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on Agricultural Economics |
| By: | Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Kirui, Oliver K.; Popoola, Olufemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Fasoranti, Adetunji |
| Abstract: | Land tenure security is widely regarded as essential for agricultural investment and productivity growth. However, causal evidence on its effects across multiple farm decisions remains limited, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This study investigates how tenure security is associated with crop portfolio choices and input investment decisions among smallholder farmers in rural Nigeria. It measures tenure security using a composite index, drawn from wave 5 of the Nigeria Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), that captures plot-level perceived security of ownership, and household reported risk of land loss, ownership security, and duration of ownership. The study employs two complementary approaches: a multivariate probit model to capture the joint and correlated nature of crop adoption decisions, and limited information maximum likelihood instrumental variables (LIML-IV) estimation to establish association between land tenure and input investment decisions. Results reveal significant but heterogeneous effects. Greater tenure security increases the probability of cultivating grains and cereals by 29.8 percentage points, while reducing the likelihood of growing legumes and pulses by 24.6 percentage points and horticulture by 11.4 percentage points respectively, which suggests a substitution effect toward grain specialization. On input investments, LIML-IV estimates indicate that a one-unit increase in the tenure security index raises organic fertilizer use by 9.93 percent, inorganic fertilizer use by 6.57 percent, and pesticide use by approximately 0.89 percent. These findings are robust to Lewbel’s heteroskedasticity-based identification strategy. Heterogeneity analysis reveals stronger investment effects among youth-headed households, while impacts on female-managed plots are statistically insignificant, pointing to persistent gender barriers. The study highlights the need for integrated policies that combine tenure formalization with crop diversification support, gender- and youth-sensitive land governance, and input market development in order to maximize the productivity gains from land rights reform in Nigeria. |
| Keywords: | land tenure; tenure security; property rights; farm inputs; statistics; land ownership; investment; Nigeria; Africa; Western Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2026–06–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183522 |
| By: | Goeb, Joseph; Minten, Bart; Synt, Nang Lun Kham; Aung, Zin Wai |
| Abstract: | Key Findings: Direct-seeded rice (DSR) is widely adopted in Myanmar rice production, used by around 50 percent of farmers during the monsoon season and about 75 percent during the dry season, accounting for the majority of cultivated rice area. Rice establishment methods remained relatively stable from 2023–2025 despite political instability, market disruptions, labor shortages, and price volatility. DSR adoption is higher among larger farms and non-irrigated farms, indicating that labor and water constraints strongly influence establishment choices. Broadcasting is the dominant DSR method, particularly dry broadcasting, while row planting remains uncommon. Most farmers believe puddled-transplanted rice (PTR) produces higher yields than DSR, with an average perceived yield advantage of about 11 baskets per acre. Farmers overwhelmingly perceive PTR as more labor-intensive, while differences in fertilizer and pesticide use are viewed as relatively small or mixed. Labor shortages and water constraints are the primary reasons for adopting DSR, not perceptions of lower profitability or lower yields under PTR. Recommended Actions: Strengthen investments in irrigation and water management systems to reduce water-related constraints and enable farmers to choose establishment methods based on productivity rather than necessity. Address rural labor shortages through mechanization support, labor-saving technologies, and improved access to agricultural services. Develop and disseminate best management practices for DSR, particularly for weed control, seed establishment, and water management to improve productivity and profitability. Conduct rigorous research on the economic returns of DSR and PTR across different agro-ecological zones, farm sizes, and irrigation conditions. |
| Keywords: | rice; direct sowing; plant establishment; irrigation; water management; rural employment; Myanmar; Asia; South-eastern Asia |
| Date: | 2026–06–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:othbrf:183444 |
| By: | Shrestha, Kalyani; Amin, Modhurima |
| Abstract: | Climate affects food consumption both directly and indirectly through its effects on agricultural productivity and food prices. While the indirect pathways have received attention, the direct effects of climate on dietary intake remain poorly understood. This study examines how climate variables shape dietary intake across six major food groups: cereals, meat, seafood, dairy and eggs, fruits, and vegetables. We combine country-level food intake data from 185 countries with food prices, climate variables, and demographic controls for 2010 and 2018. To address endogeneity in food prices, we use neighboring-country food prices as instruments. The results show clear differences across food groups. Higher temperature and precipitation are positively associated with cereal and seafood intake, but negatively associated with meat, dairy, and eggs. Projections for 2050 show that food intake may increase most in low and lower-middle-income countries. These results highlight the need to include demand-side responses in climate and food policy. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404580 |
| By: | Bachewe, Fantu Nisrane; Geoffrey, Baragu; Niyonsingiza, Josue; Popoola, Olufemi |
| Abstract: | Food losses are a major constraint to agricultural productivity, farm incomes, and agrifood system efficiency in sub-Saharan Africa, yet comprehensive micro-level evidence across value chains remains limited. This study provides a detailed assessment of pre- and postharvest losses in the Irish potato value chain in Kenya, drawing on purposefully collected data from producers, aggregators and processors. Using a consistent, multidimensional measurement framework, the study captures both quantitative (physical) and qualitative (degradation) losses across production and postharvest stages. The results indicate that potato losses are widespread and occur throughout the value chain, with the largest share concentrated at the producer level. Preharvest losses and on-farm postharvest losses account for a substantial proportion (23.5 percent) of total losses, reflecting the combined effects of pest and disease pressures, weather-related shocks, and suboptimal management practices. Nationally, producer-level potato losses could amount to KSh 14.5 billion annually, equivalent to the annual per capita income of about 50, 000 Kenyans. While producer-level losses dominate, descriptive evidence shows that potato aggregators and processors also incur nonnegligible losses, particularly during storage, transportation, and handling. These losses are commonly associated with spillage, mechanical damage, inadequate storage conditions, and poor handling practices, highlighting inefficiencies beyond the farm gate. Econometric results reveal that loss patterns vary across producers and production environments. Differences in demographic characteristics, farm size, labor availability, and market orientation contribute to heterogeneity in both the likelihood and intensity of losses. These results further demonstrate that asset ownership, management practices, and exposure to production risks are key determinants of loss outcomes. Greater household assets and labor availability are associated with reduced loss incidence and intensity, while exposure to biotic and abiotic stressors – captured through a composite index – significantly increases both the probability and severity of preharvest losses. Input use and management practices also play an important role. The application of chemical fertilizers is associated with reduced loss intensity, consistent with improved crop vigor and resilience, while the use of pest control is positively correlated with loss occurrence, likely reflecting reactive application following infestation. The adoption of improved seed varieties increases the likelihood of losses but reduces the intensity of them, which is a nuanced finding that suggests both greater exposure and improved resilience conditional on damage. Access to training and third-party agricultural service is associated with lower losses, underscoring the importance of knowledge and advisory support. This area also presents opportunities for youth, particularly young women, to engage in agrifood-system service provision through activities such as advisory services, quality management, aggregation, and postharvest handling, which can simultaneously reduce losses and generate income. Importantly, the analysis reveals strong linkages between preharvest and postharvest losses. Higher preharvest losses are associated with both increased likelihood and greater severity of postharvest losses, indicating that damage incurred during production propagates along the value chain. Overall, potato losses in Kenya are systemic but largely preventable through improved handling, storage, market infrastructure, and farmer capacity. Although youth sample sizes in this study are too small to quantify specific effects, the data highlight clear entry points for engaging youth, particularly young women, in reducing post-harvest losses. For instance, there are opportunities for involving youths in services offered at the production stage, which include sorting, curing, and transportation. |
| Keywords: | harvesting losses; postharvest losses; potatoes; agricultural value chains; value chains; Kenya; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Africa |
| Date: | 2026–06–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:sfs4yp:183402 |
| By: | Jo, Jungkeon; Adjemian, Michael K. |
| Abstract: | Identifying the causal effect of agricultural production conditions on food prices is challenging because commodity prices respond simultaneously to supply and demand shocks. Exploiting high-frequency field crop futures prices and USDA crop reports, we estimate impacts of agricultural supply news shocks on food markets. A poor harvest news shock that raises field crop prices leads to an increase in food-at-home and food service prices, a decline in food expenditures. Using household-level food price indexes constructed across income quintiles, we find that welfare losses are approximately seven times larger for the lowest-income quintile than for the highest. Counterfactual simulations indicate that, without these shocks, U.S. food inflation during 2021-23 would have peaked up to 1.9 percentage points lower. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:asea26:404825 |
| By: | Hale, Galina; Onescu, Vlad; Bhangale, Ritesh |
| Abstract: | The global food system is an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change. Animal agriculture is responsible for a large share of the food-system emissions, both directly and through the production of animal feed. Limiting global warming to the goals set forth by the international community will not be possible without rapid phasing out of a substantial share of animal-source food. We show that the rapid adoption of alternatives to animal-source foods, such as plant-only diet, or plant-based, cultured, or fermentation-derived analogs to animal products, can be consistent with climate goals. Importantly, the longer the delay in the adoption of alternatives, the larger the share of diet they will have to represent in 2050 for the food system to stay within its carbon budget. |
| Keywords: | Ghg emissions |
| JEL: | L66 Q11 Q15 Q18 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19348 |
| By: | Mejía-Tejada, Daniela; Muñoz-Mora, Juan Carlos; Rodríguez Arbeláez, Daniel Alberto; Valbuena, Nicolás; González, Karen; Lopez, Stefany; Salazar, Lina; Rondinone, Gonzalo; Parra-Pena Somoza, Rafael Isidro; De Salvo, Carmine Paolo |
| Abstract: | Agricultural price stabilization policies are widely used to protect farmers from market volatility, yet their long-term consequences for production incentives and market efficiency remain poorly understood. This paper provides the first causal evaluation of Colombia's Dry Paddy Rice Storage Incentive Program, examining whether short-term price stabilization generated unintended distortions throughout the rice value chain. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design combined with Regression Kink Design on monthly data from 2013-2025, we estimate the program's effects on producer prices, farm revenues, production decisions, and consumer price transmission. The results show that the program achieved its primary objective of mitigating seasonal price declines and increasing producers short-term revenues. However, these gains came at the cost of altered production incentives. Higher expected returns encouraged additional planting, contributing to oversupply in subsequent harvests and reinforcing dependence on recurrent government intervention. While the program stabilized producer prices, it also weakened price transmission to consumers, limiting broader welfare gains and reducing market efficiency. These findings reveal a fundamental trade-off inherent in commodity price stabilization policies: interventions that effectively protect farmers in the short run may simultaneously create incentives that undermine long-run market adjustment and fiscal sustainability. Beyond the Colombian case, the study contributes causal evidence to the broader debate on agricultural stabilization policies in developing economies and highlights the importance of complementing temporary market support with investments that enhance productivity, competitiveness, and structural resilience. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Policies;Stock-stabilization;Counterfactual;Discontinuous regression;Rice production;Effective analysis |
| JEL: | Q18 Q11 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14681 |
| By: | Fu, Liang; Li, Gucheng |
| Abstract: | Growing attention has been paid to how agricultural technology adoption affects crop production. However, little is known about the effects of smart agricultural technology on agricultural production performance. This study uses survey data from 1, 146 rice farmers to examine the effects of smart agricultural technology (SAT) adoption on rice yield, technical efficiency, net returns and production costs. To reduce selection bias caused by farmers’ selfselection into SAT adoption, this study applies a doubly robust inverse probability weighted regression adjustment estimator. The results show that SAT adoption significantly increases rice yield, technical efficiency and net returns by 10.63%, 10.26% and 27.69%, respectively. It also reduces production costs by 3.83%. Further analysis shows that SAT adoption significantly reduces fertilizer, pesticide, labor and other inputs. These results are broadly consistent with estimates from propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression models. The findings suggest that promoting SAT adoption among smallholder rice farmers can help increase yield and net returns, improve efficiency, reduce input use and support agricultural green transformation. |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404714 |
| By: | Liu, Huilin; Harou, Aurelie |
| Abstract: | Open crop residue burning creates serious environmental externalities, but the role of land tenure institutions in farmers’ burning decisions remains unclear. This paper examines how two major land reforms in rural China affected agricultural fires. Using county-level reform timing, satellite-based fire data, and a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that the Land Contracting and Transfer Reform (LCTR) of 2003 increased agricultural fire occurrence and intensity, while the Land Titling Reform (LTR) of 2014 reduced it. We explain these opposing effects by showing that LCTR expanded production and limited the availability of labor, increasing the pressure to dispose of agricultural residue. By contrast, LTR reduced fires by changing planted area by strengthening tenure security, parcel level accountability and incentives to program long-term soil productivity. The findings show that land tenure institutions can affect pollution externalities in agriculture and that secure property rights can generate environmental benefits beyond direct regulation. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404438 |
| By: | Das, Gouranga G.; Paul, Saswati |
| Abstract: | This article offers a synoptic overview of land use, land cover, and ensuing changes in them in the wake of drivers and anthropogenic changes in global biosphere. Also, it discusses the effects of such changes on global greenhouse gases, causing climate change and affecting biodiversity. This is also associated with factors leading to land acquisition, its distribution, management and preservation as that affects access to food and nutritional values for inclusive development. Given the preponderant role ascribed to climate change, land-use, food security, and human development in the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals, scientific research from a multidisciplinary perspective is needed for informed debate on growth, poverty, and the environment nexus. In particular, the current focus of Sustainable Development Goals with 17 goals and 169 targets adds new dimensions into it. This article offers a holistic view covering commonalities and differences of MDGs vis-à-vis SDGs. Also, the aspect of circular economy is discussed to throw new lights. A conceptual framework for analytical modeling to study the myriads of interlinkages is sketched. |
| Keywords: | Agriculture, Analytical models, Biofuel, Climate change, Development, Food security, Forestry, Land cover, Land use, Sustainability, MDG, SDG, Circular Economy |
| JEL: | Q15 Q16 Q23 Q24 Q28 Q56 Q57 Q58 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1803 |
| By: | Liang, Xiaomeng; Yang, Chenyujing; Xue, Yongji |
| Abstract: | Balancing ecological restoration and grain production is a core challenge for land management in arid and semi-arid regions. Large-scale ecological engineering programs are often assumed to constrain agricultural output through land-use competition, yet rigorous causal evidence on their long-term effects and underlying mechanisms remains scarce. This study investigates whether and how China’s Three-North Shelter Forest Program (TNSFP) affects grain production. Guided by the social–ecological systems framework and ecosystem services theory, we hypothesize that large-scale ecological restoration can enhance agricultural output through improvements in ecosystem services rather than crowding out cropland. Using county-level panel data from China covering 2000–2022, we estimate the causal impact of TNSFP on grain production employing a two-way fixed effects model, complemented by the Callaway and Sant’Anna difference-in-differences approach (CSDID), event-study analysis, placebo tests, and multiple robustness checks. Grain production data are combined with satellite-derived vegetation indices, air quality indicators, and ecosystem quality measures to identify mechanism pathways. The results show that TNSFP significantly increases county-level grain production, with baseline estimates indicating an average rise of approximately 3.4 units and larger effects after controlling for agricultural inputs, climate, and socioeconomic conditions. CSDID estimates confirm robust positive effects, . Event-study results reveal negligible pre-treatment trends and gradually accumulating post-treatment effects. Mechanism analysis demonstrates that improved vegetation cover, enhanced air quality, and overall ecosystem quality jointly promote grain production, with ecosystem quality playing a dominant role. Significant regional and land endowment heterogeneity is observed, with stronger effects in cropland-abundant counties and limited impacts in Northwest China. These findings provide new causal evidence that ecological restoration can generate synergistic benefits for land restoration and food production, offering important implications for sustainable land management in dryland regions. |
| Date: | 2026–07–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:jmdz7_v1 |
| By: | Akam, Divine-Love |
| Abstract: | When food prices rise, theory predicts agricultural producers as price beneficiaries. Nigeria’s 2023 fuel subsidy removal, which pushed inflation to a three-decade high of 40.87%, contradicts this prediction when high food and input prices coincide. Tracking agricultural households across lean and harvest seasons using nationally representative LSMS-ISA data and a continuous treatment difference-in-differences design, I classify households into four seasonal net market position groups and find that 38.3% switch market positions within the same agricultural year. Contrary to the standard agricultural household model, persistent sellers who are net sellers in both seasons experienced the largest food security deterioration, 1.0, 0.9, and 0.6, HFIAS points worse than strategic switchers, persistent buyers, and subsistence switchers, respectively, during the lean season when rising input costs reduced planting investment before harvest revenues are realized, and the selling-incentive trap forced sellers back into food markets at high prices. Season-specific estimates show that pooling lean and harvest effects conceals this vulnerability pattern. The findings suggest that classification based on annual net market position misidentifies the group bearing the largest welfare burden and risk undermining the production incentives of smallholders central to national food security. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404640 |
| By: | Ekaba, Michael; Purushotham, Anjali; Cramon-Taubadel, Stephan von |
| Abstract: | Urbanisation in low- and middle-income countries has created complex transformations in food environments. Particularly in the space between rural and urban areas, food environments, occupation structures, lifestyles, and dietary patterns undergo constant changes with important implications for nutrition and health. We study one such rural-urban interface around Bangalore city in South India, estimating how households’ interactions with different food sources are associated with women’s dietary diversity and anthropometric outcomes. The results show that households’ interaction with diverse food acquisition pathways, irrespective of their nutritional orientation, is associated with higher dietary diversity among women. However, greater diversity in food acquisition pathways can also increase exposure to modern and convenience-oriented food outlets. The processed and packaged foods offered by these outlets present potential long-term metabolic health risks. However, we find no evidence of these implications in the rural-urban interface of Bangalore, as household interaction with diverse food acquisition pathways is not associated with changes in body mass index and overweight/obesity prevalence. Instead, anthropometric outcomes are strongly associated with changes in demographic and socioeconomic factors. Overall, our findings suggest that urbanisation does not replace traditional food sources with modern outlets but rather creates a hybrid food environment that provides households with more options to make healthy but also less healthy nutritional choices. Policies aimed at improving consumer nutritional knowledge can increase the prevalence of healthy choices and thus ensure that interaction with diverse food sources increases dietary diversity without leading to long-term metabolic health risks. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026–08–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gausfs:410131 |
| By: | Pattnaik, Subhransu; Kramer, Berber; Ward, Patrick |
| Abstract: | Digital credit has emerged as a promising tool for addressing liquidity constraints among smallholder farmers, yet evidence on its longer-term effects on agricultural investment and production remains limited. This paper examines how access to digital agricultural credit shapes farmers’ investment decision and production outcomes over time using a two-phase cluster randomized intervention implemented in Odisha, India. We combine difference-in-differences, and staggered treatment estimators to assess how impacts evolve over years. We found limited evidence of immediate increases in aggregate agricultural input expenditure and durable asset accumulation. In contrast, we find robust evidence of positive effects on agricultural production among existing producers. Taken together, the findings indicate that digital credit primarily operates by relaxing liquidity constraints and improving the productivity of existing farming operations rather than inducing new entry into agriculture or triggering immediate capital deepening. The results highlight the importance of distinguishing between short-run and long-run responses to financial interventions and suggest that agricultural investment is dynamic nature and can take time to materialize. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404346 |
| By: | O'Neill, Connor; Ala-Kokko, Kristiina; Nalley, L. Lanier; Tack, Jesse; Ma'ali, Safiah; Smith, Harrison; De Steur, Hans; Elli, Elvis |
| Abstract: | In South Africa, maize (Zea mays) plays a pivotal role in the agricultural economy and food security of the country, but climate change threatens the agricultural productivity of this crop. This study aims to estimate the change in maize yield associated with a 1°C and 2°C temperature increase in South Africa. Using a robust dataset of 38, 742 dryland maize yield observations from 1986 to 2018 at 92 trial locations across South Africa, we employ a fixed effects modeling approach to estimate the change in yield. Results suggest that a 1°C increase is associated with a 7.86% decrease in maize yield, and a 2°C increase is associated with a 17.31% decrease. The robustness of these results reinforces the necessity for focused policy and research on climate change alleviation in agriculture. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404702 |
| By: | Ahlvik, Lassi; van Kooten, Sebastiaan |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the costs and distributional impacts of the Natura 2000 network. We estimate how land use restrictions are capitalized into property prices in Finland by combining data on land transactions with the roll-out of the protection network. Our results indicate a sizable negative effect on forest and agricultural land and a moderate negative effect on unbuilt lots inside conservation areas. The negative effects are more pronounced in socio-economically deprived areas. In contrast, we find a positive effect on built properties both inside and in near vicinity of the protected areas. The net economic costs of Natura 2000 were moderate, but it had a clear distributional impact, reallocating rents from landowners to house and cabin owners. |
| Keywords: | Biodiversity; Environmental policy; Distributional effects; Environmental justice |
| JEL: | R14 Q57 Q58 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19400 |
| By: | Deitrick, Lainey |
| Abstract: | Understanding which constraints most limit agricultural productivity requires evidence grounded in farmer priorities. This study uses Best–Worst Scaling (BWS) to rank perceived constraints to rice productivity among smallholder farmers in Madagascar. Survey data were collected from 408 rice-producing households in the Alaotra-Mangoro region. Farmers evaluated ten commonly cited constraints through repeated best-worst choice questions. Preferences were analyzed using a Random Parameters Logit model to estimate relative importance and capture heterogeneity. The results show a highly concentrated ranking of constraints. Climate risk is the most important perceived limitation by a wide margin. Irrigation ranks second, followed by fertilization. All remaining constraints account for only a small share of total preference importance. Subsample analyses by yield level, poverty status, and irrigation source show stable rankings but some variation in the strength of preferences across groups. These findings suggest that existing policy priorities emphasizing production practices, post-harvest losses, and market access may not fully align with farmer-identified constraints. By providing a clear hierarchy of perceived productivity barriers, this study offers farmer-centered evidence to inform more sustainable rice policies in Madagascar, with particular emphasis on climate risk and water management. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404694 |
| By: | Kim, Hannah |
| Abstract: | Perennial agriculture poses a distinct adaptation problem because planting decisions are long-lived, costly to reverse, and often adjusted only at replanting. This paper studies whether Ethiopian smallholders shift land away from coffee when weather exposure worsens coffee’s risk-return profile relative to khat, an alternative perennial crop. I develop a portfolio-choice framework in which farmers allocate replanting land between coffee and khat based on expected profitability and profit risk. Using Ethiopia LSMS-ISA household panel data matched to ERA5 weather data, I first estimate reduced-form effects of weather exposure during the February–April budding and growing window on subsequent coffee allocation. I then estimate crop-specific weather-profit functions and use them to construct weather-induced measures of expected profitability and predicted profit risk. Extreme heat reduces the coffee share of coffee-khat land, with the clearest effects among households that cultivated coffee in the previous round. Coffee profits are more sensitive to extreme heat than khat profits, and higher weather-induced coffee profit risk is associated with lower next-round coffee allocation. The current estimates provide weaker evidence that expected profitability independently predicts adjustment. These findings suggest that, in perennial systems, weather risk affects adaptation not only through current profits but also through the crop choices farmers make when replanting becomes possible. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404663 |
| By: | Santhosh, Harikrishnan; Mullen, Jeffrey |
| Abstract: | Water pricing is among the most widely advocated tools among economists for managing aquifer depletion, yet its effectiveness hinges on a single parameter: the own-price elasticity of irrigation water demand. If farmers are unresponsive to price signals (that is, if demand is inelastic), pricing policies will fail to achieve conservation goals while imposing substantial costs on agricultural producers. Producing accurate elasticity estimates is therefore a prerequisite for effective water governance in stressed aquifer systems. Past studies have found a broad spectrum of irrigation demand elasticities ranging from highly inelastic to elastic. This paper addresses a critical but underexplored source of estimation error: data quality. The majority of studies estimating irrigation demand rely on the USDA's Irrigation Water Management Survey (IWMS), which consists of cross-sectional surveys subject to omitted variable bias and measurement error. We compare elasticity estimates derived from this survey data against those from metered water use records drawn from Kansas's Water Information Management and Analysis System (WIMAS), which captures measured pumping data. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404399 |
| By: | Abushama, Hala; Jovanovic, Nina; Abay, Kibrom A.; Siddig, Khalid; Simbeko, Guy; Sekabira, Haruna |
| Abstract: | Sudan’s ongoing conflict has severely disrupted agricultural systems, markets, and rural livelihoods. In this context, resilience-oriented agricultural support remains critical for sustaining food production, protecting livelihoods, and supporting local economic recovery. The Sudan Enhancing Community Resilience Project (THABAT) provides resilience-oriented agricultural support that is critical for sustaining food production, protecting livelihoods, and supporting local economic recovery (‘thabat’ in Arabic means ‘stability’ or ‘firmness’). The project is a USD 130 million initiative financed through the Sudan Transition and Recovery Support Trust Fund (STARS) Multi-Donor Trust Fund. This report focuses on the small -and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sub-component of Component 2 of the project, which aims to improve food security through supporting farmers, SMEs, and consumer cooperatives to enhance value addition in agricultural value chains. This component of the THABAT project is being implemented by the World Food Programme (WFP) through Mercy Corps. Specifically, this report presents the initial findings from interviews with 100 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) active in the agrifood sector that have been shortlisted to receive support through a matching grant element of the THABAT project. The surveyed SMEs are quite diverse in the nature of their enterprises—crop production, agricultural input supply, agrifood processing and packaging, storage, transport, and a range of postharvest services. WFP and Mercy Corps identified the SMEs that were included in the survey sample, which comprises both selected and unselected SMEs for the THABAT matching grant. Baseline data from the sample SMEs were collected using computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). This baseline report serves as a description of the status quo for SMEs in the THABAT project zone at the start of the project. The findings indicate that SMEs there have relatively good access to basic infrastructure and digital technologies. More than 90 percent report access to electricity, water, and internet services, although electricity reliability remains limited. The operators of the SMEs generally demonstrate strong growth ambitions, with most expecting increases in capital investment, workforce size, and market expansion in the coming year. This baseline report serves as a description of the status quo for SMEs in the THABAT project zone at the start of the project. The findings indicate that SMEs there have relatively good access to basic infrastructure and digital technologies. More than 90 percent report access to electricity, water, and internet services, although electricity reliability remains limited. The operators of the SMEs generally demonstrate strong growth ambitions, with most expecting increases in capital investment, workforce size, and market expansion in the coming year. The SMEs operate in a challenging business environment characterized by inflation, market disruptions, supply chain constraints, and recurring shocks. More than 90 percent reported experiencing at least one shock during the previous year, while concerns regarding corruption, governance, and limited access to finance remain widespread. At the same time, these SMEs maintain strong linkages with other actors in the agricultural value chains in which they operate and demonstrate considerable resilience and willingness to invest and grow despite many challenges. Overall, these initial SME baseline results show the critical roles SMEs are playing in creating value addition in agricultural value chains despite the challenging business environment and inefficiencies in markets in Sudan. These data, along with those to be collected through a planned endline survey of the same SMEs, will enable assessments to be made of the type of impacts the matching grants and associated business development support offered by the THABAT project had on SME performance and resilience. |
| Keywords: | capacity building; resilience; value chains; agricultural value chains; small and medium enterprises; Sudan; Africa; Northern Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ssspwp:184053 |
| By: | Kramer, Berber; Cecchi, Francesco; Levine, Madison |
| Abstract: | As climate variability intensifies, smallholder households—especially women within those households—face growing exposure to weather-related shocks, increasing their vulnerability to uncompensated losses and consumption shortfalls. Index insurance has emerged as a scalable risk management tool, yet basis risk, i.e., the gap between farm-level losses and index-triggered payouts, undermines trust, limits insurance demand, and constrains impacts on well-being especially among women. To understand the gendered impacts of reducing basis risk, we ask whether uncompensated shocks resulting from basis risk might affect women more than men, by analyzing gender differences in coping with shocks. Female farmers have lower education levels, less land, lower food consumption scores, and less agency in decisions over household coping responses than male farmers. Shocks—especially damage to standing crops and illnesses within the household—are associated with a greater reduction in food consumption scores among women than among men. These descriptive patterns suggest that basis risk has more severe implications for women than men, offering an explanation for why lowering basis risk improves insurance demand and perceptions particularly among women farmers. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404785 |
| By: | Njiraini, Georgina; Chelang'a, Philemon; Yattani, Adho; Popoola, Olufemi; Kirui, Oliver K. |
| Abstract: | Nigeria has the largest livestock population in West Africa and the fourth-largest cattle herd in Africa, yet the sector remains, in the words of long-standing diagnoses, a “sleeping giant” (Jega 2025). The livestock sector contributes approximately USD 32 billion, or 5 percent of national GDP, and around 17 percent of agricultural GDP. The livelihoods of 30 million people are directly supported by livestock, including those of over 15 million pastoralists. Roughly 40 percent of the protein consumed by Nigerians is sourced from animals. Nigeria has the largest livestock population in West Africa and the fourth-largest cattle herd in Africa, yet the sector remains, in the words of long-standing diagnoses, a “sleeping giant” (Jega 2025). The livestock sector contributes approximately USD 32 billion, or 5 percent of national GDP, and around 17 percent of agricultural GDP. The livelihoods of 30 million people are directly supported by livestock, including those of over 15 million pastoralists. Roughly 40 percent of the protein consumed by Nigerians is sourced from animals. The binding constraints to accelerated growth in Nigeria’s livestock sector are feed systems failure, an endemic and underreported animal disease burden, structural herder–farmer conflict, low genetic potential, the near-absence of processing and cold chain infrastructure, and intensifying climate risk. These interact as reinforcing cycles rather than isolated problems. In this paper that has been prepared to inform the development of a strategic action plan for Nigeria’s livestock sector, we examine the prospects for removing these barriers in order to put the sector on a pathway of sustained growth. Fortunately, the policy architecture for livestock sector development in Nigeria is now the strongest in the sector’s history. The Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, created in July 2024, anchors the Nigeria Livestock Growth Acceleration Strategy for 2025 to 2035, the first-ever Nigeria Livestock Master Plan, and the Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support investment program. Major financing is being mobilized, including a USD 2.5 billion commitment to invest in livestock processing from JBS S.A., a Brazilian meat processing company, the creation of the Africa Pastoral Markets Development platform with a USD 3 billion private-investment target, and the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones project. Early progress under these initiatives is visible—by mid-2026, the Ministry had vaccinated 6.2 million livestock in a nationwide anthrax campaign, profiled over 600, 000 livestock farmers using electronic tools, validated a National Dairy Policy Implementation Framework, and approved a veterinary reform roadmap to run through 2036. The principal conclusion we draw from this study is that Nigeria’s livestock sector development challenges are primarily linked to ineffectual implementation rather than poor policy design. The Nigeria Livestock Growth Acceleration Strategy should therefore prioritize implementation architecture—binding federal–state compacts on livestock development actions, foundational data systems that include a completed baseline on Nigeria’s livestock resources and a National Livestock Identification and Traceability System, feed systems development, animal health recapitalization, and putting in place the mechanisms that will convert committed private capital into operational investments in Nigeria’s livestock sector. |
| Keywords: | livestock; economic sectors; agro-industrial sector; sustainability; food systems; policies; Nigeria; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Western Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:nsspwp:184054 |
| By: | Han-Yu Zhu; Maria Cristina Rulli; Wei-Xing Zhou |
| Abstract: | Food supply shocks in major producing economies can propagate through trade networks and generate uneven impacts across the global food system. This study examines the robustness of economies' food supply under production shocks to major producers in the global staple food system. Using 2023 production, reserve, and bilateral trade data for wheat, rice, maize, and soybean, we construct a calorie-based global food supply network across economies. We extend a dynamic shock propagation framework and then simulate production shocks to major producing economies, tracing how supply losses propagate. The results show substantial heterogeneity in robustness across crops and economies. Wheat exhibits the highest overall robustness, whereas soybean shows the lowest. Economies with high robustness tend to be either relatively isolated from the trade network or actively engaged in trade while maintaining strong and stable domestic production, whereas low-robustness economies are predominantly those with high import dependence. Import dependence and per capita production emerge as the most important determinants of robustness. Based on these findings, we design two counterfactual policies targeting highly import-dependent economies: increasing reserve availability and adjusting trade linkages. Counterfactual experiments show that the two policies yield only modest overall improvements, with effects varying substantially across crops. Both policies improve robustness in the aggregated system and wheat, trade adjustment is more effective for rice, and it brings limited or even negative effects for maize and soybean. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.01010 |
| By: | Abate, Gashaw T.; Mugabo, Serge; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Van Campenhout, Bjorn |
| Abstract: | Smallholder farmers in low-income countries often operate in fragmented markets characterized by volatile prices, weak bargaining power, and limited incentives to invest in productivity and quality. Large institutional buyers procuring locally can reshape these conditions by creating structured demand and embedding sourcing requirements in contracts with intermediaries, potentially transmitting incentives upstream to farmers. This study evaluates a maize procurement policy introduced in 2021 by a major institutional buyer in Uganda that required its large trader-aggregator suppliers to source at least 20 percent of deliveries directly from smallholder farmers through “indirect conditional contracting.” Using survey data collected in 2024 from nearly 1, 300 smallholder farmers and nearly 300 aggregators across six districts, we estimate effects on prices, technology adoption, quality upgrading, welfare, and resilience. Intent-to-treat (ITT) estimates show that residing in areas where the major buyer operates is associated with 5–6 percent higher farmgate prices on average, with instrumental variable (IV) estimates suggesting upper bound premiums of up to 45 percent. Farmers in the conditional contract group earn positive net returns and increase adoption of improved inputs and postharvest practices. Intermediary aggregators receive about 7 (ITT) to 30 (IV) percent lower selling prices but increase adoption of postharvest quality practices. Mediation analysis indicates that gains for farmers arise primarily through increased competition between intermediaries. However, downstream welfare outcomes remain inconclusive, with suggestive evidence that non-participating farmers in treatment areas may face lower prices due to market segmentation. Overall, our findings show that indirect conditional contracts can reshape value chain incentives by attracting intermediaries, increasing competition, and stimulating upstream investment, even as they generate uneven distributional effects. |
| Keywords: | food aid; smallholders; value chains; food assistance; maize; markets; Uganda; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2026–06–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183400 |
| By: | Binte Ali, Suraiya; Jarrett, Uchechukwu; Koppa, Nisha; Miller, Steve J. |
| Abstract: | With the large number of empirical estimates of climate change damages, particularly heat stress shocks and ad hoc recommendations of trade as an adaptation tool in combating climate change, empirical evidence of trade’s mitigative effect is relatively scarce, if at all available. In empirically investigating this role of trade, we find evidence in support of trade reactions to past shocks in heat stressors, as well as hedging against future shocks in global agricultural markets. We also find that successful hedging via trade is successful as countries can diversify their supply, thereby reducing associated price volatility, however, this comes at the expense of higher agricultural production volatility. Finally, our analysis highlights the relevance of the weather characteristics of trading partners, with successful hedging along the breadth (increased partnerships) and depth (increased value) of trade driven by countries in different and the same agroecological zones respectively. |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404678 |
| By: | Lindamood, Jackson; Sampson, Gabriel |
| Abstract: | Woody encroachment is a pressing land management challenge in grassland systems, impacting forage production, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. This study combines surveys of landowners and agricultural stakeholders with a hedonic price analysis of agricultural land sales and satellite-derived woody cover in Kansas to assess the economic implications of woody encroachment. Survey results indicate that high control costs, labor constraints, and difficulties prioritizing treatment areas are leading challenges to controlling woody encroachment. We find that participation in training and financial assistance programs is low, largely due to limited awareness, uncertainty about eligibility, and program complexity. Hedonic price model results show that increases in woody cover are associated with higher agricultural land values, with a one-percentage-point increase corresponding to an increase of $9–$27 per acre. These findings underscore the need for policies that lower control costs, clarify eligibility, and simplify participation. |
| Keywords: | Resource/Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404744 |
| By: | Masias, Ian; Minten, Bart; Goeb, Joseph; Htar, May Thet; Aung, Nilar |
| Abstract: | The Iran War has driven up fuel and fertilizer prices in Myanmar and created the risk of shortages in some parts of the country. At the end of June, diesel prices were 34 percent higher and petrol prices 57 percent higher than at the end of February, while reference prices for urea in mid- and late June were 49 and 28 percent higher, respectively, than last monsoon season. Myanmar’s rice value chain depends heavily on fertilizer for paddy production and on fuel for land preparation, irrigation, harvesting, transport, and processing. Alongside an expected El Niño, these higher costs of fuel and fertilizer are likely to lower yields and rice production in the 2026 monsoon season. Higher costs are likely to reach consumers, raising the price of rice, the country's main staple, and worsening food security at a time of already high humanitarian need. Recommended Actions: Ease forex restrictions and import licensing on fertilizer imports, which raise input prices above those of regional competitors. Promote more efficient use of chemical fertilizer, since prices are likely to stay elevated even after the crisis eases. Support the local production of organic fertilizer and educate farmers on its effective use, to reduce reliance on imported chemical fertilizer. Expand alternative and more reliable energy sources, addressing a constraint that predates the shock. Expand alternative and more reliable energy sources, addressing a constraint that predates the shock. |
| Keywords: | inflation; fuels; fertilizer industry; prices; agricultural value chains; rice; Myanmar; Asia; South-eastern Asia |
| Date: | 2026–07–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:othbrf:183599 |
| By: | Tsiboe, Francis |
| Abstract: | Federal crop insurance has moved from a limited New Deal pilot to a central pillar of the U.S. farm safety net. This brief traces penetration of the Federal Crop Insurance Program from 1976 through 2025 using four measures, insured acres as a share of acres in farms, the insured share of selected commodity acreage, the aggregate coverage level, and liability as a share of crop production value, against fifty years of legislation. Growth was episodic rather than smooth, clustering around the 1980 Act, the 1994 reforms, and ARPA, and averaging 1.33 to 9.33 percent annually depending on the measure. By 2025 the program covered 93.0 percent of selected commodity acreage and 64.0 percent of acres in farms, with liability equal to 71.0 percent of crop production value. Preliminary projections under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act place the 2026 values at 99.8 and 76.0 percent, the former an upper bound by construction. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2026–08–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:arpcbr:409051 |
| By: | Marek Giergiczny (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig; University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Jette Bredahl (University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics); Klaus Glenk (SRUC, Department of Rural Economy, Environment and Society); Jürgen Meyerhoff (Technische Universität Berlin, Institute for Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning); Jens Abildtrup (Université de Lorraine, Université de Strasbourg, AgroParisTech, CNRS, INRAE, BETA); Fitalew Agimass Taye (Griffith University, Griffith Business School); Wiktor Budziński (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Mikołaj Czajkowski (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Borys Draus (Bureau for Forest Management and Geodesy); Michela Faccioli (University of Trento, School of International Studies and Department of Economics and Management); Tomasz Gajderowicz (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Michael Getzner (TU Wien, Institute of Spatial Planning); Tom X. Hackbarth (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Piotr Janiec (University of Agriculture in Krakow); Thomas Lundhede (University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics); Marius Mayer (Munich University of Applied Sciences, Department of Tourism); Alistair McVittie (SRUC, Department of Rural Economy, Environment and Society); Rachel Oh (National University of Singapore, Department of Geography); Roland Olschewski (WSL Swiss Federal Research Institute, Economics and Social Sciences); Henrique M. Pereira (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig); Martin Quaas (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig; Leipzig University); Jarosław Socha (University of Agriculture in Krakow); Niels Strange (University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics); Milan Ščasný (Charles University, Environment Centre; Charles University, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences); Sviataslau Valasiuk (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Adam Wasiak (Regional Directorate of State Forests in Radom); Néstor Fernández (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig) |
| Abstract: | Forests across Europe are undergoing rapid transformation as biodiversity loss and climate change reshape priorities for forest management. Strategies that promote biodiverse and structurally complex forests are increasingly advocated to enhance ecological resilience, yet they are often assumed to conflict with societal preferences, potentially limiting public support for conservation and restoration. We examined whether forest characteristics associated with biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation are consistently valued by society across Europe. We combined a visual discrete choice experiment involving 11, 622 respondents from twelve European countries with a travel cost model to evaluate whether stated societal preferences were reflected in observed recreational behaviour. We then integrated harmonized preference estimates with continental forest inventory and remote-sensing data to map the spatial distribution of societal values associated with forest ecosystem condition. Across all countries, respondents consistently preferred forests characterized by taller canopies, greater tree-species richness, heterogeneous age structures, and more deadwood. These preferences closely aligned with observed visitation behaviour despite substantial differences in geography, accessibility, and recreational traditions. Spatial analyses further showed that forests with greater structural complexity consistently exhibited higher societal value. Our findings demonstrate that biodiversity-oriented forest management and societal values largely converge across Europe, suggesting that many interventions promoting ecological resilience can simultaneously strengthen public support for forest conservation and restoration, providing a stronger foundation for adaptive, multifunctional forest governance under global environmental change. |
| Keywords: | biodiversity conservation, forest management, structural complexity, forest recreation, ecosystem services, discrete choice experiment, travel cost method |
| JEL: | Q57 Q23 Q26 Q51 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-25 |
| By: | Jovanovic, Nina; Darwish, Maram; Belton, Ben; Ecker, Olivier |
| Abstract: | A new representative consumption survey of 1, 600 households in Hadramawt Governorate, Yemen, reveals the following key findings: Fish is the primary animal-source food in Hadramawt, as 96% of households report consuming it in the past seven days, compared with 58% that report consuming poultry and 6% that report consuming meat in this period. Inland households consume 13 kg of fish per capita per year, while coastal households consume 29 kg per capita per year, which is 40% more than the global average of 20.7 kg per capita. Fish consumption is four times higher than meat consumption overall, and more than 10 times higher than meat consumption in coastal areas. Inland households predominantly consume large and small tuna species, whereas coastal households rely on small tuna and lower-value species such as small pelagic fish. Fresh fish is the most affordable animal-source food in coastal and inland areas. However, prices for kawakawa, the most consumed fresh fish, are two times higher inland than on the coast. 61% and 43% of inland households report consuming processed (i.e., salted, dried, smoked) and canned fish, respectively, while households in coastal areas predominantly consume fresh fish only. Only 2% of fish is purchased frozen. With its vast coastline, Yemen has the potential to provide significant quantities of fish, a nutrient-dense food, for its people. However, recent data on how much fish is consumed in Yemen, and Hadramawt as the main fishing governorate, is sparse. Namely, relying on consumption data from Yemen’s 2005–2006 Household Budget Survey, Ecker et al. (2010) estimated that average fish consumption per capita in Hadramawt was 17.8 kg/year. More recently, a study by Dey et al. (2026) showed that 43% of respondents in Hadramawt, and more than 60% in some inland districts, had consumed fish within the past 24 hours, which was more frequent than consumption of other animal-source foods. Both studies underscored the importance of fish as one of the main protein sources across Hadramawt. However, a scoping review by Belton et al. (2026) identified significant research gaps in terms of quantity, frequency, geographical distribution, and the species and product forms eaten. Thus, a survey of a statistically representative sample of the population was needed to better understand fish consumption patterns in this governorate. We surveyed 1, 600 households in Hadramawt, across 40 locations in four distinct geographic areas (10 locations per area): inland rural, inland urban, coastal rural, and coastal urban. This approach ensured inclusion of households with different socioeconomic status and livelihoods, as well as different access to markets and fisheries. We used a quasi-random sampling approach1 to identify 40 eligible households in each of the 40 selected locations. Interviews were conducted in October 2025 during the fishing season. The survey collected information on household demographic characteristics and consumption of fish and other animal-source foods, including the type, species, quantity, frequency, price, and source of food products during the seven days preceding the data collection. In this project note, we examine the main consumption patterns for fish, meat, and poultry across Hadramawt. We also estimate the associations between per capita fish consumption and expenditure and household characteristics, including households’ geographic location. |
| Keywords: | food prices; animal source foods; household consumption; household surveys; fish consumption; Yemen; Asia; Western Asia |
| Date: | 2026–06–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:menapn:183518 |
| By: | Subedi, Aadesh; Hrozencik, Aaron |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effect of water right seniority on crop insurance outcomes in the western United States. To achieve this objective, we combine county-level crop insurance data from the USDA Risk Management Agency with individual water-right priority information aggregated to the county level for 353 counties across 13 western states. We estimate fixed effects and random effects models to analyze the relationship between water right seniority and multiple crop insurance outcomes, including total claims, liability, loss ratio, failure-of-irrigation-related losses, and drought-related losses. The results suggest that there are significant differences in insurance outcomes between senior and junior counties. In particular, junior counties tend to have higher claims, liability, failure-ofirrigation losses, and loss ratios, while senior counties tend to have higher drought-related losses. The findings indicate that publicly observable institutional arrangements significantly affect water-related production risk and associated insurance outcomes in the western United States. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404381 |
| By: | Bachewe, Fantu Nisrane; Mawia, Harriet; Popoola, Olufemi |
| Abstract: | Agrifood systems (AFS) are central to employment, food security, and economic transformation across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). As economies grow, urbanize, and experience changing food demand, AFS increasingly extend beyond farming to include processing and other downstream value chain activities. These transformations create new employment opportunities, particularly for youth and women, while reshaping labor markets and livelihoods. Understanding these changes is therefore essential for designing policies that promote inclusive growth, employment creation, and food system resilience. This study examines the evolution of agrifood system employment in Ghana between 2000 and 2023. Using data from the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Bank, and other national and international sources, the analysis documents trends in economic growth, population dynamics, urbanization, labor market outcomes, and employment across agrifood system segments. Particular attention is given to gender and youth dimensions of employment and their implications for inclusive development. The study contributes to the growing literature on agrifood system transformation by documenting changes in the composition of employment and identifying opportunities and constraints for inclusive participation in emerging value chains. This study examines the evolution of agrifood system employment in Ghana between 2000 and 2023. Using data from the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Bank, and other national and international sources, the analysis documents trends in economic growth, population dynamics, urbanization, labor market outcomes, and employment across agrifood system segments. Particular attention is given to gender and youth dimensions of employment and their implications for inclusive development. The study contributes to the growing literature on agrifood system transformation by documenting changes in the composition of employment and identifying opportunities and constraints for inclusive participation in emerging value chains. The study finds that AFS remains the largest source of employment in Ghana, accounting for approximately two-thirds of total employment. Agriculture continues to employ a substantial share of workers, particularly men and youth, but its relative importance has declined steadily over time. At the same time, employment in nonfarm agrifood system activities – including food manufacturing, trade, transportation, and food services – expanded considerably. These findings suggest that Ghana’s labor market transformation is occurring not through a rapid exit from AFS but through diversification within them as value chains deepen and become more integrated. The analysis also reveals important demographic patterns in AFS employment. Women are more concentrated in agrifood system employment than men and are particularly represented in nonfarm AFS activities such as trade and food-related services. However, women continue to face disadvantages in employment quality, financial inclusion, access to productive assets, and participation in formal employment. Similarly, youth remain highly dependent on AFS for their livelihoods. Although labor force participation among young people is lower and unemployment is higher than among mature workers, AFS – particularly farming – continues to provide employment for a large share of young people. These findings underscore the importance of AFS as a source of economic inclusion while highlighting the persistent barriers that women and youth continue to face. Although the available data do not permit separate analysis of young women as a distinct population group, the combined evidence from this study and the broader literature suggests that they are likely to benefit substantially from the continued expansion of nonfarm agrifood activities. Food processing, marketing, food services, and other downstream value-chain segments are expanding in Ghana while already employing relatively large shares of women. Strengthening access to finance, productive assets, business development services, skills, and digital technologies can therefore help translate ongoing agrifood transformation into more dignified and fulfilling employment opportunities for young women. Employment outside agrifood systems also expanded during the study period, with the share of non-AFS employment increasing by four percentage points to 34.6 percent in 2017, reflecting Ghana's gradual structural transformation. Growth in non-AFS employment was stronger among men and mature adults than among women and youth, indicating that opportunities outside agrifood systems have expanded unevenly across population groups. Overall, Ghana exhibits a relatively advanced stage of agrifood system transformation, characterized by declining agricultural employment, expanding nonfarm AFS activities, and gradual growth in non-AFS employment. Continued investments in agrifood value chains, infrastructure, market connectivity, access to finance, and entrepreneurship support will be essential to ensure that this transformation generates productive, inclusive, and resilient employment, particularly for women and young people. |
| Keywords: | demographic transition; agrifood systems; youth; engagement; workforce; employment; Ghana; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Western Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:sfs4yp:183601 |
| By: | Wang, Tianyuan; Adjemian, Michael; Kostandini, Genti |
| Abstract: | Labor-intensive U.S. agriculture has long relied on foreign-born workers, so policies that raise their wages are likely to increase farm production costs. We estimate the causal effect of agricultural labor cost shocks on U.S. retail food prices. Our analysis centers on annual changes in the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR)—the federally mandated wage floor for H-2A temporary agricultural workers—set each year by the U.S. Department of Labor for 18 multi-state regions. We construct a county-level treatment intensity measure by interacting a predetermined migrant labor share from the 2002 Census of Agriculture with annual regional AEWR changes. Using this measure, we estimate dynamic price responses with a local projections difference-in-differences (LP-DiD) framework, drawing on Nielsen retail scanner data for twenty-seven food categories from 2006 to 2024. We then test whether pass-through from labor costs to retail prices is moderated by farm mechanization, immigration enforcement, and state-level import penetration. Our study provides the first reduced-form estimates of how AEWR-driven labor cost shocks transmit to disaggregated retail food prices across a broad set of food categories. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404618 |
| By: | Fuad, Syed; Hartarska, Valentina; Nadolnyak, Denis |
| Abstract: | Over one million U.S. farmers report ten or fewer years of farming experience, yet little is known about how productivity differences vary across the farm life cycle and Census-panel persistence. We use linked farm-level microdata from the 2012, 2017, and 2022 Censuses of Agriculture to decompose total factor productivity differences for beginning and established farms. Following the X-inefficiency literature, which links inefficiency to managerial ability and organizational performance, we estimate group-specific stochastic frontiers that model technical inefficiency as a function of own-operator managerial-ability proxies and similarity-weighted county-peer averages of those proxies. Differences in scale efficiency account for a large share of productivity dispersion among small farms and are especially pronounced among operations that later leave the Census panel. The community channel accounts for over 40 percent of the identified inefficiency contribution among beginning farms and exceeds the own-operator channel for small beginning livestock operations. The results point to beginning-farmer policies that combine scale-adjustment support with investments in farmer networks, peer learning, extension capacity, and community-based support. |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404709 |
| 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:53-en |
| By: | Cheu, Sungmin; Sears, Molly |
| Abstract: | Premium subsidies in crop insurance can expand production on marginal lands, as they change the expected profitability of crop production. As agricultural production expands, participation in set-aside conservation programs may be diminished. This paper examines the effect of crop insurance premium subsidies on enrollment in the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), one of the primary wetland restoration program in the United States. We focus on the Mississippi River Basin, where a large share of WRP restorations are concentrated. To address potential endogeneity between producer-received premium subsidies and WRP enrollment, we employ an instrumental variable approach, exploiting variation in federally determined subsidy rate changes interacted with insurance participation prior to the sample period. We find that while higher premium subsidies reduce enrollment in WRP, the magnitude of the marginal effect is relatively small, suggesting that there is only limited crowd-out effect on WRP participation. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404395 |
| By: | Chaves Morone Pinto, Bruno; Mieno, Taro |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of extreme heat and water deficit on federal crop insurance indemnities for corn and soybeans, differentiating by irrigation status. Using county-level administrative data from the USDA Risk Management Agency for 2011–2023, we normalize indemnities into yield-equivalent shortfalls (bushels per acre) and estimate how Extreme Degree Days and water deficit relate to insured losses for irrigated versus non-irrigated production under Revenue Protection and Yield Protection policies. Compared with rainfed operations, irrigated operations are significantly less heat sensitive, with the residual effect of extreme heat on irrigated operations statistically indistinguishable from zero for corn. Water deficit exhibits a U-shaped relationship with insured losses: non-irrigated operations realize more losses under high levels of water deficit, while irrigated operations have more indemnities associated with very negative water deficit values (excess moisture). These results are robust to alternative temperature thresholds, compound heat-drought interactions, and alternative fixed effects specifications. Our findings suggest that irrigated operations are associated with substantially lower weather sensitivity of insured losses in the contract-defined loss region, pointing to a potential adaptation dividend for the Federal Crop Insurance Program. |
| Keywords: | Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404420 |
| By: | Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Minten, Bart; Masias, Ian; Aung, Zin Wai; Ei Win, Hnin |
| Abstract: | The significant economic implications of the value of farmland in developing countries is increasingly recognized, particularly in those countries where land scarcity is a growing problem. However, knowledge gaps remain about how farmland values can be affected by factors such as conflict and social instability. A knowledge gap also remains regarding how spatial transmission and feedback effects of land values among geographically proximate parcels may affect the relationship between conflict and farmland values. This impact has generally been overlooked in the literature, despite the well-established importance of clustering in agricultural economies. This paper addresses these gaps by utilizing unique, nationally representative panel data on farm households and spatial data on conflict intensity in Myanmar, with a focus on the period of significant conflict intensification following the 2021 political crisis, particularly in 2022 and 2023, when the country’s conflict level largely shifted to a high-intensity state. We apply spatial econometric models and their extensions to a panel data framework, as well as models that allow for endogenous spatial weights, which enable conflicts to not only affect farmland values but also shape how changes in farmland values transmit across locations. Our results indicate that more local conflict during the prior 12 months, measured by the number of months with at least one fatal violent event within the township of respondents, significantly reduced the farmland values of the largest rice plot of these respondents. Specifically, in the monsoon and non-monsoon harvesting seasons of 2022 and 2023, an additional one month of fatal violence was associated with approximately 3 percent and 5 percent decline in land values, respectively, implying a potentially sizable decline for townships that experience more persistent conflicts over several months. Moreover, the effects of violent events are magnified by spatial spillover effects on land values across village tracts. These adverse effects are robust and consistent across a range of methodologies and hold across diverse agroecological conditions. |
| Keywords: | farmland; conflicts; spatial analysis; seasons; monsoon climate; cereals; rice; Myanmar; Asia; South-eastern Asia |
| Date: | 2026–06–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183196 |
| By: | Donald, Aletheia Amalia; Tafere, Kibrom |
| Abstract: | This paper synthesizes country-level decomposition evidence on the gender gap in agricultural productivity across Sub-Saharan Africa, identifying its major drivers and reviewing what works to close it. Gender productivity gaps range between 7 percent and 77 percent across twelve African countries, with male-managed plots yielding higher outputs than those managed by women. Although controlling for the characteristics of farmers, households and plots tends to shrink this gap, a conditional gap of 4 percent to 62 percent persists. The literature also documents an overall gender gap in agricultural production in the range of 18 percent to 61 percent. The largest driver of these gaps is women’s concentration in lower-value crops, followed by their lower use of and returns from labor. Social norms and access to land and financial resources play a crucial role in sustaining and exacerbating these gender disparities. Evidence suggests that targeted programmatic approaches to increasing women’s adoption of cash crops, enhancing their use of labor and other inputs and providing them with tailored skills and information can help close the gender gap in agricultural productivity. |
| Date: | 2026–06–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11414 |
| By: | Li, Xiaolei; Hu, Wuyang; Yu, Chenghui; Zhao, Minjuan |
| Abstract: | We propose a new bundled choice model to analyze premature food discarding and food waste arising from the misinterpretation of expiration date labels. Unlike conventional discard behavior models, our model allows consumers to discard either a single product or a bundle of products within one decision occasion. Using online survey data from Chinese consumers, we find substantial misinterpretation of the current food date labeling system. Such misinterpretation induces premature discarding behavior and consequently generates food waste. Modifying the wording of food date labels can substantially mitigate this problem. Among the alternative labels examined, replacing the current “Quality assured” label with “Not use if after” produces the strongest reduction in premature discarding and food waste. The “Best if used by” and “Use by” labels also improve outcomes to varying degrees. To evaluate food waste under bundled choice model, results indicate that consumers exhibit preferences for bundled discard behavior. Consequently, the conventional single choice model specification underestimates both the level of food waste induced by label misinterpretation and the effectiveness of alternative date labels in mitigating food waste. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404378 |
| By: | Scherpf, Erik; Zachary, Chandler |
| Abstract: | Recent disruptions to food supply chains have renewed interest in how shocks propagate through the U.S. food economy and which sectors occupy structurally important positions within it. This paper uses the USDA Economic Research Service Agri-Food Economic Data System (Ag-FEDS) to characterize the production network of the U.S. food economy and to connect that network structure to the USDA Food Dollar. We analyze the network along three dimensions: direction of propagation, depth of linkage, and conditioning on final food demand. Using measures based on input-output multiplier analysis, Domar weights, and related network centrality concepts, we examine both the overall food economy and the distinct production networks supporting food at home and food away from home. We also use the annual AgFEDS series from 2007 to 2024 to study the stability of these structural relationships over time. Conceptually, the paper shows how Food Dollar industry-group results can be decomposed into value-added intensity, food-conditional network centrality, and final-demand orientation, providing a bridge between Food Dollar accounting and the production-network literature. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404692 |
| By: | Liu, Xuan |
| Abstract: | Large-scale water resource reallocations combat regional scarcity but often obscure localized environmental costs. Evaluating China's South-to-North Water Diversion Project using a synthetic difference-in-differences framework, we estimate that the project increased topsoil salinity by an average of 3.16% in water-receiving counties. We show that this salinization is driven by a dual mechanism: new canal seepage artificially raises local water tables, while prohibitive marginal water prices prompt farmers to reduce irrigation, disrupting the traditional downward salt leaching process. The effects of this ecological shift are highly asymmetrical. Because post-diversion salinity remains safely within the tolerance range of winter wheat but systematically breaches the physiological yield-reduction threshold of summer maize, the environmental burden falls disproportionately on the summer growing season. Consistent with this biophysical constraint, we find that farmers rationalized production by reducing their maize acreage by 19%. Incorporating these estimates into structural agronomic models, we calculate that this asymmetric soil degradation exacts a marginal shadow cost of 920 million RMB per year in the agricultural sector. |
| Keywords: | Resource/Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404732 |
| By: | Bafowaa, Bridget; Rabinowitz, Adam |
| Abstract: | Financial stress remains persistent in U.S. agriculture, threatening the long-term viability of farm operations despite the availability of numerous risk management tools. While previous studies have examined the effectiveness of individual risk management strategies, less is known about how farmers use these tools either independently or in combination and whether these tools are associated with lower levels of financial stress. This study examines the combination of risk management tools used by different farmers and evaluates which bundle of tools are effective in alleviating financial stress. Using farm-level data from the USDA Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), we employ the Latent Class Analysis (LCA) using indicators of participation in risk management strategies such as crop insurance, government support programs, and diversification strategies. The resulting clusters capture the distinct risk management portfolios farms use. An ordered logit model is then used to examine the association between risk management bundles and farm financial stress while controlling farm and operator characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404329 |
| By: | Kunwar, Saurav; Chambers, Robert; Gentry, Laura; Serra, Teresa |
| Abstract: | Conservation programs differ in how they reward farmers: practice-based programs compensate for adopting management practices, while outcome-based programs pay for measured environmental improvements. Yet the private costs of compliance under these alternative designs remain unclear. We develop a duality-based framework to value agricultural environmental services under policy-consistent normalizations. A normalization selects a numeraire that reflects program objectives and determines how trade-offs among market and environmental outcomes are evaluated. Using Illinois corn production data, we demonstrate that practice-based normalizations result in lower shadow prices for carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas abatement, whereas outcome-based normalizations yield higher costs. Erosion control shows limited variation. By establishing shadow prices as policy-dependent measures, the framework provides a consistent economic basis for comparing conservation programs and setting incentive payments that align private management with environmental goals. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404335 |
| By: | Baldwin, Katherine; Giri, Anil; Knight, Russell |
| Abstract: | This paper documents recent developments in Federal assistance for U.S. livestock producers and analyzes how producer participation in major risk‑management programs has evolved since 2018. We examine three categories of support: livestock insurance products offered through the Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP); permanently authorized disaster programs including the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP), Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), and Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm‑Raised Fish Program (ELAP); and ad hoc assistance programs such as the Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP). We find that while the number of livestock insurance policies purchased and the total liabilities for livestock in the FCIP have risen exponentially since 2018, only around 5 percent of livestock producers participate in FCIP. Regarding disaster programs, despite the authorization of funding for temporary disaster assistance programs targeting livestock, most disaster assistance for livestock producers continues to be delivered through permanently authorized programs. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404388 |
| By: | Lee, Sungjin |
| Abstract: | The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Online Purchasing Pilot (OPP) represents a major shift in how SNAP households can redeem food benefits, yet its broader effects on food security remain unclear. This study examines the impact on food security of low-income households using the 2017-2023 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data. Leveraging the staggered rollout of the OPP across states, we estimate program effects using a two-way fixed effects model and heterogeneous-robust difference-in-differences estimators. While the TWFE specification suggests that OPP adoption increases the likelihood of food insecurity, diagnostic tests reveal substantial negative weighting, indicating bias from staggered adoption timing. Robust estimators that address this issue show no meaningful effect of the OPP on food security, and this null result is consistent across alternative specifications, eligibility thresholds, and household subgroups. These findings differ from prior evidence showing reductions in food insufficiency during the early COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that the OPP’s benefits were tied to the unique conditions of that period rather than reflecting a sustained improvement in food access |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404563 |
| By: | Coulibaly, Salifou K.; McNamara, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the nonlinear and stage-specific impacts of rainfall variability on cocoa yields in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s leading cocoa producer. We combine a georeferenced Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) dataset (1981–2025) with farm-level survey data collected during two contrasting climate years: a drought year (2022) and a near-optimal year (2023). Results reveal three key findings. First, the rainfall–yield relationship is highly nonlinear, exhibiting both Ushaped and inverted U-shaped patterns across seasons, suggesting that linear specifications may misestimate climate impacts. Second, climate sensitivity varies by production stage and baseline conditions: moisture availability during the growing season is the primary constraint under drought, while pre-season water recharge becomes more critical in wetter conditions. Third, climate effects are asymmetric, with yield losses from moisture deficits exceeding gains under favorable rainfall, indicating substantial downside risk for farmers operating near optimal conditions. Herbicide expenditure per hectare positively affects yields in the favorable year, underscoring the importance of weed management, while plantation age is negatively associated with productivity, consistent with declining yields in older cocoa stands. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404652 |
| By: | Sawerengera, Jane; Wang, Jingjing; Berrens, Robert |
| Abstract: | As surface water stress intensifies across the western US, sustaining agricultural production and meeting environmental and urban water demands has increasingly become one of challenges to resource management in the region. This study examines the willingness of agricultural water users to participate in a voluntary seasonal fallowing program designed to reallocate water from agricultural to environmental uses without permanently retiring productive land in the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District in New Mexico. Using primary data from a large-scale survey, we model the sequential decision to participate and how many acres to fallow conditional on participation using the Heckman selection model. Results suggest that payment incentive and attitudes towards transferring water rights to environmental uses positively influence willingness to participate in the fallowing program. Experience in market-based land and water transactions is influential in both the decision to participate and how many acres to enroll. This suggests that payment may be more relevant in attracting program participation while the intensity of participation depends on factors that develop over time. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404488 |
| By: | Zhao, Jianqiang (Jason); Barrett, Christopher B.; Hoddinott, John |
| Abstract: | Grocery prices have risen sharply in recent years, increasing households’ financial stress, especially for those at risk of food insecurity. Have higher food prices affected households’ use of public or private food assistance? We study how food price changes affect household-level participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and use of food pantries. We link household-level administrative records on food pantry visits and SNAP benefits receipt and redemption activity, and merge those with monthly grocery price indices constructed from food retail scanner data in a sixcounty region of New York State from January 2019 to June 2021. Higher grocery prices increase both SNAP participation and food pantry use, leading to more frequent pantry visits and faster within-month exhaustion of SNAP benefits. Although statistically significantly, these food assistance behavioral responses to food price increases are small in absolute terms, however. By comparison, changes in local unemployment rates have a substantially larger association with increased food pantry use. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404556 |
| By: | Heblich, Stephan; Redding, Stephen; Zylberberg, Yanos |
| Abstract: | We examine the distributional consequences of trade using the New World Grain Invasion that occurred in the second half of the 19th century. We use a newly-created dataset on population, employment by sector, property values, and poor law transfers for over 10, 000 parishes in England and Wales from 1801--1901. In response to this trade shock, we show that locations with high wheat suitability experience population decline, rural-urban migration, structural transformation away from agriculture, increases in welfare transfers, and declines in property values, relative to locations with low wheat suitability. We develop a quantitative spatial model to evaluate the income distributional consequences of this trade shock. Undertaking counterfactuals for the Grain Invasion, we show that geography is an important dimension along which these income distributional consequences occur. |
| JEL: | F14 F16 F66 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19522 |
| By: | Chatterjee, Angana; Khanal, Ajit; McWilliams, William; Gupta, Anubhab |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how intermediary’s market power changes the welfare effects of tariffs in agricultural markets. We extend the Flexible Oligopoly–Oligopsony Model (FOOM) to an open economy where processors buy from domestic and foreign farmers, combine inputs through an Armington CES aggregator, and exercise market power in both input and output markets. We calibrating the model to the U.S. beef supply chain and find three major results. Market power dominates the welfare picture, costing roughly an order of magnitude more than any plausible tariff. The textbook welfare-improving tariff disappears at empirically estimated meatpacker market power; the optimal tariff falls to zero and becomes a welfare loss beyond it. Tariff incidence shifts from foreign farmers under competition to domestic consumers under concentration. These results indicate that antitrust enforcement and trade policy are not separable interventions in concentrated agricultural markets. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Organization |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404624 |
| By: | Van Campenhout, Bjorn; Ariong, Richard M.; Kariuki, Sara Wairimu; Chamberlin, Jordan |
| Abstract: | Quality in agri-food supply chains is often unobservable at first sale and early aggregation limits traceability, weakening incentives for quality provision. We study whether making milk quality visible and traceable creates a market for quality in Uganda’s dairy sector. Increasing observability reduces adulteration and improves quality, but no premium emerges. In a follow-up experiment, we introduce trader quality premiums. This increases quality when binding, yet informed intermediaries capture the gains and farm-gate prices do not rise. Observability is necessary but insufficient: without downstream demand for quality and pass-through by intermediaries, incentives for quality upgrading remain weak. |
| Keywords: | dairying; value chains; enforcement; quality management; quality assurance; quality control; Uganda; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2026–06–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183322 |
| By: | Philippine Coeugnet (LISIS - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences, Innovations, Sociétés - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Université Gustave Eiffel, GABI - Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Julie Labatut (LISIS - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences, Innovations, Sociétés - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Université Gustave Eiffel); Michèle Tixier-Boichard (GABI - Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Xavier Rognon (GABI - Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Sophie Allais (PEGASE - Physiologie, Environnement et Génétique pour l'Animal et les Systèmes d'Elevage [Rennes] - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Rennes Angers - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement); Nicolas Bedère (PEGASE - Physiologie, Environnement et Génétique pour l'Animal et les Systèmes d'Elevage [Rennes] - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Rennes Angers - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement); Isabelle Goldringer (GQE-Le Moulon - Génétique Quantitative et Evolution - Le Moulon (Génétique Végétale) - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); G Restoux (GABI - Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Co-designing poultry for crop-poultry systems: Genetic and organizational needs for agroecological transition. |
| Date: | 2026–07–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05698384 |
| By: | Rakhy, Tarig; Mohamed, Shima; Abushama, Hala; Nigus, Halefom Yigzaw; Suliman, Gotada; Siddig, Khalid |
| Abstract: | This report monitors prices, availability, and market conditions for essential commodities across Sudan in June 2026, covering cereals, pulses, vegetables, animal products, agricultural inputs, fuel, exchange rates, labor markets, and trader perceptions. Commodity prices generally increased during the month, particularly for wheat flour, pulses, vegetables, meat products, cooking oil, sugar, and fuel, while perceived availability declined across most food and input categories, indicating tightening market conditions. Fuel price increases in parallel markets, depreciation of the Sudanese pound, and persistent regional disparities, especially in Darfur and Kordofan states, continued to place pressure on market access and affordability. Surveyed traders reported fewer supply chain, liquidity, and demand-related constraints than in previous months, although challenges remained concentrated in conflict-affected areas such as Khartoum and North Darfur. Despite rising prices and weaker availability, most merchants expected to maintain or expand trading activities over the following one to three months, suggesting cautious optimism about market continuity. -Abstract generated by Copilot AI 2.2 |
| Keywords: | capacity building; commodities; markets; prices; Sudan; Africa; Northern Africa |
| Date: | 2026–08–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ssmpap:184611 |
| By: | Kirui, Oliver K.; Olanrewaju, Opeyemi; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Popoola, Olufemi; Nwagboso, Chibuzo |
| Abstract: | he gender asset-ownership gap remains a persistent barrier to inclusive economic growth. While women contribute significantly to agricultural production and household welfare, they continue to face constraints in accessing and controlling productive assets such as land and non-land resources. Using nationally representative panel data from the Nigeria Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) waves 4 and 5, this study examines the role of women’s productive asset ownership and empowerment in shaping household income inequality in rural Nigeria. Descriptive evidence shows persistently high intrahousehold inequality, with intrahousehold Gini coefficients averaging approximately 0.70 across survey rounds, despite a modest decline between 2018/19 and 2023/24. Regional patterns reveal particularly pronounced inequality in the North East, where income distributions are heavily skewed and most households exhibit extreme intrahousehold disparities. Employing fixed effects regressions and Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions, the analysis yields three key findings. First, women’s land share is associated with reduced intrahousehold income inequality, but this effect is modest and conditional. It becomes meaningful primarily in households where women control more than half of total household farmland, suggesting that small and fragmented landholdings offer limited inequality-reducing potential on their own. Women’s control over income and participation in agricultural decision-making emerge as additional and consistently significant drivers of reduced intrahousehold inequality. Second, women’s land share has a significant and positive effect on women’s income share, with a 10 percentage point increase in female-managed farmland associated with approximately a 0.76 percentage point increase in women’s share of household income; women’s income control and agricultural decision-making further amplify this effect. Third, Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions reveal that households where women own productive assets have significantly lower intrahousehold inequality and higher women’s income shares than those where no woman owns an asset, with differences driven primarily by disparities in women’s income control and decision-making authority rather than asset ownership alone. This shifts the policy debate from simply closing gender asset gaps to ensuring women’s assets are productive and consolidated with genuine economic agency. |
| Keywords: | gender; women; assets; inequality; gender inequality; household income; income distribution; households; Nigeria; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2026–06–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183394 |
| By: | Lin, Yingyun; Won, Sunjae; Taylor, Mykel |
| Abstract: | Corn is the most important grain crop in the U.S., and its production is dominated by cornsoybeans rotation system. While many previous studies document that rotation can bring about agronomic benefits, empirical evidence based on rigorous econometric analysis and large-scale data on the effects of crop rotation is still lacking. This study evaluates the impacts of “cornsoybeans” rotation system adoption on mean corn yields and yield risks in the U.S. Midwest. Using a unique recently developed field-level remote sensing-based data set, we adopt a twoway fixed effects framework and a series of robustness checks to achieve our study objectives. Our analysis suggests that rotation adoption has a statistically significant positive impact on mean corn yields. We also find that fields adopting rotation tend to have yields with statistically lower variance and kurtosis, as well as higher skewness. This suggests that rotation reduces corn yield risks. Moreover, regular rotation provides greater benefits for both yield and risk reduction than irregular rotation. Our findings indicate that crop rotation can bring about considerable economic benefits. We provide important empirical insights into producers’ risk management strategies. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404696 |
| By: | Brown, Zachary S.; Chen, Le; Cho, Chanheung; Rejesus, Roderick |
| Abstract: | Soil health investments such as cover crop adoption are widely promoted to improve long-run productivity and reduce fertilizer dependence, yet adoption remains limited due to delayed and uncertain returns.This paper develops a structural dynamic model of soil capital accumulation, nitrogen fertilizer use, and cover crop technology choice under biophysical and market uncertainty. Using data from a 35-year cotton field experiment, we estimate a yield function in which output depends on fertilizer, accumulated soil capital, and their interaction. We structurally recover soil capital and embed the estimates in a stochastic dynamic programming model with regime-switching price dynamics. The results reveal strong dynamic substitution: as soil capital increases, the marginal productivity of fertilizer declines sharply. Optimal policies exhibit threshold-type adoption patterns, with cover crops becoming profitable only beyond critic also il capital levels. Policy simulations show that targeted incentives can accelerate transitions toward soil-health-based production while improving both profitability and environmental outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404397 |
| By: | Poudel, Subin |
| Abstract: | Farm to School (FTS) programs generate two competing e!ects on household food demand: school meal provisioning substitutes for home purchasing in the short run, while repeated exposure builds taste capital that complements demand over time. Linking Nielsen Home Scan and USDA FTS Census data (2012–2023), we estimate household demand for different food categories via the Exact Affine Stone Index (EASI) system and exploit staggered FTS adoption with differential exposure by child age to identify both mechanisms. In the short run, households with school-age children in FTS districts exhibit substitution in school-provided food categories. In mature programs (8+ years), this reverses: household spending on fruits and vegetables increases by 22 percent, with the crossover at approximately 11–12 years. FTS programs also generate community spillovers of 0.42 percentage points for childless households, and offset 80 percent of the child-driven fresh produce deficit in households with children. The main takeaways are: short-run evaluations substantially understate program benefits; programduration, not intensity, is the key impact parameter. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404369 |
| By: | Shubitidze, Erekle; Adjemian, Michael; Dorfman, Jeffrey |
| Abstract: | USDA crop reports are major information events in agricultural commodity markets, but their price effects may depend on the belief and market environment in which the news arrives. This paper studies futures price responses to WASDE ending-stocks and Grain Stocks reports for corn, soybeans, and wheat using USDA realizations, analyst forecast distributions, and daily futures prices. The analysis first addresses measurement error in consensus-based surprises using a control-function approach based on forecast dispersion. It then estimates reduced-form interaction models to examine whether responses vary with forecast dispersion and pre-report market tightness. The results show that measurement-error correction matters most clearly for corn, while belief-based heterogeneity is modest and not uniform across commodities. Market tightness provides stronger evidence of state-dependent announcement responses, although the direction of the effect varies across markets and report types. The findings suggest that USDA announcement effects are shaped not only by surprise magnitude, but also by the precision of pre-report expectations and prevailing market conditions. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404353 |
| By: | Njiraini, Georgina; Chelang’a, Philemon; Yattani, Adho; Kirui, Oliver K.; Popoola, Olufemi |
| Abstract: | Nigeria is Africa’s largest fish consumer by volume and a leading producer. Fisheries and aquaculture contribute between 3 and 4 percent of national GDP, provide around 40 percent of the animal-source protein consumed by Nigerians, and support the livelihoods of around 12 million artisanal fishers and fish farmers. Women constitute over 60 percent of the sector workforce. However, the sector is locked in a structural supply-demand crisis. Domestic fish production meets only about one-third of annual demand of between 3.2 million and 3.6 million mt. The domestic supply deficit of approximately 2.4 million mt is filled by imports that cost Nigeria over USD 1.0 billion annually. Domestic fish production has begun to respond to the growing demand for fish in Nigeria. The Federal Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture reports output rising to 1.4 million mt in 2025 from 1.1 million mt in 2024. This increase in production was attributed to improved federal-state coordination, the use of better aquaculture technology, and establishing more sustainable marine farming systems with the support of Nigeria’s development partners. Nonetheless, the structural deficit in fish supply for Nigerian markets remains large. The constraints hindering growth in Nigeria’s fisheries and aquaculture sector include: A fish-feed cost crisis—feed makes up 60 to 70 percent of aquaculture production costs, The near-absence of cold chains for storing, transporting, and marketing fish, resulting in postharvest losses of up to 40 percent, Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing costs of USD 450 million per year, Fragmented fish fingerling supply systems, Financial exclusion of artisanal fishers, and An outdated governance framework centered on the Sea Fisheries Act of 1992. Moreover, climate change will acutely affect Nigeria’s fisheries and aquaculture sector. Under high-emission climate-change scenarios, its maximum marine catch potential will fall between 23 and 53 percent by 2050. This makes the scaling up of aquaculture not merely an economic growth option but a structural and nutritional necessity. However, aquaculture will also be adversely affected by a changing climate, with growth in aquaculture in Nigeria expected to decelerate from 11 percent per year between 2010 and 2015 to only 2 percent per year in the 2035 to 2050 period. The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy, 2025–2029, provides the operational framework for the growth of the fisheries and aquaculture sector. Its principal target is to achieve aquaculture output of 1.3 million mt by 2029 while cutting postharvest losses in half. This paper concludes that any strategic action plan for Nigeria’s fisheries and aquaculture sector must be built around closing the supply deficit through accelerated sectoral growth that is anchored in improved domestic feed and fingerling supply systems, cold chain investment at 12 priority fish landing sites, reforms of the Sea Fisheries Act to address IUU fishing losses, and a dedicated fisheries investment facility to correct the structural financial exclusion of Nigeria’s fisheries and aquaculture sector. |
| Keywords: | sustainability; sustainable aquaculture; fisheries; aquaculture; economic sectors; Nigeria; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Western Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:nsspwp:184055 |
| By: | Bora, Siddhartha; Giri, Anil; Subedi, Dipak |
| Abstract: | Farm bill safety net programs trigger payments to farmers when crop revenues fall, but ignore the production costs. This study documents that costs do not fall with revenue declines, at least not for corn. Using USDA cost-of-production data from 1996 to 2024, we find that corn costs rise by 0.31% per 1% increase in revenue but do not adjust downward when revenue falls. The mechanism involves pre-committed input contracts, such as seed licensing, custom operations, and capital recovery schedules, which suppliers do not renegotiate when commodity prices decline. For a corn farmer facing a 20% revenue decline whose costs fall by only 1%, the gap between revenue-based and margin-based measures of financial position is approximately $33 per acre. Corn producers incur excess costs of approximately $38 million per year at the central estimate, primarily concentrated in the Heartland region. In contrast, soybeans experience similar revenue shocks but lack the same contracting rigidities, allowing their costs to adjust more flexibly in both directions. The regional panel analysis confirms that corn faces asymmetric error correction, with a half-life above equilibrium of 5.2 years. These findings suggest that revenue-only indicators of farm financial stress understate the magnitude of costrevenue squeezes during downturns. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404343 |
| By: | Schunk, Nathan; Baker, Justin; Cho, Chanheung; Ho, Thu |
| Abstract: | This paper examines fertilizer price dynamics within a global commodity market framework. Using a panel of 65 monthly commodity price series from 2000 to 2025, we document three empirical patterns: fertilizer prices exhibit event-driven volatility, price responses differ across nutrients, and fertilizer prices increasingly diverge from agricultural commodity prices during major shocks. To quantify these patterns, we estimate a dynamic factor model that decomposes fertilizer price movements into global, block-specific, and idiosyncratic components. The estimated global factor is closely associated with standard indicators of global economic activity, indicating that common macroeconomic conditions are reflected in fertilizer markets. However, the transmission of these shocks differs across nutrients. Nitrogen fertilizers are more closely linked to energy markets, phosphate fertilizers show larger idiosyncratic variation, and potash reflects both global and sectoral influences. These results suggest that fertilizer price dynamics reflect both common global forces and nutrient-specific factors. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404318 |
| By: | Duan, Dinglin; Gao, Zhifeng |
| Abstract: | Front-of-package (FOP) nutrition labels are designed to summarize key nutritional information and support informed consumer food choices. Despite growing adoption of FOP labels on packaged food products, these labels lack a standardized format, with over 43 countries operating distinct schemes and no consensus in the literature on their comparative effectiveness. In January 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a new FOP label format that provides at-a-glance information on saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar, each categorized as "Low, " "Medium, " or "High." While prior studies have begun examining consumer responses to the FDA-proposed label, evidence on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) remains limited. This study employs contingent valuation to estimate WTP for products bearing the FDA-proposed FOP label across items with varying nutritional profiles. The study features an online survey design with embedded zoom functionality and zone-time tracking on product pages, enabling behavioral measurement of label engagement alongside stated preference elicitation. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404583 |
| By: | Wang, Huajin; Mallory, Mindy |
| Abstract: | The 2018–2019 U.S.–China trade war disrupted soybean export markets, but whether those disruptions propagated to downstream poultry prices remains unclear. This study traces price transmission along the soybean-to-chicken supply chain using weekly futures-price innovations and regime-specific local projections. Upstream price transmission lost persistence during the retaliatory-tariff period, with sustained propagation over subsequent weeks collapsing especially for soybean meal prices, and recovered during the Phase One period. Wholesale and retail poultry prices show little evidence of systematic pass-through. The results suggest that trade-policy disruptions to price transmission were concentrated upstream, with U.S. chicken consumers largely insulated from the shock. |
| Keywords: | Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:asea26:404811 |
| By: | Dahal, Mounata; Campbell, Ben |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how food price inflation affects household healthy food spending in the United States, with attention to heterogeneity across income, racial, and urban-rural groups. Using household-level Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) Diary data merged with regional Food-atHome (FAH) Consumer Price Index data from 2015 to 2024, the study exploits temporal and regional price variation to identify causal effects. The empirical strategy combines Fixed Effects OLSwithaDoubleMachineLearning(DML)frameworkemployingLASSO, ElasticNet, Random Forest, and Gradient Boosting algorithms to address high-dimensional controls and nonlinear confounding. While FE OLS yields a positive but insignificant estimate, DML consistently finds a large, significant positive effect of FAH CPI on healthy food spending, with estimates ranging from 1.12 to 1.20 across specifications. Heterogeneity analysis reveals no significant income-based differences, suggesting broad-based spending adjustments. Asian households exhibit a significantly stronger response under LASSO and Random Forest, and urban households increase healthy food spending more than their rural counterparts. These findings have important implications for food assistance program design and nutrition policy, particularly regarding rural food access during periods of macroeconomic volatility. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404615 |
| By: | Agerton, Mark; Keeler, James; Stigler, Matthieu |
| Abstract: | Crop rotation shapes agricultural productivity, input use, and environmental outcomes, yet estimating its effects is complicated by unobserved heterogeneity in crop choice and field productivity. We develop and estimate a dynamic structural model of corn-soybean rotation that jointly identifies the yield gains from rotation, the distribution of field-level heterogeneity, and the profit function governing crop choice. Using satellite-derived data on crop choices and yields for approximately 620 thousand fields in Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana over 2005–2019, we find economically significant rotation effects and substantial heterogeneity in field productivity. The estimated correlation between corn and soybean fixed effects is positive but well below one, leaving meaningful dispersion in the ratio of corn to soy yields across fields. We derive conditions on the variances and correlation of corn and soy productivity under which fields with greater comparative advantage in corn are, on average, also more productive in both crops in absolute terms, and find mixed empirical support: the condition is satisfied in our levels specification but violated at the lower bound in logs. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404688 |
| By: | Krumbe, Falk; Feuerbacher, Arndt |
| Abstract: | Promoting organic agriculture is a key policy of the Farm to Fork Strategy as well as the national agricultural strategy of Germany. In this study we provide a detailed analysis of the organic and conventional markets in Germany. Using a unique dataset we analyze the role of organic agriculture not only in production, but also in consumption, trade and its relation to other industries. A policy experiment is conducted using a CGE model to analyze the effects of a VAT reform for organic products. We model the removal of all VAT on organic products. We show that such a reform would lead to a substantial increase in organic production and consumption. The increased demand for organic produce is primarily met by domestic production. In terms of household groups, medium income households benefit the most in absolute terms, while upper medium and high income households benefit the most in per capita terms. The reform is nevertheless not substantial enough to reach the ambitious goals of the European Union of turning 25% of agricultural land organic by 2030. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404375 |
| By: | Xie, Yingfei; Bradford, Barry; Durst, Phillip; Ortega, David; Rutledge, Zachariah |
| Abstract: | Labor scarcity is a growing concern among dairy producers in the United States. Dairy farmers are currently precluded from using the H-2A visa program because H-2A visas are only granted to farmers who have job vacancies that are seasonal or temporary in nature. Using survey data from dairy farmers in the Great Lakes region, this study examines producer policy priorities across a range of policy options intended to address agricultural labor shortages. Results indicate that farmers most strongly support expanding the H-2A program to cover nonseasonal positions. Other highly preferred options include granting undocumented workers access to legal status and providing financial incentives to employers to provide worker housing. In contrast, training programs, workforce development initiatives, health benefits, and policies allowing undocumented workers to obtain driver’s licenses were the policies less likely to gather support. Policy preferences vary by farmer education, herd size, and workforce characteristics, underscoring the importance of designing labor policy reforms that reflect differences across dairy operations. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404393 |
| By: | Dickinson, David (Appalachian State University); Norwood, Jacob (Appalachian State University) |
| Abstract: | Food insecurity affects roughly 18 million people in the United States and 2.3 billion globally. Given its prevalence, this study aims to examine how food insecurity and resulting anxiety affect cognitive control and decision-making. Samples of n=102 food-insecure and n=102 food-secure individuals were recruited from the Prolific online subject pool to complete an incentivized Stroop Task and a Monetary Risk Taking task. Randomized treatment assignments administered either a High or Low Cognitive Load manipulation prior to decision making by prompting participants to consider a more or less expensive unexpected financial expense. While food insecurity did not impact cognitive control and risky choices as hypothesized, it may indirectly affect outcomes via anxiety. And, exploratory analysis of response times data suggest food insecurity may promote some increased risk taking due to less deliberative decision processing. The role of anxiety and its effect on choice process among the food-insecure likely merits further investigation. |
| Keywords: | food insecurity, cognitive load, anxiety, cognitive control, risky-choice |
| JEL: | D00 D91 I30 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18841 |
| By: | Le Rossignol, Etienne; Lowes, Sara; Montero, Eduardo |
| Abstract: | We study a fundamental institution in many societies: the structure of property rights over land. Across societies, communal land rights have been more common than private land rights. We test the hypothesis that longer fallow requirements – the time needed to leave land uncultivated to restore fertility – led to a higher prevalence of communal property rights. Longer fallow requirements generate higher protection costs and therefore make communal rights more beneficial. We construct an ecological measure of the optimal fallow length for the most suitable staple crop across grid cells based on soil type, temperature, and climate. We find that places where land needs to be fallowed for longer periods are more likely to have communal property rights both historically and presently. We then examine the implications for efforts to title land. We find that World Bank land titling interventions are less effective in places with longer fallow requirements, suggesting a mismatch between development policy and underlying institutions. Finally, we examine implications for income inequality and conflict. We find that longer fallow requirements are associated with less inequality, less conflict, and greater resilience to negative shocks. Our results highlight the origins of property rights structures and how communal property rights interact with development policies. |
| Keywords: | Property rights; Communal land; Titling reforms; Cultural institutions; Mismatch |
| JEL: | P14 Q15 O43 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19366 |
| By: | Emiola, Abiodun; Dalheimer, Bernhard |
| Abstract: | Although existing studies have extensively investigated the impacts of floods and fertilizer intensity on water quality, the literature largely overlooks their interaction effects. These studies have usually focused on specific river basins, urban rivers, and catchments. Also, the strong persistence of water quality degradation has not been extensively quantified. In addition, flood exposure data from EM-DAT are subject to under-reporting of minor events, leading to missing observations in our flood series. We address this using a regression-based imputation approach and then estimate a dynamic panel model for 111 countries using two-step system GMM, which accounts for endogeneity, individual-specific heterogeneity, measurement error, and omitted variables. The results reveal that floods amplify water quality degradation; this degradation shows strong persistence; however, the interaction effect remains negative, suggesting that the marginal impact of floods on water quality varies with fertilizer intensity. The marginal effects reveal that countries with low (high) fertilizer use experience an increase (decrease) in water quality degradation following flood shocks. These findings emphasize that, beyond flood exposure and fertilizer intensity, their interaction should also be considered to ensure environmental sustainability. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404510 |
| By: | Liao, Yanjun (Penny) (Resources for the Future); Druckenmiller, Hannah (Resources for the Future); Walls, Margaret A. (Resources for the Future) |
| Abstract: | This paper traces weather extremes through the Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP), the single largest form of federal support for US agricultural production, and into rural labor markets, estimating first how weather shocks drive FCIP enrollment and then how enrollment shapes the employment consequences of those same shocks. We combine policy-level FCIP enrollment records from 1991 to 2019 with establishment-level data on the near-universe of US businesses. We have two central findings. First, farmers respond to adverse weather and yield shocks by increasing insurance participation: a 10 percent yield decline increases insured acreage by approximately 4.9 percent for corn and 3.4 percent for soybeans. Projecting this response forward under RCP 4.5, climate-driven enrollment growth alone is estimated to raise program costs by 4–9 percent for corn and soybeans by midcentury, a magnitude comparable to fiscal analyses that attribute cost increases primarily to higher liabilities. Second, FCIP enrollment substantially mitigates the adverse effects of extreme heat on rural labor markets and generates positive spillovers to nontradable sectors, such as retail, hospitality, and health care. Our attribution exercise suggests that, during 2015–2019, the FCIP preserves about 95, 000 rural jobs annually at an average program cost of roughly $53, 000 per job. These findings highlight the program’s role in supporting rural economic resilience and should be considered alongside fiscal sustainability concerns in ongoing policy discussions. |
| Date: | 2026–08–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-26-13 |
| By: | Ogunmoyero, Oluwabusolami; Lyford, Conrad |
| Abstract: | Despite abundant natural resources and a large agricultural labor force, Sub-Saharan Africa continues to record the lowest agricultural productivity levels globally. While the link between governance and economic performance is well-documented, empirical research often overlooks the potential for interactions between the different institutional dimensions. This study investigates the joint effects of political instability and corruption on agricultural development, using a panel of 28 Sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2022. To address endogeneity, we employ a Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) instrumental variable approach. The empirical findings provide statistical evidence of a statistically significant and interactive relationship between political stability and corruption control. This study demonstrate that isolated institutional reforms can yield negligible or even counterproductive returns due to institutional disruptions in unstable environments. This study advances knowledge by demonstrating how the political instability and corruption nexus can alternately alleviate or aggravate the agricultural sector. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404647 |
| By: | Young, Bailey; Kang, Qi; Recker, Oaklynn |
| Abstract: | In response to the re-emergence of New World Screwworm in Central America, the USDA suspended importations of live cattle from Mexico. While importation restrictions are an important biosecurity measure, they distort domestic prices and production, thereby impacting producer welfare. The objective of this study was to estimate changes to fed and feeder cattle producer surplus associated with permitting Mexican feeder cattle imports under enhanced NWS inspection protocols during 2025. We first estimate a simultaneous equation model of the fed and feeder cattle markets, and then simulate the impacts of increased feeder cattle imports during 2025 on fed and feeder cattle prices and quantities. Lastly, we calculate changes to fed and feeder cattle producer surplus during 2025. We estimate that the number of 2025 feeder cattle imports would have been approximately 1, 035, 187 head if the border had been open with enhanced NWS inspection. This increase in supply would have led to approximately a $672 million increase and a $839 million decrease to fed and feeder cattle producer surplus, respectively. This work can inform policy by improving understanding of the tradeoffs associated with NWS management strategies. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404394 |
| By: | Nikolaos Georgantzis (BSB - Burgundy School of Business (BSB) - Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Dijon Bourgogne (ESC)); Shakirat Bolatito Ibrahim (FUNAAB - Federal University of Agriculture [Abeokuta]); Chittur S Srinivasan (UOR - University of Reading); Dare Akerele (FUNAAB - Federal University of Agriculture [Abeokuta]) |
| Date: | 2025–12–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05703502 |
| By: | Han, Sanghyun |
| Abstract: | The Mississippi River system is a critical artery for U.S. agricultural commodities and intermediate inputs, connecting domestic production to Gulf export terminals. This paper quantifies the contribution of this navigation system to U.S. agricultural trade and welfare. We develop a multi-sector spatial general equilibrium model featuring inputoutput linkages, inter-state labor mobility, and a bilateral trade cost technology that admits endogenous mode and transit hub substitution. We find that disabling commercial barge navigation on the Mississippi system reduces aggregate U.S. agricultural exports by 8.92 percent and production by 1.30 percent, driven by severe drops in cereal grain (−11.8 percent) and animal feed (−12.6 percent) exports. The aggregate U.S. welfare loss is 0.33 percent, or $29.2 billion annually, with spatial incidence heavily concentrated in Louisiana, West Virginia, and Corn Belt grain producers. Roughly one-third of the aggregate loss operates through input-output amplification via the fertilizer, coal and petroleum sectors. We estimate that the river’s contribution to U.S. welfare exceeds total annualized federal cost of the system by a factor of eight, indicating an exceptionally high marginal productivity of federal capital. |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404672 |
| By: | Tarsia, Romano |
| Abstract: | This paper provides novel firm-level estimates of the economic damages caused by temperature shocks to European firms. I rely on a panel data analysis to show wide heterogeneities in the impact of temperature shocks, which depend on firm characteristics. This paper reveals the importance of micro-level data for quantifying climate damage estimates, as the average relationship between temperature and economic outcomes masks firms’ different susceptibilities to weather shocks. These create both winners and losers, harming less productive firms, particularly those in warmer regions, while benefiting more productive ones. Compared with the pooled marginal effect, the least-productive firms experience negative effects roughly ten times as large, while the most-productive firms experience positive effects roughly three times as large. Additionally, higher temperatures increase exit probability among the least productive firms in warmer regions. I highlight the distributional effects of climate change, and offer insights for adaptation policies. |
| Keywords: | climate change;firms;climate damages;economic performance |
| JEL: | D24 O13 O52 Q54 R11 |
| Date: | 2026–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140233 |
| By: | Alisherov, Foziljon; Djuraeva, Mukhayyo |
| Abstract: | This paper asks whether the positive association between household shocks and food insecurity is weaker among remittance-receiving households in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The analysis uses the 2019 wave of the Life in Kyrgyzstan Study and Listening to the Citizens of Uzbekistan rounds 49-82. Because the surveys differ in design, unit of observation, reference period and shock measurement, all models are country-specific and observational rather than pooled. Kazakhstan is included only as a regional benchmark context. The preferred Kyrgyzstan model estimates a negative remittance-shock interaction of -0.2140 (95% CI -0.6549 to 0.2269; p=0.3415), which is directionally consistent with a weaker shock-food-insecurity association but imprecise. The preferred Uzbekistan broad-shock model estimates a negative interaction of -0.5406 (95% CI -1.0415 to -0.0398; p=0.03437). Four-group predictions are used to interpret the interaction on the food-insecurity raw-score scale and to separate baseline remittance differences from shock-period differences. The Uzbekistan household fixed-effects estimate remains negative but is smaller and imprecise (-0.1771; 95% CI -0.5515 to 0.1973; p=0.3539). L2CU estimates are unweighted because the available popw documentation was not approved for this analysis. The findings are compatible with remittance-related moderation of household shock vulnerability, especially in Uzbekistan, but the evidence remains associational and subject to selection, timing and measurement limitations. |
| Keywords: | remittances, household shocks, food insecurity, resilience, migration, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Central Asia |
| JEL: | F24 I32 O15 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:342683 |
| By: | Shrestha, Jebina; Chen, Le; Smith, Aaron; Trejo-Pech, Carlos |
| Abstract: | This study examines the impact of soil erosion on farm bankruptcy in the United States (US) Midwest. Using a novel county-level panel dataset that combines Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings from the U.S. Courts with soil erosion measures from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service National Resources Inventory for the period 1992 to 2017, we investigate whether higher soil erosion increases farm bankruptcy rates. We use linear panel fixed effects models and a number of robustness checks to achieve the study objective. We find that counties with higher soil erosion tend to have higher Chapter 12 bankruptcy filing rates. The results suggest that persistent soil degradation may weaken the income-generating capacity of farmland and reduce farms’ ability to meet debt obligations. These findings provide new evidence that the economic consequences of soil erosion extend beyond productivity and environmental losses to severe farm financial outcomes, with implications for soil conservation policy, agricultural credit markets, and farm financial stability. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404336 |
| By: | Ellis, Peyton |
| Abstract: | Midstream actors such as wholesalers and transporters are essential to agricultural value-chain (AVC) performance, yet evidence on their strategies and performance remains limited. In this paper, we examine organizational heterogeneity among tomato wholesalers in Tanzania, documenting the relationship between scale, procurement and logistics strategies, and costs, revenues, and profits. Traders operating small-scale enterprises heavily rely on intermediate actors, while large-scale traders are highly disintermediated, procuring directly from farmers. Procurement and logistics strategies are associated with scale but equilibrate per-unit profits across strategies, with total profit differences driven solely by volume. A trader’s gender and years of experience are correlated with their respective procurement and logistics strategies. While market size and location are associated with scale and strategy, a market’s gender composition is the dominant market-level scale-correlate. The patterns suggest multiple organizational equilibria between disintermediated and intermediate-reliant models, where strategy and scale are correlated but dependent on choice sets that are conditional on trader, enterprise, and market characteristics. Policies therefore should focus on the development and efficiency of both model types while giving attention to individual constraints, particularly around gender and experience. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404310 |
| By: | Bobbie, Kelvin |
| Abstract: | This study examines how trade-war shocks reshape soybean markets beyond their effects on prices. Focusing on the 2018–2019 Sino–U.S. trade war and the renewed trade disruptions of 2025, we evaluate whether restrictions on access to China, the world's largest soybean importer, altered price discovery, cross-commodity linkages, risk transmission, and market quality in soybean futures markets. We combine daily futures data from the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and China's Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) to compare market responses across the two episodes. Using event-study methods, connectedness measures derived from vector autoregressions, and a copulabased CoVaR framework, we analyze how trade-war shocks affect information leadership in U.S. soybean markets, spillovers across the agricultural complex, and tail-risk transmission between U.S. and Chinese soybean markets. We hypothesize that trade-war disruptions weaken the price discovery role of CBOT soybean futures, intensify risk spillovers, and reduce market quality through higher volatility and lower liquidity. Findings will contribute to understanding how geopolitical trade disruptions affect commodity market resilience, information transmission, and the reliability of benchmark agricultural futures markets. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404348 |
| By: | Hauck, Katherine; Kishore, Siddharth |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) has changed farmland use and farmland values in the Central Valley. We use a spatial regression discontinuity around the perimeter of critically overdrafted (CO) subbasins. We then add a triple-difference layer that uses surface water district membership as a second margin and the year of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) filing deadline as the third. The crop-side outcome is the parcel-level share of cropped acres in young perennial plantings, from the Land IQ panel for 2014 and 2016 and 2018 through 2023. The land price outcome is the log real sale price per acre, from Acres Inc. transactions for 2016 through 2023. New young perennial planting in CO basins falls by about 4.4 percentage points in 2022, the first full crop year after CO basin GSPs took effect. The drop persists in 2023. CO basin land prices show no significant discount. We interpret the joint pattern as evidence that regulation reallocates land use before it reallocates land value. The intensive margin (price) absorbs most of the SGMA shock through option value and capitalization of surface water rights, while the extensive margin (planting) bears the visible part of the adjustment. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404486 |
| By: | Kunwar, Samir; Smith, Travis |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how different econometric models, each with distinct functional form assumptions, influence estimates of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) effect on food insecurity. To address potential endogeneity in SNAP participation, we employ a range of instrumental variables methods, including two-stage least squares, control function approaches, and (recursive) bivariate probit models, analyzing SNAP’s impact under various linear and nonlinear specifications in both the first-stage reduced form and second-stage structural equations. Using data from the 1996-2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), our findings reveal that the magnitude and direction of SNAP’s effect on food insecurity vary across model specifications, with estimates ranging from null effects to reductions of approximately 27 percentage points. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis indicates that SNAP’s effectiveness is more pronounced among certain subpopulations. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404555 |
| By: | Ferraro, Greg |
| Abstract: | Saltwater intrusion and flooding from sea level rise (SWISLR) causes substantial damage to coastal agriculture. Using real estate sale records, measures of coastal flooding, and measures of relative mean sea levels, I estimate SWISLR’s effect on agricultural land sales over 1985 to 2023 from Texas to New Jersey using a spatial differencein- differences Ricardian approach accounting for expectations of future exposure. This study is the first and most spatially comprehensive fair market value investigation of SWISLR’s effects on agriculture, at least in the US. Total damages for the approximately 70.5 million acres within the study area amount to nearly $4 billion [$0.5 billion, $7 billion, 95% CI]. This damage is concentrated—the approximate 8.9 million acres of agricultural land within 5 miles of the coast suffered about $1000 per-acre in damage—and doesn’t include complete land loss. Landowners anticipate and capitalize future worsening exposure into their land values, and the majority of this updating occurs because of hurricane rain exposure. Though, despite forecasting future SWISLR exposure, landowners are evidently not mitigating damages. This is possibly because no effective options exist. These results suggest agricultural sea level rise impacts are substantially underway and insufficiently addressed. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404446 |
| By: | Trachtman, Carly; Hill, Ruth Vargas |
| Abstract: | Low- and middle-income countries are under increasing fiscal pressure to rationalize spending on fertilizer subsidy programs. Policy reforms shifting expenditure away from subsidies can have beneficial impacts given the well-documented distortionary market effects and negative environmental externalities of fertilizer subsidies. However, such reforms also result in losses and often lower fertilizer use for current beneficiaries. Understanding who is impacted by reform thus requires an assessment of who is currently benefiting, yet there is little systematic work understanding who these programs currently benefit both on paper and in practice. In this paper, we identify low- and middle- income countries with active fertilizer subsidy programs, and characterize the targeting regime of each program based on both explicit and implicit criteria determining eligibility. Then in a selection of case studies, we explore which individuals are receiving subsidy benefits in practice. We find that while many fertilizer subsidy programs are designed as universal, in many countries there are implicit targeting criteria embedded in the way subsidy programs are implemented and/or informal targeting induced by supply shortfalls. Further, we find evidence that regardless of targeting regime, the targeting of subsidy programs is generally pro-poor, driven by the fact that the poor are often concentrated in the agricultural sector. |
| Keywords: | fertilizers; subsidies; support measures; targeting; inorganic fertilizers; Latin America and the Caribbean; Southern Asia; Eastern Asia; Sub-Saharan Africa; Middle East; Northern Africa |
| Date: | 2026–06–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:183317 |
| By: | Zhu, Xinyu; Adjemian, Michael; Bagnarosa, Guillaume; Gohin, Alexandre |
| Abstract: | USDA crop and inventory reports are widely viewed as common signals that resolve uncertainty in agricultural commodity markets. We test that premise by estimating the volume–volatility elasticity around WASDE and Grain Stocks releases in the CME corn futures market using high-frequency data from 2013 to 2020. Applying the Kandel–Pearson differences-of-opinion framework as adapted by Bollerslev, Li, and Xue (2018), we estimate unconditional elasticities that are persistently below unity, consistent with incomplete post-report alignment of trader expectations. We demonstrate that two observable channels—pre-report forecast dispersion and announcement surprise relative to the pre-report consensus—account for much of this gap: when both are set to zero, the fitted elasticity is generally indistinguishable from the no-disagreement benchmark. We extend the framework in several ways, including by systematically varying the pre-event comparison window to reveal intraday heterogeneity in the elasticity. Our results are robust across report types, although key WASDE reports—which convey rich supply-side information—exhibit stronger residual disagreement that is less well explained by the two proxies alone. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404355 |
| By: | Kiesel, Kristin; Xie, Yifan |
| Abstract: | This article examines how households adjust food purchasing behavior following a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, using the Nielsen Consumer Panel (2010-2023) merged with the PanelView survey (2011-2023). Combining Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021) staggered di!erence-in-di!erences estimator with a reference price framework that decomposes prices into loss and gain domains (Caputo et al., 2020), I analyze category-level purchasing responses across fresh produce, non-fresh produce, milk, soft drinks, and sugarsweetened beverages (SSBs). The diagnosis triggers a significant and persistent 5-6 percent reduction in non-fresh produce purchases across the full sample. Income heterogeneity analysis reveals a striking gradient, as high-income households (above $40, 000) reduce SSB purchases by 10-15 percent and restructure multiple food categories simultaneously, while low-income households concentrate adjustments on non-fresh produce alone. Expenditure-based classification provides complementary evidence of limited adjustment flexibility among the lowest-spending households. These findings indicate that the effectiveness of health information as a behavioral nudge depends critically on economic capacity, with implications for the design of dietary interventions targeting diabetic populations. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404574 |
| By: | Dahal, Sagar; Lence, Sergio |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a regime-based framework for modeling county crop yields that explicitly accounts for rare catastrophic years and examines its implications for crop insurance rating. Yields are assumed to arise from two latent states of nature: a normal state, in which yields fluctuate around a deterministic trend, and a catastrophic state, in which yields experience substantial downward shocks. We apply the model to county-level corn and soybean yields for all 99 counties in Iowa and use the estimated yield distributions to derive crop insurance premiums. The model is estimated within a Bayesian hierarchical framework that incorporates spatial dependence across counties. The empirical results show that catastrophic yield realizations occur with non-negligible probability and are associated with sizable losses. The proposed model generates predictive yield densities with negative skewness and bimodality in some cases, and provides a regime-based interpretation of these distributional features. The results show that the proposed model can identify relatively profitable insurance policies and, in several specifications, is more efficient than the benchmark approach. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404358 |
| By: | Zhang, Jingna |
| Abstract: | Can a public pension change how rural households transfer farmland? We study China’s New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS), exploiting its age-60 eligibility threshold in a fuzzy regressiondiscontinuity design applied to three waves of the China Family Panel Studies (2014–2018), with identification coming from individual older-member pension receipt. Pension receipt raises the probability that a household rents out farmland, and the response is concentrated entirely on market-oriented transfer: paid rental-out rises sharply while zero-rent rental-out, a proxy for nonmonetized relational transfer, does not move. The market-side response is largest among households with the weakest cultural and structural ties to kin and village, for whom relational transfer carries the lowest implicit cost. The estimates are robust to controls for child remittance, off-farm labor, and non-farm income, and we find no contemporaneous discontinuity in private kin transfers. Pension income thus does more than relax the household budget: it shifts the institutional form of land transfer from relational support toward market-oriented exchange. Social insurance, in this setting, operates as a land-market institution. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404387 |
| By: | Xu, Chenguang; He, Xinyue |
| Abstract: | Algorithmic trading is commonly used in agricultural futures markets. Using high-frequency order-book data for Dalian Commodity Exchange of corn and soybean meal futures, this paper studies how algorithmic trading affects price volatility and tail risk in China's agricultural futures markets. The evidence points to a dual effect: Algorithmic trading significantly lowers conventional realized volatility; At the same time, it increases downside tail co-movement and Asymmetry between each contract and agricultural futures market. This conclusion is supported by robustness checks that exclude the DCE 7.0 transition period, reconstruct tail-risk measures using 5-minute data, and use the combined day-and-night trading session. In addition, while the Symmetrized Joe-Clayton copula baseline check confirms the robustness of the empirical tail-risk results to an alternative tail-dependence measure, we also use instrumental variables to test how algorithmic trading affects volatility. Further analysis investigates the impact of quantitative trading on volatility under different volatility regimes and during the rollover periods of dominant contracts. This study provides a theoretical basis for the “dual-effect” mechanism in agricultural financial derivatives markets and proposes regulatory suggestions for algorithmic trading in agricultural futures markets. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Farm Management |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404354 |
| By: | Lippsmeyer, Margaret; Cameron-Harp. Micah |
| Abstract: | Farm consolidation is often attributed to the possession of unique resources that increase productivity and reduce production risk. Water rights are an example of such a resource, increasing revenue generating potential while mitigating production risk. Using administrative groundwater records from Kansas spanning 1990–2021, we evaluate how groundwater rights influence correspondent survival and consolidation. Flexible parametric survival models indicate that correspondents holding larger and more senior groundwater rights experience lower hazards of exit. A 100 acre foot increase in groundwater allocation reduces the hazard of exit by 1.98%, while a ten-year increase in water right seniority reduces the hazard by 3.87%. Consistent with these survival patterns, groundwater ownership has become increasingly concentrated through time, with the top 10% of correspondents now controlling 38% of water rights and 55% of authorized groundwater allocation. These findings suggest groundwater rights confer a competitive advantage that contributes to consolidation dynamics. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404448 |
| By: | Adhikari, Ashish; Sheldon, Ian |
| Abstract: | Developing countries often rely on trade policy to stabilize food prices during supply disruptions, yet the spatial distribution of these benefits remains poorly understood. This paper studies India’s 2015–2016 pulses crisis, when consecutive domestic production shortfalls sharply raised pulses prices and triggered a surge in imports. We examine whether trade-based price stabilization reached domestic markets evenly or weakened with distance from major import ports. Using a district-level panel of wholesale pulses price from 2009 to 2019 and a difference-in-differences design, we show that the import surge did not provide uniform price relief. During the crisis, each additional 100 kilometers from a major import port translated into about a 1.7 percent larger increase in pulses price. A simple calibration suggests that imports lowered prices by about 11 percent near ports, but more than half of this relief had dissipated by the median district-port distance. The results suggest that while imports can moderate national price spikes, their stabilizing effects may be limited by incomplete internal market integration. |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404639 |
| By: | Xu, Chenguang; Chao, Zenghui; Gu, Wenhao; Zhang, Jun |
| Abstract: | Using a novel transaction plant-protection UAV data in China, this paper examines how agricultural subsidy payment delays affect agricultural technology adoption. The analysis estimates zero-truncated Poisson correlated random effects models with spatial Durbin extensions. Global and Local Moran's I tests show significant spatial clustering in UAV adoption. In the preferred spatial Durbin zero-truncated Poisson model, subsidy payment delay significantly reduces local plant-protection UAV adoption. This negative effect holds after controlling for spatial dependence and county characteristics. The control function approach further addresses potential endogeneity, and the result remains stable. Adoption is constrained on both the extensive margin and the intensive margin. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the delay effect is not uniform across counties. The negative impact is stronger in counties with lower lagged fiscal expenditure, smaller grain sown area, and higher GDP per capita. The study emphasizes that timely delivery of payments is just as important as the subsidy's nominal value or eligibility rules. |
| Keywords: | Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404717 |
| By: | Chen, Wei; Wang, Xinyue; Yu, Jialing; Chen, Junliang |
| Abstract: | Infrastructure-led development and agricultural land preservation represent competing priorities in rapidly developing countries. This study examines the causal impact of rural road construction on land use in China from 1995 to 2020, using a village-level panel of 381, 153 villages, a long-difference IV estimator, and a structural decomposition of land conversion pathways. We find that each additional kilometer of road reduces cropland by 4.781 hectares and increases construction land by 5.371 hectares, with 98.8% of cropland outflow flowing to construction land. The 2010 intensification of the cropland red line reduced the per-kilometer cropland effect by 27% and the construction land effect by 32%, but the conversion mechanism persists, especially near county seats. Policy effectiveness is spatially heterogeneous: the red line curbed conversion mainly in remote villages, while peri-urban areas maintain high conversion rates. These findings imply that infrastructure evaluation must account for land use costs, and that command-and-control regulation needs price-based complements in spatially differentiated land markets. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404757 |
| By: | Elliott, Matthew |
| Abstract: | This paper demonstrates the application of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) to commodity risk management, contrasting it with traditional technical indicator-based hedging strategies. While MPT approaches have been extensively utilized in the investment management industry for decades to optimize institutional portfolios and mutual funds, these sophisticated methods have not been widely applied by practitioners for optimizing hedges to commodity production. Using actual market data from 2018-2025, we analyze the performance of four distinct strategies: physical position holding, maximum Sharpe ratio optimization, minimum variance optimization, and technical Bollinger Band breakout signals for optimal risk management in commodity production. Our empirical analysis of a representative agricultural producer portfolio ($1.1M in corn and soybeans) reveals that the minimum variance strategy delivers superior risk-adjusted returns with a Sharpe ratio of 0.519, compared to technical strategies averaging -0.094. The study provides quantitative evidence that MPT-based approaches can significantly enhance commodity producers' risk management while reducing portfolio volatility by up to 47%. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404326 |
| By: | Brian Greaney; Joseph S. Shapiro; Katherine R. H. Wagner |
| Abstract: | We study the optimality of human groundwater extraction from many of the world’s 3, 400 aquifers, where institutional or market failures may produce non-optimal extraction decisions. We use remote sensing and economic data to estimate a dynamic model of water extraction for each aquifer, recover the discount factor that rationalizes observed groundwater extraction, and compare it against Ramsey and market benchmarks. Three- to four-fifths of aquifers are extracted more rapidly than is optimal, decreasing aquifer present value by several percent, and creating trillions of dollars in present value welfare losses. Policies that guarantee users constant water quantities indefinitely, through subsidies or prior appropriation, or policy rules that fully discount future extraction, generate larger welfare costs. A sustainable extraction path that maintains current fill forever generates meaningfully lower welfare than the optimal extraction path, because most aquifer stocks are already inefficiently low. |
| Keywords: | groundwater extraction; dynamic programming; renewable resource management; tragedy of the commons; agricultural production |
| JEL: | E22 H23 H43 Q25 |
| Date: | 2026–08–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:103651 |
| By: | chandarwal, Abhay kumar |
| Abstract: | India's Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme has advanced from a marginal 1.14–1.53 per cent blending rate in 2013–14 to the statutory 20 per cent (E20) target by Ethanol Supply Year (ESY) 2025–26, five years ahead of the original 2030 deadline set under the National Policy on Biofuels, 2018. This rapid scale-up has been accompanied by an equally rapid structural shift in feedstock composition: official data show the share of grain-based ethanol (maize, rice, and damaged food grain) rising from roughly 9 per cent of total procurement in ESY 2020–21 to nearly 60 per cent by early ESY 2024–25, with industry-association estimates placing maize's individual share alone at approximately 50 per cent by ESY 2024–25, up from 6.2 per cent two years earlier. This paper examines the resulting energy-security-versus-food-inflation trade-off using officially reported and peer-reviewed data. It synthesises the National Policy on Biofuels (2018, amended 2022), the NITI Aayog Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India 2020–25, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) blending statistics, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) maize market data, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Ministry of Finance inflation reporting, and a 2026 peer-reviewed partial-equilibrium modelling study (published in PLOS One by researchers at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and the FABLE Consortium). The analysis finds credible evidence of crop-substitution pressure — a 14.7 per cent year-on-year decline in maize production coinciding with record consumption, an 84 per cent collapse in maize exports, and open-market maize prices exceeding the government's minimum support price by approximately 11 per cent in April 2024 — alongside documented cumulative energy-security gains of over ₹1.36–1.59 lakh crore in foreign exchange savings. However, the paper finds that a direct, India-specific econometric (VAR/Granger) estimate of ethanol-to-food-price transmission does not yet exist in the peer-reviewed literature; this study is accordingly framed as a literature- and data-grounded empirical synthesis rather than primary econometric estimation, and it explicitly flags this gap as a priority for future research. Policy recommendations centre on feedstock diversification toward 2G/cellulosic ethanol, protection of grain buffer stocks, and integration of food-price monitoring into the biofuel roadmap. |
| Date: | 2026–07–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:svekc_v1 |
| By: | Lee, Wonseok; Kim, Jaebeom; Brorsen, B. Wade |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how shocks in the natural gas and corn markets influence nitrogen fertilizer prices and how these relationships change after the 2005 and 2007 changes in biofuel policies. Using a block-recursive structural VAR framework, we decompose changes in fertilizer prices into structural shocks driven by supply, demand, and precautionary demand. The results show that fertilizer prices are influenced mainly by demand-side shocks, while supply shocks have only small effects on prices. After the structural break, corn demand shocks become more influential, indicating tighter linkages between corn and fertilizer markets. These findings imply that biofuel policies increased nitrogen fertilizer price volatility by strengthening the linkages between energy and agriculture, with fertilizer price movements driven primarily by demand-side shock |
| Keywords: | Demand and Price Analysis, Resource/Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:asea26:404832 |
| By: | Talukder, Anzalin; Yu, Mark; Adnan, K.M. Mehedi; Guney, Selin; Osei, Edward |
| Abstract: | This study examines how weather conditions affect sorghum yield across major sorghumproducing Texas counties from 1981 to 2020. Using a county-level panel dataset and a two-way fixed-effects model with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors, the analysis evaluates nonlinear precipitation effects, degree-day temperature exposure, and maximum vapor pressure deficit (VPD). Results show a nonlinear precipitation–yield relationship, indicating that both moisture deficits and excessive rainfall reduce productivity. Higher VPD is consistently associated with lower sorghum yields, while the estimated effect of extreme heat weakens after atmospheric dryness is included. Robustness checks support the main findings, while the soil water-holding capacity test provides limited evidence of moderation. These results highlight the importance of incorporating atmospheric moisture demand into climate-risk assessment and adaptation planning for semi-arid agricultural systems. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404704 |
| By: | Jones, Rachel |
| Abstract: | Although new agricultural technologies are widely expected to enhance the productivity of rural households, evidence on how households reallocate resources to capitalize on these innovations is limited. To explore how households respond to a profitable, but risky new technology, I conduct a framed field experiment played with maize growing couples that simulates the exchange of labor and income in Mozambican households. When presented with a familiar local maize variety that is relatively insensitive to the wife’s labor input, households allocate labor to husbands’ maize production fairly efficiently. But when faced with an improved maize variety whose higher returns would induce cooperative households to increase maize labor, couples forego 17% of expected cooperative income. Analysis of husbands’ income sharing rules reveals that wives would have received just 23% of the productivity gains that would have accrued to households, had they allocated their labor so as to fully exploit the New technology, and would have borne 2.4 times the downside risk faced by husbands. These results suggest that stickiness in intra-household income sharing may dampen the reallocation of productive resources in households that adopt profitable new technologies. Novel empirical evidence on real life intra-household income sharing from sample communities corroborates key findings from the game. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404783 |