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on Agricultural Economics |
| By: | Kate, Tanha |
| Abstract: | Digital agriculture is frequently presented as a neutral technological solution to the intertwined challenges of food security, sustainability, and agricultural productivity. Drawing on science and technology studies (STS), this paper argues instead that digital agricultural technologies embody particular distributions of power through their design, data infrastructures, and underlying sociotechnical imaginaries. Using Syngenta's introduction of pesticide-spraying drones to smallholder farmers in West Bengal, India, as a case study, I examine how corporate incentives shape both the technologies that are developed and the agricultural futures they seek to make possible. Integrating classical STS concepts - including scripts, interpretative flexibility, technological closure, infrastructure, and sociotechnical imaginaries - with recent scholarship on agricultural data governance and platformization, I argue that the commercial value of drones lies not only in their capacity to automate pesticide application but also in the agricultural data they generate, creating new forms of dependence between farmers and agribusiness. While drones are promoted through narratives of efficiency, sustainability, and feeding a growing global population, the empirical evidence for their benefits to smallholder farmers remains mixed when weighed against constraints of affordability, infrastructure, and unequal control over data. By situating the West Bengal case alongside historical precedents including the mechanical tomato harvester, the Green Revolution, and genetically modified crops in Africa, the paper identifies recurring patterns through which corporate and state actors privilege capital-intensive technological solutions while marginalizing smallholder priorities. It concludes that power in digital agriculture operates not only through markets but through the ability to shape technological design, govern data, and define the futures that agricultural innovation is imagined to secure. |
| Date: | 2026–07–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:jqfg3_v2 |
| By: | Mustapha El Jarari (Faculté des sciences juridiques, économiques et sociales, Cadi Ayyad, Marrakech); Rachid Chayboub (Faculté des sciences juridiques, économiques et sociales, Cadi Ayyad, Marrakech); Brahim El Morchid (Faculté des sciences juridiques, économiques et sociales, Cadi Ayyad, Marrakech) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the determinants of household food security among smallholder farmers in the Souss Valley. Recognizing the household as a fundamental unit of food access and stability, the level of food security is assessed using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), which categorizes households into four groups: food secure, marginally food insecure, moderately food insecure, and highly food insecure. A multinomial logistic regression model is employed to analyze the influence of key household characteristics, including the age and marital status of the household head, household size, farm size, number of livestock units, access to credit, remittances, income diversification, and access to irrigation, on food security status. The results reveal differentiated effects across food insecurity levels. While variables such as the household head's age and household size are associated with marginal food insecurity, access to irrigation and income diversification play a critical role in reducing the likelihood of falling into food insecurity. |
| Abstract: | Cette étude examine les déterminants de la sécurité alimentaire des ménages parmi les petits exploitants agricoles de la vallée du Souss. Reconnaissant le ménage comme une unité fondamentale de l'accès et de la stabilité alimentaires, le niveau de sécurité alimentaire est évalué à l'aide de l'échelle d'insécurité alimentaire des ménages (HFIAS), qui classe les ménages en quatre groupes : sécurité alimentaire, insécurité alimentaire marginale, insécurité alimentaire modérée et insécurité alimentaire sévère. Un modèle de régression logistique multinomiale est utilisé pour analyser l'influence de caractéristiques clés des ménages, notamment l'âge et la situation matrimoniale du chef de ménage, la taille du ménage, la superficie de l'exploitation, le nombre d'unités de bétail, l'accès au crédit, les envois de fonds, la diversification des revenus et l'accès à l'irrigation, sur le statut de sécurité alimentaire. Les résultats révèlent des effets différenciés selon les niveaux d'insécurité alimentaire. Alors que des variables telles que l'âge du chef de ménage et la taille du ménage sont associées à l'insécurité alimentaire marginale, l'accès à l'irrigation et la diversification des revenus jouent un rôle essentiel dans la réduction de la probabilité de basculer dans l'insécurité alimentaire. |
| Keywords: | Souss Valley, Smallholder farmers, Multinomial logistic regression, HFIAS, Food security |
| Date: | 2025–12–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05595797 |
| By: | Wanger, Thomas Cherico; Thilsted, Shakuntala Haraksingh; Sheng, Dong; von Braun, Joachim; Fan, Shenggen; Soussana, Jean-Francois |
| Abstract: | Climate, economic shocks, and conflicts destabilize food systems and undermine all aspects of food security. Between 2016 and 2025, the level of food insecurity rose by 153%, primarily driven by droughts until 2019, then by the COVID 19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. These tensions are amplified in face of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, where the USA and Israel attack on Iran led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 25% of global oil supply pass. Currently, 40% of petrochemicals and 15% of fossil fuels are now used in food systems for pesticide production, plastic packaging, and maintaining long haul cold chains. Disruptions to the flow of 30% of global fertilizer supply and 20% of liquefied natural gas, a key fertilizer feedstock, together with damage to infrastructure in exporting countries, are likely to constrain fertilizer availability for years to come. This will leave farmers in the 2026 crop growing season unable to have sufficient inputs and use their machinery for planting and harvesting. Immediate effects of the Iran war may be felt in vulnerable regions of the world already, with full ramifications manifesting in 2027, through increased food prices and food insecurity globally. Here, we argue that food systems dependence on fertilizer inputs can be generally reduced by enabling farmer-led adoption of diversified systems (e.g., legume rotations, agroforestry, biofertilizers and precision nutrient use) and locking in structural change through simultaneous government action. This is a critical addition to the currently dominating policy debate, where the argument is on fertilizers as strategic food-security infrastructure, with buffer reserves, low-carbon ammonia and tighter nutrient management. |
| Date: | 2026–07–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:s5kcx_v1 |
| By: | Centre for Policy Dialogue |
| Abstract: | Bangladesh is facing frequent climatic disasters due to climate change, despite contributing to 0.52 per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2022 (Climate Watch, 2025). Climate change has adverse impact on temperature, air quality, and water level. Concurrently, salinity intrusion in the southwestern regions has intensified, disrupting traditional agricultural practices. These changes have led to a transformation in cropping patterns, while agricultural activities in the northern areas have also experienced severe adverse impacts due to climate-induced stresses. These disasters have adversely affected economic activities through losses in agricultural production, infrastructure damage, and disruptions to livelihoods and markets. From 2000 to 2019, the country has suffered around USD 3.72 billion of economic losses from different natural disasters (Ahsan, et al., 2024). |
| Keywords: | Climate Finance, Climate Budget, Fiscal Framework, Youth Dialogue, Climate Policy, Climate Adaptation, Climate Resilience, Bangladesh Climate, SDG 13, Climate Governance |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdb:pbrief:88 |
| By: | Zhang, Zhexi; Luan, Jian; Wang, Ming; Xue, Li; Mu, Yueying; Gao, Yang |
| Abstract: | mallholder agriculture accounts for a substantial share of global fertilizer use, yet farm-level constraints in capital, labor, and technical capacity continue to impede greener production. Agricultural socialized services have been proposed as an institutional pathway for relaxing these constraints, but the channels through which they affect input use remain incompletely understood. We develop an analytical framework that links multi-stage agricultural socialized services to three channels of fertilizer reduction—input precision, factor substitution, and value realization—and use micro-level survey data on 970 vegetable producers in four facility-vegetable provincial-level jurisdictions in China (Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and Shandong) to test the framework empirically. We find that the adoption of agricultural socialized services significantly reduces fertilizer application intensity, with the estimated effect robust to instrumenting for service adoption with village-level service development, median regression, sample restriction, and an alternative expenditure-based measure of adoption. Mechanism estimates indicate that mechanization services raise the adoption of soil testing and formula-based fertilization, field management services raise organic manure application, and marketing services raise farm-gate prices. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the fertilizer-reducing effect is concentrated among smallholders and older operators. These findings suggest that, in smallholder-dominated and aging agricultural systems, a service-based division of labor can advance green transformation without requiring large changes in land tenure. |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404306 |
| By: | Bertazzini, Mattia |
| Abstract: | I study the effect of the expulsion of skilled farmers on the agricultural sector by looking at 20th century Libya. Numerous Italian farms were established in colonial Libya during the the 1920s and 30s. These were expropriated and Italian landowners expelled in two steps: from Cyrenaica (East) in 1942, and from Tripolitania (West) in 1970. I employ a triple difference design on a newly assembled district-level dataset to study the effect of these expulsions on the agricultural sector. The removal of Italian farmers led to a reduction in the level of commercialization and a return to the production of lower value, traditional field crops of affected districts. When market incentives were high, indigenous cultivators responded with a labor-intensive increase in traditional grains production. The available evidence points to a drop in human capital, agricultural knowledge and modern farming practices as the main mechanism behind the effect. |
| Keywords: | expulsions |
| JEL: | N57 O1 O13 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20570 |
| By: | Gregory, Christian A.; O'Connor, Keegan |
| Abstract: | Studies that assess the effectiveness of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in improving food security have primarily been conducted using Federal survey data. These surveys have high rates of SNAP misreporting. Research has shown that even small amounts of misreporting could impact estimates of the causal and noncausal relationships between SNAP participation and food security. In this context, we use administrative records from 19 States matched to the Current Population Survey (CPS) Food Security Supplement for the 2017–19 period to investigate misreporting and its consequences for understanding how SNAP impacts food security. SNAP underreporting is about 47 percent in these years, comparable to studies using previous years of CPS microdata. At the same time, overreporting is slightly higher than some other studies at 2 percent. We find the administratively matched SNAP sample is more food secure than the sample based on survey responses only. Our results indicate that SNAP has a potentially large and positive effect on food security. However, the estimates of the effect of SNAP on food security for the administrative sample are more precise than for the survey sample; estimates from the survey sample likely overestimate the efficacy of SNAP. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Research Research Methods/Statistical Methods |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uersrr:404823 |
| By: | Rogna Marco (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | Weather variability is one of the primary sources of risk in farming, differentiating this sector by most other economic activities. As a risk factor, it may not only im- pact farmers directly when detrimental realizations occur, but also indirectly by shaping their behavioural responses. The present paper investigates the role of climate risk in shaping farmers’ decisions on three important agricultural inputs: inorganic and organic fertilizers, and pesticides. By using a short but large panel spanning over eight West African countries, we test several long–term climate risk indicators through Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood adopting the Correlated Random Effect device. Hurdle models are further adopted to disentangle the effects on adoption rate and on intensity of use. The scarcity of precipitations negatively impacts both the adoption and the in- tensity of use of pesticides. For organic and inorganic fertilizers, instead, adoption is negatively affected, while intensity, among the adopters, is fostered. All other tested indicators of climate risk are not significant. The risk of scarce precipitations can be identified as a cause of under–utilization of agricultural inputs in Western Africa that deserves to be addressed. |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:eapoaf:202606-1 |
| By: | Ciccone, Antonio |
| Abstract: | Many studies find that increases in agricultural prices reduce armed civil conflict in producing regions. However, the effect on the onset of the most lethal conflicts—civil wars—remains unclear. I identify three methods of constructing commodity price indices in the literature and employ all three to estimate the effect of international agricultural price shocks on civil war onset using a global panel of 118 countries over the 1957-2007 period. The first method, where the price index is constructed based on a basket of agricultural commodities with country-specific commodity weights fixed over time, shows that increases in agricultural prices reduced civil war onset in the global sample, with stronger effects after 1980 and in Sub-Saharan Africa. The second method, where the price index is based solely on each country’s principal agricultural export, shows that increases in agricultural prices reduced civil war onset in the global sample over 1980-2007, again with stronger effects in Sub-Saharan Africa. The third method, where the price index is based on an agricultural commodity basket with time-varying commodity weights, yields estimates that are not statistically significant at conventional levels. Effect sizes are largest with the fixed-weight basket index. Thus, conclusions depend on how the price index is constructed. Evidence from the fixed-weight basket index—designed to isolate price effects—indicates that increases in international agricultural prices reduced the risk of civil war onset globally between 1957 and 2007. |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20795 |
| By: | Chen, Ting; Gu, Jiajia; Ngai, Liwa Rachel; Wang, Jin |
| Abstract: | Mobility barriers hinder structural transformation and economic growth. This paper examines how land market frictions constrain labor mobility. In developing countries, rural households risk losing land if they stop cultivating it. This implicit barrier is made explicit through China’s hukou system. Typically, the wife remains in agriculture while the husband moves to non-agriculture. Using two land reforms that reduce this barrier, we construct a novel county-level reform index and show that these land reforms induce rural women to leave agriculture at higher rates than rural men, while also lowering urban women’s employment and wages relative to urban men. Incorporating this index into a two-sector model with intra-household employment decisions replicates the observed uneven impacts and has significant effects on agricultural productivity. |
| Keywords: | Structural transformation; Gender; Land; Labor mobility |
| JEL: | E24 J16 J22 J61 O11 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20360 |
| By: | Ghorbani, Khashi; Atallah, Shady S.; Gallardo, R. Karina |
| Abstract: | Antibiotic resistance in plant agriculture poses a growing threat to sustainable food production. In U.S. apple orchards, fire blight disease has long been managed primarily with an antibiotic whose efficacy is eroding due to widespread resistance. Decades of antibiotic reliance have accelerated the emergence of resistant bacterial strains. Using less antibiotics, rotating between antibiotics with different modes of actions, and using non-antibiotic alternatives are three pillars of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies to control fire blight while reducing the antibiotic resistance development. Previous studies show that conserving public access resources such as antibiotic efficacy can be exacerbated by neighbors’ adoption. Additionally, state and federal level regulations can be adopted to restrict farmers’ access to resources and suppress over exploitation (i.e. antibiotic resistance). Despite increasing regulatory pressure to restrict agricultural antibiotic use, little is known about how farmers respond to prospective bans or how peer behavior shapes adoption of IPM strategies. This paper fills that gap by examining U.S. apple farmers' willingness to adopt IPM practices that reduce antibiotic dependence and manage resistance, and by investigating how expectations about future regulation and neighbors' behavior affect those decisions. We develop a theoretical model of strategic antibiotic use that generates two testable predictions. First, farmers who anticipate an antibiotic ban optimally front-load antibiotic applications before restrictions become binding, depleting efficacy more rapidly than farmers operating without regulatory expectations. Second, farmers adjust their antibiotic use in response to neighbors' resistance management decisions, exhibiting either free-riding incentives or private conservation incentives. To test these predictions empirically, we design a discrete choice experiment (DCE) embedded with a randomized information treatment and administer it to commercial apple farmers across major apple-producing states in the US. The DCE elicits preferences over fire blight management bundles that vary in antibiotic rotation, biopesticide use, streptomycin application rate, short- and long-run disease control effectiveness, neighbors' resistance management adoption rates, and cost per acre. To isolate the effect of a future ban, respondents randomly received an information treatment stating that a ban on agricultural antibiotics would be implemented in ten years, while the control group received neutral information. Both groups completed two blocks of choice tasks (one before and one after the information intervention) yielding 1, 008 unique choice observations from 126 complete and usable survey responses. We estimate preference heterogeneity using a mixed multinomial logit (MXL) model and identify distinct behavioral segments using a latent class model (LCM). The MXL results reveal that antibiotic rotation is positively valued on average, while biopesticides and reduced streptomycin use exhibit no significant mean effects but considerable variance, indicating the presence of distinct preference types. Critically, the positive and statistically significant interaction between streptomycin use and the ban information treatment confirms the theoretical prediction that exposure to a prospective antibiotic ban increases the marginal utility of antibiotic applications rather than triggering a shift toward alternatives. The ban signal induces a short-run intensification of antibiotic use which is an unintended behavioral consequence consistent with race-to-depletion dynamics documented in other common-pool resource settings. The interaction between biopesticide adoption and the ban is negative but insignificant, suggesting that policy signals alone are insufficient to accelerate the transition to non-antibiotic alternatives. In fact, the negative and significant interaction between antibiotic application and biopesticide implies that farmers consider biopesticides and antibiotics as substitutes. We also find that farmers increase antibiotic applications when they perceive higher levels of resistance management among neighbors, consistent with free-riding behavior, in which individual producers exploit the stewardship efforts of others. The LCM identifies three economically interpretable classes. The IPM adopter class (26%) strongly prefers rotation and biopesticides and reduces streptomycin use. The forward-looking class (28%) discounts antibiotic applications and prioritizes long-run disease control effectiveness and is more likely to anticipate future bans and operate under higher disease pressure. The myopic free-rider class (46%) favors using less streptomycin out of the three IPM strategies to manage resistance, emphasizes short-run effectiveness, discounts long-run outcomes, and is highly responsive to peer adoption, consistent with free-riding incentives. These findings carry important implications for policy design. Regulatory strategies that announce future bans without accompanying transitional incentives risk inducing a short-run surge in antibiotic use. Effective policies should pair prospective restrictions with instruments that reward early IPM adoption and leverage peer dynamics through targeted extension engagement with opinion leaders. Tailoring interventions to the distinct behavioral segments identified here, rather than targeting the average grower, can improve both the uptake and cost-effectiveness of strategies aimed at preserving antibiotic efficacy in specialty crop systems. |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea25:404853 |
| By: | Buonanno, Paolo; Lecce, Giampaolo; Mariella, Vitantonio; Ogliari, Laura |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-term economic impact of malaria eradication in post-war Italy, one of the first countries to implement a nationwide campaign (1947–mid 1950s). Using a new panel dataset (1911–1981) and a matched difference-in-differences approach, we compare historically malarial areas to non-malarial areas with similar pre-treatment characteristics. We find that eradication significantly accelerated structural transformation, boosting industrial and manufacturing employment. These effects unfolded gradually and are robust to controls for confounding policies and divergent local growth paths. Mechanism analysis reveals that eradication raised agricultural productivity by enabling a more efficient crop mix and fostering mechanization, particularly where potential for modernization was highest. The study offers new insights into how health improvements can drive economic development. |
| Keywords: | Structural change; Agricultural productivity |
| JEL: | N34 O18 I15 R11 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20394 |
| By: | Mfaume, Justin |
| Abstract: | Inflation in Malawi is not an abstract statistic. It is the transport fare that doubled before wages moved, the fuel queue that delays inputs from reaching farms, and the exchange rate movement that raises landing costs before any policy response arrives. At the centre of these dynamics sits agriculture, a sector generating over 80% of export earnings, determining foreign exchange availability, shaping the economy's capacity to import fuel and fertiliser, and ultimately governing the conditions under which goods move from farms to markets to households. This study investigates the impact of agricultural supply chain disruptions on headline inflation in Malawi using annual time-series data from 1970 to 2024. A Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) captures dynamic relationships between headline inflation, climatic shocks proxied by annual rainfall, fertiliser prices, fuel prices, and exchange rate movements. Johansen cointegration tests confirm stable long-run equilibrium relationships among variables integrated of order one. Exchange rate depreciation emerges as the dominant long-run driver of inflation, inseparable from agricultural performance given the sector's control over export earnings and forex generation. Fuel price shocks transmit strongly through transport and distribution costs across the supply chain. Climatic shocks influence inflation through production cycles with a lag consistent with harvest timing. Contrary to standard cost-push assumptions, fertiliser prices exert no statistically significant effect on headline inflation, a finding explained by the cushioning role of government subsidy programmes and household remittances that insulate smallholder farmers from global input price movements. The error correction coefficient of -0.48 indicates rapid adjustment toward long-run equilibrium. Controlling inflation in Malawi requires more than monetary tightening and praying for good rains; it requires strengthening agricultural supply chains, improving energy logistics, and building structural resilience to shocks that cascade through the entire economy. |
| Keywords: | headline inflation, agricultural supply chain, climatic shocks, exchange rate, fuel prices, fertilizer prices, Vector Error Correction Model, cointegration, time series, macroeconomics, Malawi, Africa |
| JEL: | C01 C32 E31 O11 O13 Q11 Q54 |
| Date: | 2026–01–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129759 |
| By: | Zhang, Yifei; Arita, Shawn; Steinbach, Sandro |
| Abstract: | This report provides an overview of federal dairy safety-net programs that are designed to help dairy producers manage income and margin risk. The report focuses on the main active programs available to dairy producers, including Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC), Dairy Revenue Protection (DRP), and Livestock Gross Margin for Dairy (LGM-Dairy). Earlier dairy programs are discussed to explain how the current safety net developed and how federal support has shifted over time. Available tools for managing margin, revenue, and gross-margin risk are described, with recent trends in enrollment, covered milk, payments, premiums, and indemnities provided. Since these programs protect different measures of risk and operate through different program designs, the report compares them with attention to how each program operates. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Dairy Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2026–07–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:arpcre:404851 |
| By: | Roberto Esposti (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM)) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the sustainability of organic farming by testing whether it achieves a win–win–win outcome, improving farm-level environmental and economic performance without compromising aggregate agricultural output. We adopt a quasi-experimental design that accounts for voluntary adoption and allows for heterogeneous treatment effects. We combine Random Forest and LASSO methods, enabling flexible, fully interactive modeling with high-dimensional covariates. The analysis is based on a balanced panel of Italian farms from the FADN dataset covering the period 2008–2022. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in the effects of organic farming adoption. A win–win–win outcome does not emerge on average but is observed only for a small subset of farms; for other groups, the full sustainability of organic adoption appears questionable. These findings call for more targeted and differentiated policy support to promote organic farming. |
| Keywords: | Sustainable Farming, Organic Agriculture, Heterogeneous Treatment Effect, Double Machine Learning |
| JEL: | C14 C23 Q01 Q12 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:508 |
| By: | Bertolozzi Caredio Daniele (European Commission - JRC); Dillon Emma; Ciaian Pavel (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | European agriculture is facing a continued decline in the number of farms and young farmers, with limited access to land identified as a major barrier to generational renewal. These trends have intensified policy concerns, prompting the European Commission to release the strategy for generational renewal, which outlines initiatives to improve land access, including land market assessments and the creation of a European land observatory. This report aims to support these efforts by offering a new perspective on land access dynamics across different phases of the farm succession process. Using a comparative analysis of Belgian (Walloon Region), Irish and Polish Farm Accountancy Data Network data covering 2009–2023, it examines several dimensions of land access, including land utilisation, ownership and rental, considering both the retiring farmer (before transfer) and the new farmer (after transfer). The analysis is structured around a life-cycle framework of farm succession, exploring three mechanisms: the retirement effect, whereby farmers without successors gradually reduce farm activity; the succession effect, where the expectation of farm continuation encourages investment and structural adjustments before transfer; and the successor effect, which captures changes introduced by the new farmer after installation. The report shows that land access dynamics vary across the farm manager’s lifetime, implying distinct needs and challenges at different stages. Identifying a successor prior to farm transfer tends to trigger land expansion and prevents decline. After installation, the new farmer experiences an initial phase of land expansion, which may not occur immediately, probably due to financial constraints. New (non-inherited) farms begin with limited land resources and tend to expand much later than other farms, which significantly restricts their development potential. In some cases, land expansion behaviour, both before and after succession, is more pronounced on larger farms. In addition, new female farmers appear to face greater barriers to land expansion after first installation than new male farmers do. Significant differences between countries in land access dynamics highlight the need for regionally or nationally tailored policies. Because land access varies across phases of the farm manager’s life, policies must target the appropriate phase. New farmers, and particularly new female farmers, may require specific support during the first years after installation, as they face stronger financial constraints and often pay higher land prices, especially in non-inherited farms. In this context, land access and capital access policies could benefit from synergetic design and implementation. Supporting identified successors (and their incumbents) prior to succession could also be considered, as identified successors already exhibit substantial land expansion behaviour. |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc145973 |
| By: | Khondaker Golam Moazzem; Faisal Quaiyyum; Abrar Ahammed Bhuiyan |
| Abstract: | Access to finance in Bangladesh’s agricultural mechanization sector is shaped by stakeholders’ preferences for alternative financial instruments. Local producers face the greatest financial constraints, primarily due to double taxation on raw materials and product sales. Survey results from 196 respondents show strong preference for asset-based finance and machine leasing, while other instruments remain largely underutilized. Econometric analysis reveals that education, financial literacy, government support, and firm characteristics significantly influence adoption. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Mechanization, Access Finance, Financial Instruments, Machine Leasing, Asset Finance, Financial Inclusion, Financial Literacy, Government Support, Supply Chain, Bangladesh Agriculture |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdb:report:76 |
| By: | Bilal, Adrien; Stock, James |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys the literature that links macroeconomics and climate change. We organize our review into three categories: (i) loss and damage, which assesses long-run economic costs and non-market impacts from climate change; (ii) mitigation and the energy transition, which evaluates the macroeconomic consequences of shifting away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy; and (iii) adaptation, which explores the economic adjustments necessary to manage heat stress, more frequent severe weather events and rising seas. We discuss macroeconomic frameworks that quantify these structural shifts as well as empirical estimates that guide their calibration. We suggest areas in which macroeconomic research on climate is needed. |
| Keywords: | Macroeconomics |
| JEL: | E60 F55 H23 H41 Q43 Q50 R10 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20659 |
| By: | Krumbiegel Katharina (European Commission - JRC); Covarrubias Katia Alejandra; De La O Campos Ana Paula; Akamin Ajap; Tillie Pascal (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | This report examines the Living Income Gap for cocoa-producing households in Cameroon, where 68% of farmers earn an income below the Living Income Benchmark (LIB) of 277, 136 FCFA per month for a family of 5.2 persons and therefore cannot afford a decent standard of living. Key factors contributing to this gap include low productivity and low farm gate prices. The report identifies a minimum reference price of 3, 567 FCFA per kilogram as necessary to close this gap. The study assesses several short and longer-term strategies to address these challenges, including increasing farm gate prices, enhancing productivity through better farming practices and input use, and developing off-farm income opportunities to diversify income sources. Ensuring a remunerative farm gate price can substantially increase cocoa producers’ incomes, particularly for those specialized in cocoa production. Market access and diversification strategies are particularly supportive of cocoa producers where cocoa represents a small share of their productive land. Through these efforts, the report aims to provide actionable insights for policymakers and stakeholders to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers and ensure the long-term sustainability and economic viability of the cocoa sector in Cameroon. [Le présent rapport examine l’écart de revenu vital pour les ménages producteurs de cacao au Cameroun, où 68 % des agriculteurs perçoivent un revenu inférieur au revenu vital de référence (LIB – Living Income Benchmark en anglais) de 277 136 FCFA par mois pour une famille de 5, 2 personnes et ne peuvent donc pas bénéficier d’un niveau de vie décent. Parmi les principaux facteurs contribuant à cet écart figurent le faible niveau des prix au producteur et la faible productivité. La présente étude définit un prix de référence minimal de 3 567 FCFA par kilogramme comme étant nécessaire pour combler cet écart. L’étude évalue également plusieurs stratégies à court et à long terme pour relever ces défis, notamment l’augmentation des prix au producteur, l’amélioration de la productivité grâce à de meilleures pratiques agricoles et à l’utilisation des intrants, et le développement de possibilités de revenus hors exploitation afin de diversifier les sources de revenus. Garantir un prix aux producteurs bord-champs rémunérateur pourrait augmenter considérablement les revenus des producteurs de cacao, en particulier ceux qui sont les plus spécialisés dans la production de fève de cacao. Les stratégies d’accès au marché et de diversification sont également particulièrement favorables aux producteurs de cacao, dans les cas où cette production représente une faible part de leur exploitation agricole. Sur la base des résultats de l’étude, le rapport vise à fournir des informations exploitables aux décideurs politiques et aux parties prenantes afin d’améliorer les moyens de subsistance des producteurs de cacao et de garantir la durabilité et la viabilité économique à long terme du secteur du cacao au Cameroun.] |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc143181 |
| By: | Kym Anderson |
| Abstract: | The agricultural sector’s share of GDP in growing economies typically declines but, for a century from the early 1850s, Australia’s did not. That trend is most evident for the former colony and now State of South Australia (SA). Moreover, that share for SA has been almost flat since 1980 as well, along with the agricultural sector’s share of SA exports. This paper seeks to shed light on the forces behind the unusual evolution of these sectoral shares for SA both up to 1950 and since 1980. The extensive time series data compiled for this paper suggest various partial explanations. For 1850-1950 they include the huge arable land area per worker, clearly defined and enforced property rights in settled rural areas as the frontier of European settlement expanded, the absence of a need to do any processing of the main 19th century exports (copper, wool and wheat), a strong public agricultural research and extension system, and the absence of major mining booms after the copper finds in the 1840s and 1860s. |
| Keywords: | structural transformation, agricultural development, sectoral productivity growth, trade costs, mining booms, manufacturing protection |
| JEL: | F13 F63 N47 O13 Q17 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:papers:2026-02 |
| By: | Giglio, Stefano; Kuchler, Theresa; Ströbel, Johannes; Wang, Olivier |
| Abstract: | We outline a research agenda to better understand the economic and financial consequences of nature and biodiversity loss. Our starting point is a simple model in which ecosystem services — such as pollination, water filtration, and carbon sequestration — enter economic production, and where nature degradation and climate change reinforce one another through a "Twin-Crises Multiplier." We then extend this framework to allow for heterogeneity across firms, industries, and geographies in how they depend on, and in turn affect, nature. This broader perspective provides a foundation for empirical analyses of how biodiversity loss influences aggregate output, firm productivity, and financial risk. We conclude by identifying opportunities for asset pricing and corporate finance research to systematically incorporate nature and biodiversity into financial economics. |
| JEL: | Q3 Q5 G1 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20662 |
| By: | Alvarez, Jorge; Benatiya Andaloussi, Mehdi; Maggi, Chiara; Sollaci, Alexandre; Stuermer, Martin; Topalova, Petia |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the economic impact of commodity trade fragmentation. Using a novel production and trade dataset of 48 key commodities, we develop a partial equilibrium framework to identify the most vulnerable commodities to trade disruptions and assess the ensuing economic risks. Trade fragmentation can cause large price changes for many commodities, with minerals critical for the clean energy transition and selected agricultural commodities being the most vulnerable. The economic relevance of commodity trade fragmentation, measured by changes in consumer and producer surplus, varies across countries. However, offsetting effects across commodity exporting and importing countries, imply modest global surplus losses. |
| Keywords: | Commodities |
| JEL: | F11 F12 F14 F15 F17 F41 F42 F43 Q17 Q27 Q37 Q43 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20451 |
| By: | Allen, Robert |
| Abstract: | The paper analyzes the economic basis of agrarian civilizations. These had an agricultural part that produced food and a non-agricultural part that was supported by food from the countryside. The agricultural surplus was necessary for these cities but not sufficient. The technology (domestic seed, the plough) that generated the surplus was created by foragers and hoe cultivators who held the land in common. Their technology is modeled with engineering production functions derived with linear programming. Had they exploited the advanced technology, the result would have been a large population of cultivators living at subsistence and consuming the entire ‘surplus.’ This Malthusian nightmare was avoided by landlords who privatized land and organized it to maximize their income. Taxation could have a similar effect but less precisely. The rent proceeds supported the city. Theoretical analysis and simulation show that the effect of private property was to reduce the total population (the third Malthusian check) and to reduce the agricultural population even more. The difference was the urban population. In equilibrium the urban and rural labourers were at subsistence, the landowners were rich, Gini coefficients were high, and GDP per capita was greater than subsistence. |
| Keywords: | Malthus |
| JEL: | N5 P5 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20765 |
| By: | JŽr™me Pivard (Paris-Saclay Applied Economics); Vincent Martinet (Paris-Saclay Apllied Economics) |
| Abstract: | We explore the interplay between two key individual drivers of green consumption: intrinsic moral concerns for the environment and reputational concerns for social image. Our microeconomic behavioral model characterizes choices among lifestyles differing in environmental impacts (brown/green) and conspicuousness (positional/discreet), depending on how strongly one values each of these motives. We show that image concerns can substitute for environmental concerns in driving green consumption across a limited but central range of preferences, in particular through the purchase of green positional goods. Such conspicuous conservation can green individual consumption (reconciling Eco and Ego), especially among image-sensitive consumers, but it yields environmental benefits only under specific economic conditions. Indeed, the environmental impact of a lifestyle depends critically on its relative impact intensity, i.e., the pollution per dollar spent on this lifestyle, more than on the pollution per unit of the representative good of the lifestyle, driving volume effects and behavioral rebound effects, which both reduce the environmental benefits of green lifestyles. Knowing the collective distribution of preferences may help design targeted policies, as those preferences strongly determine policy effectiveness. Our findings are especially relevant for policies that aim to foster greener consumption choices in different economic contexts (e.g., green nudging, environmental taxes with higher rates on positional goodsÉ). |
| Keywords: | Green consumption, Conspicuous conservation, Moral consistency, Environmental Concern, Image concern |
| JEL: | D01 D11 D62 D91 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fae:wpaper:2026.02 |
| By: | Gu, Wenhao; Xu, Chenguang; Chao, Zenghui; Zhang, Jun |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how natural conditions affect agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) purchase intensity and model choice in China. Using administrative subsidy transaction records, county-level weather and terrain data, city-level economic controls, and county socioeconomic characteristics, the paper combines two empirical approaches. First, a zero-truncated Poisson model with correlated random effects estimates county-year purchase counts. Results show that terrain and precipitation exhibit nonlinear associations with purchase intensity, low temperatures are negatively associated, and net price is negatively associated. Second, a conditional logit model examines top-20 model choice among family farms and individual buyers. Subsidies significantly influence model choice, but this effect varies with local conditions: precipitation weakens the subsidy effect, whereas wind and high temperatures strengthen it. Policy simulations predict changes in model shares under no-subsidy, uniform subsidy increase, and condition-targeted scenarios relative to baseline. The findings imply that UAV subsidy design should account for geographic heterogeneity. Furthermore, product-choice models that exclude non-purchasers should be interpreted as capturing reallocations among existing models rather than changes in total adoption. |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404307 |
| By: | Lasarte Lopez Jesus (European Commission - JRC); M'barek Robert (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | This brief analyses the contribution of livestock value chains to the bioeconomy sectors in the EU from an economic perspective. In 2023, the main livestock-related activities generated an approximate value added of EUR 256 bn, equivalent to 30% of total biomass producing and converting activities in the EU (EUR 863 bn). Primary production accounted for EUR 91 bn (about 40 % of all primary production and 11 % of all biomass producing and converting sectors), food-product manufacturing for EUR 108 bn (≈ 13 % of the biomass producing and converting sectors), leather for EUR 10 bn and bio-based chemicals & pharmaceuticals for EUR 47 bn (approximate). Over the 2013-2023 period the livestock-related activities grew from EUR 150 bn to EUR 256 bn. The most rapid expansion was observed in chemicals and pharmaceuticals (more than a two-fold increase), while primary production and food-product manufacturing showed steady growth after 2018. The share of livestock in the wider biomass producing and converting sector remained stable, rising only from 28.2 % to 29.6 %. Member-state shares of livestock-related value added within their biomass producing and converting activities range from under 10 % to more than 40 % (e.g. Ireland). The latter are smaller economies with high specialization in livestock value chains. Countries with a share between 25 % and 35 % fall into two patterns: (i) strong agri-food economies where livestock underpins primary production and food processing (Spain, France, Poland and Romania); and (ii) economies with advanced downstream processing combined with traditional livestock streams (Netherlands, Belgium, Slovenia, Germany and Italy). Forest-oriented northern and eastern states display lower shares (Sweden ≈ 19 %, Finland ≈ 17 %, Baltic states ≈ 15-18 %). |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc146560 |