and markets. Using proprietary financial and operating data from CoBank, we construct a measure of revenue diversification based on a Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) calculated from businesssegment gross profit margins. We then implement an event-study difference-in-differences framework to estimate the effect of diversification on cooperative profitability following the 2012 drought. The results indicate that revenue diversification was associated with an increase in return on assets (ROA) of approximately 1.78 percentage points in 2012 relative to more concentrated cooperatives. However, the estimated benefits were concentrated in the immediate post-shock period and did not persist as statistically significant long-run advantages. These findings contribute to the limited literature on diversification and resilience in agricultural cooperatives and suggest that diversified revenue structures can enhance short-run resilience following major external shocks. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404324 |
| By: | Al Amin, Md Al; Smith, Travis |
| Abstract: | This study models the impact of adjusting Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) eligibility thresholds on child diet quality across the United States. CEP enables qualified educational institutions and districts to offer complimentary breakfast and lunch to all students, with eligibility criteria assessed via the Identified Student Percentage (ISP), a metric indicating categorical eligibility through programs such as SNAP and TANF. Historically, schools have generally required an ISP of at least 40% to qualify for CEP; however, in 2023, the USDA reduced this minimum threshold to 25%, thereby expanding the population of schools eligible to offer universal free school meals. We compile a school-level administrative panel that details CEP eligibility and participation from academic years 2014-2015 through 2018-2019 and associate these records with school characteristics obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics. To translate changes in CEP eligibility into predicted diet quality, we utilize data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey’s dietary recall records spanning 2013 to 2018. An individual fixed-effects model is employed to estimate children’s Healthy Eating Index scores, considering the proportion of daily caloric intake derived from school food and away-from-home food, with home food serving as the baseline category. We subsequently simulate modifications in school food consumption under various CEP threshold scenarios and forecast the corresponding alterations in diet quality. The analysis recognizes the schools and student populations most affected by threshold adjustments and offers policy-relevant insights into how expanding or limiting universal free school meal access could influence child nutrition. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404568 |
| By: | Bansal, Trishaa; Feyertag, Joe; Malhotra, Saumya; Mehta, Sukanya |
| Abstract: | India has one of the world’s largest social protection systems. The Government of India spends roughly 7.9% of GDP, or 26.6% of its budget, on social protection programmes. In 2025, social security coverage extended to 64.3% of the population: around 920 million people. Climate change is projected to put a significant strain on India’s social protection system, especially given the country’s high exposure and vulnerability to extreme weather events. As such, social protection coverage is becoming increasingly vital in areas such as water, resilient infrastructure, poverty alleviation, agriculture and health. India will need to leverage these sectors if it is to finance adaptation that protects the most vulnerable sections of society. |
| JEL: | N0 E6 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140334 |
| By: | Padhyoti, Yadav; Mugera, Amin; White, Benedict |
| Abstract: | Price transmission between distant markets is a measure of market performance, weighing the fairness of the distribution of market surplus among producers, traders, and consumers. We estimate price transmission from global wheat futures (CBOT and Euronext) to Australian regional wheat spot markets (Kwinana and Newcastle) using the Non-Linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model. The NARDL captures non-linearity and asymmetric adjustments when price series are stationary or of mixed order at the level. The model is further extended into the Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) framework to account for time-varying volatility. The results reveal that price transmission from CBOT and Euronext futures to Kwinana is negatively asymmetric in both the short and long run, while it is symmetric to the Newcastle spot market. The export-oriented Kwinana market is highly concentrated, with a single major buyer, whereas the Newcastle market has multiple buyers and significant domestic demand. This study adds to the existing spatial price transmission literature, especially in the underexplored context of Australian grain markets. It also advances the econometric practices by integrating the NARDL framework with a GARCH specification to account for time-varying volatility in high-frequency time series data. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404540 |
| By: | Li, Ran; Fan, Linlin |
| Abstract: | Market-based surplus-food platforms redirect retail inventory that would otherwise be discarded toward households willing to purchase it at a steep discount. We provide the first causal evidence on whether such platforms expand household food access, exploiting the staggered metropolitan expansion of Too Good To Go (TGTG) across fifteen U.S. metropolitan statistical areas between September 2020 and June 2024. Combining proprietary monthly supplier-participation data with 1.66 million household-month observations from the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey, we estimate heterogeneity-robust dynamic difference-in-differences effects on a four-category measure of household food sufficiency. TGTG entry increases the probability that households report preference-aligned food sufficiency by 1.5 percentage points (2.2 percent relative to baseline) and reduces the probability of preference-unaligned sufficiency by 1.6 percentage points (6.6 percent), suggesting a shift from preference-unaligned to preference-aligned food sufficiency. The estimated effects on moderate and severe food insufficiency are economically small and statistically indistinguishable from zero. Dose-response estimates indicate that marginal gains from additional suppliers are concentrated in markets where the platform is still scaling. Mechanism evidence suggests that the effects operate primarily through an affordability channel: TGTG reduces affordability-related food-access difficulty, with larger reductions among households without mobility difficulty. Falsification tests show no detectable effects on SNAP participation or charitable food receipt, and no detectable gains among households with mobility difficulty. The findings characterize a private, market-based channel that improves preference-aligned food access for households near sufficiency, while leaving more severe food hardship largely unchanged. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404534 |
| By: | Belgacem, Wajdi; Wang, Tong; Oyebanji, Akinsola |
| Abstract: | This study examines structural and geographic shifts in U.S. dairy production from 2002 to 2022 using county‑level data across 48 contiguous states. Dairy operations have been operating with tight profit margins for decades, and persistent pressures from rising input costs, volatile milk prices, and regulatory burdens have accelerated consolidation and regional relocation. Using augmented USDA Census and survey data for 1, 498 counties, we measure changes in operation numbers and herd size and classify counties into four structural‑change pathways: consolidation, decline or exit, growth or entry, and de‑consolidation. Ordinary Least Squares and logit models identify how variation in feed resources, land constraints, labor conditions, regulatory pressure, and environmental factors drives county‑level structural change. Results indicate that consolidation is most pronounced in counties with greater cropland resources, higher agricultural land shares, stronger labor availability, and cost advantages in meeting regulatory requirements. Counties to the west of the 100th Meridian are far more likely to experience substantial increases in herd size, reflecting lower land costs, drier climates, and the expansion of confinement‑based systems. Grassland‑dependent regions and small counties face higher risks of decline or exit. Overall, economic factors dominate the restructuring of the dairy sector, contributing to continued consolidation and westward concentration with implications for long‑term industry sustainability. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404773 |
| By: | Ayalew, Hailemariam; Kimaiyo, Faith Chepkemoi; Keenan, Michael; Trachtman, Carly |
| Abstract: | Fertilizer subsidy programs in the Global South often juggle competing policy objectives of maximizing aggregate production and providing social protection for the poorest households. Using 2026 survey data from 3105 Kenyan households paired with parcel-level soil tests, this paper evaluates the targeting performance of Kenya’s National Fertilizer Subsidy Program (NFSP). Specifically, we analyze the extent to which the current “de facto” targeting—driven by digital registration and e-vouchers—aligns with these possibly conflicting policy goals. We find that the subsidy recipient populations who would maximize productivity do not tend to include the poorest and most vulnerable farmers. Furthermore, the current pool of NFSP beneficiaries shows limited overlap with the ideal beneficiaries for either policy objective. Among those who we would ideally target, we find that factors such as mobile phone ownership and knowledge of fertilizer recommendations may help predict which households actually receive benefits. We conclude that integrating soil testing into subsidy frameworks could significantly reduce these inefficiencies and improve the alignment between program delivery and national agricultural goals. |
| Keywords: | fertilizers; subsidies; productivity; welfare; soil quality; targeting; Kenya; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprwp:183773 |
| By: | Xu, Alan; Chen, Rui |
| Abstract: | Climate adaptation in controlled environment agriculture increasingly depends on biological technologies that differ in how deeply they intervene in plant function. Genetic modification, beneficial microorganisms, and conventional plant breeding are often grouped together as climate-smart innovations, leaving consumers without a framework to differentiate them on the basis of biological intervention. We test whether disclosing the intrusiveness of each technology reshapes consumer choices. A nationwide discrete choice experiment with 4, 824 U.S. consumers randomly assigned half of respondents to a control condition and half to a treatment condition labeling plant breeding as low intrusive, beneficial microorganisms as low-to-moderately intrusive, and genetic modification as highly intrusive. Without disclosure, consumers strongly penalize genetic modification but do not significantly differentiate breeding from microorganisms. Disclosure deepens aversion to genetic modification, eliminates the baseline premium on beneficial microorganisms, and modestly improves preferences for breeding. Heterogeneity analyses show that women, college-educated consumers, and political moderates respond most strongly to disclosure, while prior technology attitudes amplify rather than narrow the treatment effect on genetic modification. The results indicate that transparency about biological intervention does not uniformly raise acceptance of climate-smart technologies. It reallocates demand along a perceived naturalness gradient and can polarize as much as it informs. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404587 |
| By: | Engist, Dennis; Englander, Gabriel; Lee, Alan; Noack, Frederik |
| Abstract: | Protected areas cover 17% of the world’s land surface, yet credible evidence on their long-run economic and ecological impacts remains scarce. This paper estimates the effects of South Africa’s protected areas on household income, bird biodiversity, and tourism consumer surplus. For the income and biodiversity analyses, it develops a machine-learning counterfactual approach that recovers the present-day impacts of protected areas created up to 100 years ago. Short-run impacts of newer protected areas are small and statistically insignificant, while older protected areas generate large gains. Prior research may have severely underestimated the benefits of protected areas by only estimating the short-run effects of newly established protected areas. In aggregate, this paper estimates that protected areas increase annual household income by approximately R300 billion (roughly 10% of 2011 GDP). This yields approximately 7.6 million job-equivalents attributable to South Africa’s protected areas. Different types of protected areas play complementary roles in conserving different categories of threatened birds, demonstrating the value of South Africa’s entire protected area network. A structural travel cost model estimates that South Africa’s national parks generate R7.7 billion per year (2023 rand) in recreational value for domestic and international tourists. These results suggest that in South Africa there is little tradeoff between wildlife conservation and economic development. Realizing the economic and ecological benefits of protected areas, however, requires patience: returns to conserva tion accumulate over decades, not years. |
| Date: | 2026–07–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11430 |
| By: | Sankar, Anirudh; Dulin, Robert; Davies, Benjamin; Nourani, Vesall; Rudder, Jess; Salomon, Abraham; Taulya, Godfrey |
| Abstract: | Mechanistic explanations—descriptions of a system through the causal interactions of its parts—play a key role in human cognition and scientific progress. Despite their importance, we lack systematic evidence on whether and how mechanistic explanations help lay decision-makers interpret information in complex economic environments. We evaluate the causal impact of including mechanistic explanations in an information intervention: public demonstrations of fertilizer use for smallholder tomato farmers in Eastern Uganda. In all demonstrations, extension officers showcased the impact of a recommended fertilizer recipe. In the treatment group, officers also explained the mechanisms underlying the recipe’s effects—introducing the language of macronutrients and the causal processes linking nutrients, soil features, and plant growth. We collected detailed data on beliefs and behaviors from 797 farmers in a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted at the demonstration site and followed up with them over two growing seasons. In the lab-in-the-field, treated farmers generalized more effectively—making better substitution and arbitrage decisions among fertilizers and achieving 9% higher simulated profits in an incentivized fertilizer-application task. At endline, treated farmers’ real fertilizer choices reflected improved nutrient timing and balance, and their yields were 14% higher. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404655 |
| By: | Dennis, Elliott James |
| Abstract: | As 2024 has concluded, many industry analysts will reflect on the market trends and forces that shaped 2024 to make improved decision making in 2025. This is a pivotal time to evaluate the factors influencing commodity markets and plan for the future. Market outlooks play a vital role in this process, offering agricultural producers and industry stakeholders valuable insights into price trends, production forecasts, and market dynamics. By analyzing data from government agencies, universities, and private firms, these outlooks help users anticipate and navigate market fluctuations, whether through short-term forecasts or long-term projections spanning decades. With advances in technology and greater accessibility, market outlooks have become indispensable tools for risk management, strategic planning, and marketing. In this article, we review a few features of market outlooks, explore key features of market outlooks, and then provide some practical tips for using them to manage risk effectively. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Marketing, Productivity Analysis |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:nbaece:404863 |
| By: | Mooney, Daniel F.; Hoag, Dana L. K.; Mankin, Kyle |
| Abstract: | Dryland wheat producers in Eastern Colorado incorporate fallow periods into their crop rotations to conserve soil moisture and stabilize yields, but increasing cropping intensity by reducing fallow frequency may improve profitability. Producers in this region often rely on fixed rotations that include fallow every second or third year; however, these rotations do not align fallow timing with information available before planting, such as moisture availability or weather forecasts. This raises the question of whether using preseason information to define threshold-based triggers for replacing fallow with a crop could outperform fixed rotations under dryland conditions. We compared fixed 2-year (wheat-fallow) and 3-year (wheat-millet-fallow) rotations to threshold-based flex rotations at field and farm scales using long-term crop experiment data (1994–2017) from the USDA-ARS Central Great Plains Research Station near Akron, CO. We found that flex rotations can outperform fixed rotations in annualized net returns, but the results are sensitive to the choice of information set, threshold level, and planning horizon. Overall, threshold-based flex rotations can support producers’ fallow management decisions by allowing them to condition cropping intensity on preseason conditions rather than on fixed rotation sequencing. Last, the findings point to a role for extension and policy interventions in improving producers' access to and effective use of the preseason information needed to implement flex-crop decisions. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404698 |
| By: | Zhang, Rong; Li, Wenying; Wang, Lingxiao; Zhang, Yu Yvette |
| Abstract: | Two theories predict different household responses during economic recessions. The Lipstick Effect predicts that consumers may preserve demand for small affordable luxuries that provide psychological comfort, while Engel’s law predicts that necessities become more important when resources are constrained. Using annual scanner data from the NielsenIQ Homescan Data, we estimate an Exact Affine Stone Index (EASI) demand system to examine how households reallocate spending across normal periods and two recession episodes: the Great Recession (2008–2009) and the COVID-19 recession (2020). The estimated own price elasticities are negative and inelastic for all seven products. Cross price elasticities show that staple foods tend to move together, especially eggs and milk, consistent with joint consumption within the household food basket. Expenditure elasticities are greater than unity for staple foods and below unity for cosmetics and other nonfood products, suggesting that additional within basket expenditure is allocated more strongly toward staples. In the recession analysis, lipstick shows a statistically significant Engel curve shift. During recession years, demand becomes less price elastic for lipstick, nail polish, air freshener, and eggs, while milk, face care, and bread become slightly more price responsive. Expenditure elasticities increase for lipstick, air freshener, and face care, whereas staple food expenditure elasticities change little across periods. |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404425 |
| By: | Cai, Chenchen |
| Abstract: | The expansion of international agri-food trade has increased the importance of product quality and safety in global markets. Because many safety and quality attributes are difficult to verify at the border, buyers and regulators often rely on collective reputation when assessing an origin’s reliability; consequently, noncompliance by a single exporter can impose reputational externalities on otherwise compliant firms from the same origin. These reputational externalities create incentives for exporting countries, especially those with large rural populations and strong reliance on agri-food exports, to strengthen domestic quality governance to align with evolving international standards and meet increasingly stringent market requirements. At the same time, stricter governance can raise compliance and production costs, making its net effect on export performance theoretically ambiguous. China—one of the world’s largest agri-food exporters and the largest developing economy—offers a useful context for assessing the trade effects of domestic quality governance. We use a staggered difference-in-differences design to assess how the EQSD program (the dummy variable) affects firms’ export dynamics. EQSD raises export values among incumbent exporters and increases the number of new exporters, with stronger effects for larger firms. Meanwhile, treated incumbents reduce the number of exported product varieties, consistent with greater specialization in core products rather than broad portfolio expansion. EQSD also strengthens compliance capacity: firms are more likely to obtain internationally recognized certifications (e.g., HACCP and ISO 22000), and these international certifications are followed by higher uptake of domestic certifications (e.g., green-product labels), consistent with learning-by-exporting. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404383 |
| By: | Yuan, Ye; Baldos, Uris Lantz; Zhuang, Qianlai; Taheripour, Farzad; Chen, Shuo |
| Abstract: | Forest plays an increasingly critical role in the global carbon cycle, yet no consistent globally harmonized dataset exists that distinguishes intact from modified forest across regions and is compatible with integrated assessment frameworks that are used in global climate and socioeconomic analysis. Here we compile and compare forest area estimates from four widely used global datasets, including FAO FRA, MODIS, ESA-CCI, and HILDA+ at the country and Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ) level over 2001–2020. While all four datasets show a strong agreement in total, intact, and modified forest area shares (pairwise r > 0.95) at country level, substantial disagreement emerges in forest area estimates in certain regions, particularly in ecologically heterogeneous biomes such as tropical savanna-forest transition zones and sparse woodland margins, driven by differences in canopy cover thresholds and classification schemes. Building on these findings, we developed a country- and AEZ-level dataset of modified and intact forest area covering 2001–2020, compatible with the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) framework. This dataset provides a valuable resource for quantifying forest biomass and carbon inventories, modelling land-use-based greenhouse gas emissions, and supporting climate policy analysis under international frameworks. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404471 |
| By: | Cai, Yetian; Weng, Weizhe |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the unintended environmental consequences of managed agricultural trade by studying the 2014 U.S.–Mexico Sugar Suspension Agreement. The agreement incentivized sugarcane expansion and fertilizer runoff in sugarcane producing regions. Using panel data on surface water quality from monitoring stations across Louisiana and neighboring state – Mississippi, from 2008/09 to 2019/20, we apply a spatial difference-in-differences framework to estimate the policy’s impact on downstream nutrient pollution. Treatment status is defined based on historical sugarcane cultivation within upstream catchments of monitoring sites, exploiting the hydrological connectivity between sugarcane-growing areas and downstream water quality monitoring stations to isolate the causal effect of the trade shock from confounding watershed characteristics. Results show that after 2014, nitrate-nitrogen concentrations increased by about 1.171 mg/L in waters downstream of sugarcane areas relative to unaffected sites following trade shock. This represents a 79.5 percent increase compared to the pre-treatment average, with the effect emerging within one to two years of the policy and persisting for nearly three years. Robustness checks with alternative model specification and restricted sample yield consistent results. These findings highlight that managed trade policies can generate significant and lasting environmental externalities, with implications for the joint design of trade and environmental regulation. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404458 |
| By: | Anderson, Kym |
| Abstract: | Globalization may have reduced but certainly has not eliminated differences in national commodity cycles. This article examines the case of Australia’s wine industry. Over the past four decades, all annual indicators of that industry’s international competitiveness have traced a steep inverted V. This paper draws on recently compiled data to first summarize such indicators and contrast them with those of other key wine-exporting countries. It then offers a series of partial explanations for the industry’s sharp rise and then equally steep fall in its international competitiveness (and its several bumps along the way). The New Zealand and Californian wine industry’s prolonged expansions in particular are contrasted with Australia’s. Despite the current downturn in the industry’s fortunes, and notwithstanding the likelihood of further boom-slump cycles in the decades ahead, the paper concludes that a return to profitability is possible if vignerons and wine exporters were to raise their current rates of investments in R&D, quality improvements and promotion, and if the AUD remains relatively weak. |
| JEL: | D12 F15 L66 N10 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19559 |
| By: | Seo, Gangcheol; Paudel, Krishna P.; Nelson, Kelly |
| Abstract: | This study examines long-run convergence in U.S. state-level agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) and investigates the role of patent-based technological knowledge in explaining persistent productivity differences across states. Using annual agricultural TFP data for 48 contiguous U.S. states from 1960 to 2015, we assess convergence dynamics through σ-convergence tests and the club convergence approach proposed by Phillips and Sul (2007). We then use a two-way fixed effects (TWFE) panel framework to examine whether patent-based knowledge stocks are associated with state-level agricultural TFP. Patent stocks are constructed for six agricultural technology subsectors under alternative assumptions regarding knowledge depreciation and lag structures. The results indicate that U.S. agricultural TFP does not converge toward a common steady state but instead exhibits multiple convergence clubs, suggesting persistent heterogeneity in long-run productivity paths across states. Patent-based knowledge accumulation also displays substantial sectoral heterogeneity. Plants, research tools, animal health, and machinery patent stocks are positively associated with agricultural TFP across most specifications, whereas fertilizer-related patent stocks are negatively associated. These patterns remain broadly robust across alternative constructions of the patent stock. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of technological heterogeneity in long-run agricultural productivity and suggest that accumulated patent-based technological knowledge is associated with agricultural productivity in distinct ways across innovation sectors. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404391 |
| By: | Smith, T. Jake; Moschini, GianCarlo |
| Abstract: | Crop rotation is a cornerstone of agricultural production, and Markov chains provide a powerful framework for modeling rotation practices. This paper examines the implications of state-space aggregation in Markov chain models of crop choices in the US Corn Belt. Using a multinomial logit model and over two decades of field-level data, we show that modeling crop choices with a two-state Markov process, where the states are corn and all other crops, leads to significant information loss compared to a three-state model that treats corn, soybeans, and other crops as separate states. We provide a theoretical statement of two distinct aggregation conditions for Markov chains, and discuss how these conditions can be maintained or tested in a multinomial logit parameterization of Markov transition probabilities. Structural tests strongly reject the parameter restrictions required for state-space aggregation. Relative to the three-state model, a two-state Markov chain model produces systematic differences in estimated covariate effects, Markov transition probabilities, and key crop area patterns. Furthermore, tracking soybeans separately from other crops reveals distinct regional trends in cropping patterns, including the widespread adoption of corn-soybean rotation in the recent expansion of corn cultivation in the western Corn Belt. These findings highlight the importance of state-space representation in Markov models and offer new insights into the dynamics of crop rotations in the Corn Belt. |
| Keywords: | Research Methods/ Statistical Methods |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404726 |
| By: | Xie, Chaoping; Pan, Hongye; Grant, Jason; Zhu, Jing |
| Abstract: | With the development of the global trading system, the international division of labor has extended beyond industry into agricultural trade. China’s soybean import dependency has surged from 40% to 83% since joining the WTO, far exceeding the global average. Concurrently, recent disruptions, including the U.S.-China trade war, public health crises, and geopolitical tensions, have driven the global supply chain toward nearshoring, friend-shoring, and localization, exacerbating global food security risks. Effectively responding to these external shocks has become a primary concern for countries. China, for example, implemented the “Soybean Revitalization Plan” as an opportunity to evaluate the impact of changing global agricultural production patterns on trade, employment, and welfare. Our results show that the plan will reduce U.S. soybean exports to China by $0.2~3.7 billion and Brazilian exports by $0.05~2.3 billion, though trade diversion will mitigate these losses, particularly for the U.S. The resulting global redistribution of trade could even enhance global welfare. If US-China negotiations fail alongside the plan’s implementation, Brazil will substantially capture the U.S. market share in China, leaving the U.S. unable to offset losses through export diversion. We conclude that major producing countries should not be overly concerned about the “Soybean Revitalization Plan, ” and the U.S. should prioritize accelerating trade negotiations with China. |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404674 |
| By: | Chen, Shuo; Taheripour, Farzad; Baldos, Uris Lantz; Zhuang, Qianlai; Yuan, Ye; Benavidez-Brouk, Lauren |
| Abstract: | Global pastureland covers about one-third of the Earth’s land surface and has undergone significant changes in the past decades. Understanding the spatial distribution and trends of pastureland is essential for addressing environmental and food security challenges as well as supporting sustainable development. This study reconstructs pastureland maps at 500m spatial resolution based on the MODIS MCD12Q1 V6 land cover product and the Gridded Livestock World v3 (GLW) dataset. We further analyzed the trend, variability, and distribution in pastureland from 2001 to 2020. Overall, the pastureland area in this study is consistent with FAOSTAT, HYDE, and HILDA datasets. In selected countries with large pastureland areas, the pastureland in Australia and China contracted while it expanded in the United States over the period 2001 to 2020. For Brazil, pastureland area initially grew and then declined in later years. We find that pastureland in the United States, Canada, China, Australia, and Sub-Saharan Africa largely remained stable over this period. In the South of America and Russia, it is unstable, which indicates frequent conversion of pastureland into other land uses. This reconstruction of global pastureland at 500m level is promising for accurately capturing the spatial heterogeneity of pastureland and further improving our understanding of its impact on renewable fuels policies, sustainable development targets, and environmental issues. |
| Keywords: | Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404741 |
| By: | Puri, Roshan; Levers, Lucia |
| Abstract: | California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires groundwater basins to achieve sustainable use by 2040, a transition projected to retire 500, 000 to 1 million acres of irrigated farmland. Virtually all of this retired land will be in California’s great Central Valley, an agricultural powerhouse and part of the Pacific Flyway, a major avian migration route. In California, over 95% of native wetlands and 60% of grasslands and oak savannahs have been lost, making SGMA-driven land retirement a rare opportunity to restore wildlife habitat at scale. Realizing this opportunity requires substantial public investment, yet the public value of habitat restoration on retired farmland remains unquantified, as well as how the public sees the difference between wetland and dryland habitats, both for the varying species they support but also their co-benefits such as water use and groundwater recharge. We estimate willingness to pay (WTP) of California households for converting SGMA-retired farmland to permanent wetland and dryland habitat using a contingent valuation (CV) approach. We find mean WTP of approximately $50 to $67 per household for wetland restoration and $49 to $61 for dryland restoration, aggregating conservatively to one-time statewide benefits of $563 million to $773 million depending on program type, estimation approach, and distributional assumptions. These results demonstrate broad public support for habitat restoration on SGMA-retired farmland and provide an empirical basis for evaluating and allocating public investment across competing restoration alternatives. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404452 |
| By: | Li, Wei; Kafle, Kashi; Songsermsawas, Tisorn; Mendiratta, Vibhuti |
| Abstract: | Chronic poverty among the most marginalized rural households is often attributed to structural poverty traps that large, one-off “big push”interventions are meant to overcome. We evaluate the Odisha PVTG Empowerment and Livelihoods Improvement Programme (OPELIP), a bundled agricultural “cargo-net” intervention targeting Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups in eastern India, using a three-wave household panel with a matched quasi-experimental control group. We combine difference-in-differences estimation with transition-matrix analysis to test whether the program shifted well-being dynamics across four dimensions: consumption, assets, multidimensional poverty, and income. The program raised household consumption by approximately 13-14 percent in the short run and lowered households’ probability of falling into asset poverty, but these effects are concentrated in the early post-program period and do not extend to the asset index or the multidimensional poverty index. Multidimensional poverty remains highly chronic and equally persistent across treatment and control households. The results suggest that, over this horizon, OPELIP operated more as a consumption-supporting safety net than as a cargo-net capable of moving households out of structural, multidimensional poverty traps, underscoring the value of multidimensional assessment in evaluating large-scale rural development programs. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404634 |
| By: | Liu, Mengqiao; Chen, Yayun; Fei, Chengcheng; Wang, Xingguo; Cheng, Muxi; McCarl, Bruce |
| Abstract: | Climate change threatens livestock productivity primarily through heat stress, the combined physiological burden of elevated temperatures and atmospheric moisture. Existing empirical studies commonly rely on scalar composite indices such as the Temperature–Humidity Index (THI), which impose restrictive functional forms, cannot capture nonlinear or asymmetric joint responses to temperature and humidity, and may underestimate the effects of cold and dry weather. This study introduces a twodimensional Chebyshev polynomial framework that flexibly models the joint distribution of temperature and atmospheric moisture and its effects on livestock productivity. Applying this framework to state-level U.S. data from 1980 to 2024, we estimate climate effects on eight outcomes spanning major livestock types and production stages: cattle weight, calf survival rates, hog weight, piglet survival rates, litter size, broiler weight, rate of lay, and milk production per cow. Results reveal that early-life outcomes, such as calf and piglet survival rates, are markedly less sensitive to temperature–humidity stress than adult weight or output measures. Poultry outcomes are relatively stable, consistent with the buffering role of climate-controlled housing. Future projections indicate that hog weight, cattle weight, and milk yield will experience the largest losses, especially in summer and in the Southeast, where heat-stress exposure is projected to increase. |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404716 |
| By: | Kim, Minjung; Park, Dayeun; Yoo, Do-il |
| Abstract: | Korea's age restriction on U.S. beef imports has remained one of the most contested nontariff measures in agricultural trade policy since its imposition following the 2003 BSE outbreak in the United States. This study empirically examines how relaxing this measure would affect price levels and conditional volatility across the structurally segmented Korean beef market, distinguishing between Hanwoo and Yukwoo cattle. Using monthly price data from July 2008 through December 2024, we estimate a tariff equivalent through the price wedge method, employing USDA cull cow prices as a counterfactual border price proxy. We then model the conditional volatility of each market using ARFIMA-eGARCH specifications with Student-t distributed errors to account for the long-memory properties and fat-tailed behavior characteristic of livestock price series. Major structural events including BSE, foot-and-mouth disease, the Korea-U.S. FTA, and the COVID-19 pandemic are controlled through dummy variables. Monte Carlo simulation under a 2027 NTM removal scenario projects price paths through 2030. Results show that the price level effects of NTM relaxation are minimal, averaging less than 0.4 percent annually for both market segments. However, conditional volatility rises meaningfully, by 1.53 percent for Hanwoo and 0.74 percent for Yukwoo. These findings suggest that the primary risk of import liberalization lies not in price collapse but in a sustained increase in price uncertainty that threatens farm income stability. Policy responses therefore need to prioritize volatility risk management over conventional price support. |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404682 |
| By: | Vourazeris, Kelsey |
| Abstract: | Agricultural and food policy decisions often involve tradeoffs among economic, environmental, and social objectives. Students frequently struggle to evaluate these tradeoffs because policy outcomes are interconnected across stakeholders and regions. Traditional lecture-based instruction can make it difficult to illustrate the feedback mechanisms, distributional effects, and coordination challenges that characterize many contemporary policy issues. This paper describes the use of Daybreak, a cooperative board game, as an experiential learning activity in an undergraduate agricultural policy course. In the game, students assume responsibility for major world regions and work collaboratively to achieve climate and social objectives while responding to resource constraints and unexpected crises. The activity is designed to help students recognize policy tradeoffs, understand the distributional effects of policy decisions, and develop a systems perspective regarding the interconnected nature of economic, environmental, and social outcomes. The paper reviews relevant literature on experiential learning and game-based instruction, describes the integration of Daybreak into an agricultural policy curriculum, and outlines a reflectionbased assessment approach that may be used to evaluate student engagement with key policy concepts. Although originally developed as a climate-focused game, Daybreak provides a flexible framework for discussing food insecurity, environmental regulation, energy policy, resource constraints, and international spillovers within an agricultural and food policy context. The activity offers instructors a practical tool for promoting systems thinking and encouraging discussion of complex policy challenges that extend beyond the evaluation of individual policy objectives. |
| Keywords: | Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404765 |
| By: | Li, Yi; Soto-Caro, Ariel; Guan, Zhengfei |
| Abstract: | Huanglongbing (HLB, or citrus greening) has devastated Florida’s orange groves since its detection in 2005, reducing Florida orange production by more than 95% by 2024 and cutting U.S. per-capita orange juice (OJ) availability by 60% over two decades. This paper provides the first structural analysis of how HLB propagates through a branded, differentiatedproduct supply chain to reach final consumers. We use Nielsen Retail Scanner data and Consumer Panel data, combined with an HLB severity index. The demand model follows the Berry–Levinsohn–Pakes (BLP) random-coefficients logit framework, allowing the HLB severity index to shift the perceived quality of domestic OJ products relative to imported alternatives within the same market and period. A multi-product Bertrand–Nash supply model traces how the disease raises domestic processing costs and how frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ) imports partially buffer the price shock. A household-level two-part model further separates extensive-margin category exit from intensive-margin reduction and tests for persistent demand destruction through a discrete-time hazard analysis. Counterfactual simulations decompose the total OJ consumption decline into a price channel, a non-price quality channel, a healthpreference trend, and an import-buffer offset. The results are expected to show that HLB-related price and quality effects together explain the majority of the consumption decline, that imports provide only partial relief, that NFC products bear a disproportionate quality loss, and that a share of household category exit is permanent. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404538 |
| By: | Aoki, Yu (University of Aberdeen); Arulampalam, Wiji (University of Warwick); Lloyd, Neil (University of St Andrews) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal effect of exposure to fast-food outlets on adolescent z-BMI using the UK Millennium Cohort Study linked to comprehensive geospatial data. We develop a novel approach to modelling z-BMI persistence by clustering early childhood z-BMI trajectories, allowing us to distinguish baseline obesity susceptibility from contemporaneous environmental effects. Identification exploits the near-universal transition from primary to secondary school, generating plausibly exogenous variation in exposure to fast-food outlets around schools. We find that adolescents with at least one major-brand outlet near school have, on average, a 0.158 standard-deviation higher z-BMI. Effects decline with distance, are limited around the home, and do not extend to other food outlets. |
| Keywords: | adolescent obesity, body mass index, fast food, school food environment |
| JEL: | I12 I18 R14 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18770 |
| By: | Papatheophilou, Simela; Tröster, Bernhard; Blöschl, Robert; Weber, Christina; Schafhausen, Carola; Herzig, Christian |
| Abstract: | Power imbalances in EU agri-food value chains have prompted legislators to prohibit 'Unfair Trading Practices' (UTPs). The European UTP framework extends to global value chains (GVCs) such as cocoa and banana chains, where the EU is a major consumer and which are known for the application of UTPs. However, European UTP legislations have proven ineffective in addressing UTPs globally. Through comparative legal analysis, review of academic literature and Member States' UTP reports, and semi-structured interviews, we investigate factors contributing to the minimal uptake of UTP regulations in GVCs. Our findings identify key barriers: diverging regulatory and enforcement approaches across EU Member States, limited awareness and the fear factor among GVC actors, and the absence of pricerelated provisions. Targeted reforms to harmonize selected provisions and enforcement approaches provide options to strengthen the regulatory framework's capacity to mitigate power imbalances in agri-food GVCs. |
| Keywords: | Unfair Trading Practices, global value chains, cocoa, bananas, enforcement mechanisms |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:oefser:342442 |
| By: | Bista, Bishal; DeLay, Nathan; McKee, Sophie; Mooney, Daniel |
| Abstract: | We examine how wild pig expansion affects wildlife-related indemnification outcomes in the Federal Crop Insurance Program, emphasizing how deductible-based contract design mediates when damages trigger claims. We combine county-level crop insurance records with spatial data on wild pig presence and crop area for major crops in the southeastern United States over 2011–2023. Using a county-crop-year measure of wild pig exposure based on cropover lap, we estimate fixed-effects models across coverage levels. We find that wild pig exposure has little measurable effect at lower coverage levels, but the relationship strengthens substantially as coverage rises. This pattern suggests that higher deductibles mitigate the censoring effect of deductibles, ensuring that a larger share of wildlife losses to trigger indemnities. Because many wildlife damages remain below deductibles and many non-crop damages fall outside insurance coverage, observed indemnities likely represent only the tip of the iceberg relative to the much larger economic burden faced by producers. Our findings suggest that traditional crop insurance may be poorly suited to frequent, localized wildlife losses relative to systemic production risks. Policymakers should therefore exercise caution when using indemnity data to assess invasive species damage and inform wildlife management programs. |
| Keywords: | Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404419 |
| By: | Bhusal, Binod; Khanal, Aditya; Thapa, Samjhauta |
| Abstract: | Access to financial institutions and local credit supply is crucial for local economic development, particularly in supporting business growth in rural communities. This study analyzes the relationship between banking access, credit supply, and agri-food business establishments in rural areas of the Southern United States using a ZIP code-level panel dataset covering 2000–2023. Fixed-effects and dynamic panel Difference-in-difference (DID) models are used to account for unobserved heterogeneity and persistence in business establishment growth in relation to financial access. Results support that greater bank branch presence is positively associated with the number of agri-food business (AFB) establishments, emphasizing the importance of local banking infrastructure for rural entrepreneurship and economic activity. Our loan count and loan volume measures in rural areas, using Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) lending, provide additional evidence that local credit supply supports entrepreneurs—we found around 17-23% dynamic sustained growth in AFBs can be attributable to the loan volume receipt of the top quantile recipient. The findings suggest that maintaining access to financial institutions and strengthening local credit markets have significantly contributed to agri-food business growth and broader rural economic resilience in the Southern United States. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404342 |
| By: | Bettarelli, Luca; Furceri, Davide; Loungani, Prakash; Ostry, Jonathan D.; Pisano, Loredana |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we first test the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, using a large sample of approximately 190 advanced and developing countries, over a period of 34 years (1989-2022). We find that (CO2) emissions respond positively to increasing income per-capita, up to a turning point of approximately US$25, 000. In a departure from the previous literature, we allow the relationship between economic development and emissions to depend on the stringency of environmental regulation. Our results indicate that environmental policies—and particularly market-based instruments, such as carbon taxes and emission trading systems—make the EKC lower and flatter. These results are robust to several sensitivity checks, and to the use of regional (rather than global) data. Overall, our results have important policy implications, as they identify economic development as a pathway to environmental improvements. Moreover, we show that environmental policies are an essential ingredient to achieve decoupling of emissions and economic output over the longer term. |
| Keywords: | Environmental kuznets curve; Climate change policies; Decoupling; Carbon tax |
| JEL: | C33 Q53 |
| Date: | 2025–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19900 |
| By: | Ma, Zhiyao; Sexton, Richard J.; Zhong, Zhen |
| Abstract: | Inefficient land allocation between rural and urban areas persists in China under rigid land-use regulations and sustained rural outmigration. In 2008, the central government authorized Chongqing, a municipality with provincial-level authority, to pilot Dipiao, the Land Coupon Program (LCP), a market-based mechanism allowing rural construction quotas to be traded for urban expansion, with the stated goals of advancing urban–rural integration and raising rural household incomes. We examine whether the LCP narrowed the urban–rural income gap. Exploiting staggered county-level adoption across 37 counties between 2009 and 2017, we apply heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences estimators, complemented by provincial-level synthetic control analysis. The LCP lowered Chongqing’s urban–rural income ratio by 0.21 (6.0%) on average, with the effect growing monotonically to 0.29 (8.3%) after nine years. Most convergence occurred within counties, driven by rising rural incomes rather than falling urban ones. Participation tracked baseline disadvantage: poorer, more rural, and more unequal counties adopted the LCP earlier and traded more intensively. A multiplier analysis further suggests that land coupon revenues flowing to rural households and collectives amplified local economic impacts, reducing inequality in a progressive and compounding manner. More broadly, our findings show how government-facilitated market mechanisms can promote inclusive growth and reduce spatial inequality in economies where private landholding is constrained, contributing to debates on transferable rights in transitional and developing settings. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404632 |