Agricultural Investment and Productivity in Developing Countries PDF Download

Author: Wolfram Schlenker
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022661980X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Agricultural yields have increased steadily in the last half century, particularly since the Green Revolution. At the same time, inflation-adjusted agricultural commodity prices have been trending downward as increases in supply outpace the growth of demand. Recent severe weather events, biofuel mandates, and a switch toward a more meat-heavy diet in emerging economies have nevertheless boosted commodity prices. Whether this is a temporary jump or the beginning of a longer-term trend is an open question. Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior examines the factors contributing to the remarkably steady increase in global yields and assesses whether yield growth can continue. This research also considers whether agricultural productivity growth has been, and will be, associated with significant environmental externalities. Among the topics studied are genetically modified crops; changing climatic factors; farm production responses to government regulations including crop insurance, transport subsidies, and electricity subsidies for groundwater extraction; and the role of specific farm practices such as crop diversification, disease management, and water-saving methods. This research provides new evidence that technological as well as policy choices influence agricultural productivity.

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 9789251045534
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Includes 8 papers by various authors.

Author: Randall Bluffstone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136521852
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Agricultural Investment and Productivity provides a deep and systematic look at the opportunities for and constraints to investments in sustainable agriculture in East Africa, offering important insights into what works and how to analyze agricultural investments in one of the poorest regions of the world. The book critically examines the reasons behind East Africa's stagnant agricultural productivity over the past forty-five years, using the primary lens of investments in fertilizers, seeds, and sustainable land management technologies, These investments have a tremendous impact on production volume, ultimately affecting the income of millions of families throughout the region.

Author: Keith Fuglie
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9781464813931
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book documents frontier knowledge on the drivers of agriculture productivity to derive pragmatic policy advice for governments and development partners on reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The analysis describes global trends and long-term sources of total factor productivity growth, along with broad trends in partial factor productivity for land and labor, revisiting the question of scale economies in farming. Technology is central to growth in agricultural productivity, yet across many parts of the developing world, readily available technology is never taken up. We investigate demand-side constraints of the technology equation to analyze factors that might influence producers, particularly poor producers, to adopt modern technology. Agriculture and food systems are rapidly transforming, characterized by shifting food preferences, the rise and growing sophistication of value chains, the increasing globalization of agriculture, and the expanding role of the public and private sectors in bringing about efficient and more rapid productivity growth. In light of this transformation, the analysis focuses on the supply side of the technology equation, exploring how the enabling environment and regulations related to trade and intellectual property rights stimulate Research and Development to raise productivity. The book also discusses emerging developments in modern value chains that contribute to rising productivity. This book is the fourth volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers.

Author: Julian M. Alston
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9781461425236
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
gricultural science policy in the United States has profoundly affected the growth and development of agriculture worldwide, not just in the A United States. Over the past 150 years, and especially over the second th half of the 20 Century, public investments in agricultural R&D in the United States grew faster than the value of agricultural production. Public spending on agricultural science grew similarly in other more-developed countries, and c- lectively these efforts, along with private spending, spurred agricultural prod- tivity growth in rich and poor nations alike. The value of this investment is seldom fully appreciated. The resulting p- ductivity improvements have released labor and other resources for alternative uses—in 1900, 29. 2 million Americans (39 percent of the population) were - rectly engaged in farming compared with just 2. 9 million (1. 1 percent) today— while making food and fiber more abundant and cheaper. The benefits are not confined to Americans. U. S. agricultural science has contributed with others to growth in agricultural productivity in many other countries as well as the Un- ed States. The world’s population more than doubled from around 3 billion in 1961 to 6. 54 billion in 2006 (U. S. Census Bureau 2009). Over the same period, production of important grain crops (including maize, wheat and rice) almost trebled, such that global per capita grain production was 18 percent higher in 2006.

Author: Christopher Udry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
We examine the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights on investment and productivity in agricultural in Akwapim, Ghana. We show that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local political hierarchy have more secure tenure rights, and that as a consequence they invest more in land fertility and have substantially higher output. The intensity of investments on different plots cultivated by a given individual correspond to that individual's security of tenure over those specific plots, and in turn to the individual's position in the political hierarchy relevant to those specific plots. We interpret these results in the context of a simple model of the political allocation of land rights in local matrilineages.

Author: Saifullah Syed
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 1780643888
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Investing in agriculture is one of the most effective ways of reducing hunger and poverty, promoting agricultural productivity and enhancing environmental sustainability. Covering the development of sustainable agriculture, food production and food security, this paper explains the relationship between all levels of investment and their interdependence to be successful. It also describes how to drive increased investment, at what stage and where, providing a useful overview of investment in agriculture for policymakers and researchers.

Author: Alan de Brauw
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303088693X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This book provides a thorough introduction to and examination of agricultural value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, the authors introduce the economic theory of agri-food value chains and value chain governance, focusing on domestic and regional trade in (and consumption of) food crops in a low-income country context. In addition to mainstream and heterodox thinking about value chain development, the book pays attention to political economy considerations. The book also reviews the empirical evidence on value chain development and performance in Africa. It adopts multiple lenses to examine agricultural value chains, zooming out from the micro level (e.g., relational contracting in a context of market imperfections) to the meso level (e.g., distributional implications of various value chain interventions, inclusion of specific social groups) and the macro level (underlying income, population and urbanization trends, volumes and prices, etc.).Furthermore, this book places value chain development in the context of a process the authors refer to as structural transformation 2.0, which refers to a process where production factors (labor, land and capital) move from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity agriculture. Finally, throughout the book the authors interpret the evidence in light of three important debates: (i) how competitive are rural factor and product markets, and what does this imply for distribution and innovation? (ii) what role do foreign investment and factor proportions play in the development of agri-food value chains in Africa? (iii) what complementary government policies can help facilitate a process of agricultural value chain transformation, towards high-productive activities and enhancing the capacity of value chains to generate employment opportunities and food security for a growing population.

Author: Keith Owen Fuglie
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 1845939212
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This volume is written primarily for agricultural economists doing research on productivity. It includes discussions of the theoretical underpinnings of productivity measurement as well as the many practical considerations that go into translating this theory into actual measures of aggregated outputs and inputs. The unifying concept of agricultural productivity used across the chapters of this volume is aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) of the sector. The volume also contains detailed analysis of the underlying causes of agricultural productivity growth. Part I (chapters 2-6) examines agricultural productivity in high-income and transition countries. Part II (chapters 7-11) examines agricultural productivity growth and its driving forces in five important agricultural producers in Asia and Latin America. Part III (chapters 12-14) focuses on measuring and identifying constraints to agricultural productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Part IV (chapters 15-16) gives a global perspective on agricultural productivity.

Author: Sebastian Edwards
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226315553
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Studies of African economic development frequently focus on the daunting challenges the continent faces. From recurrent crises to ethnic conflicts and long-standing corruption, a raft of deep-rooted problems has led many to regard the continent as facing many hurdles to raise living standards. Yet Africa has made considerable progress in the past decade, with a GDP growth rate exceeding five percent in some regions. The African Successes series looks at recent improvements in living standards and other measures of development in many African countries with an eye toward identifying what shaped them and the extent to which lessons learned are transferable and can guide policy in other nations and at the international level. The fourth volume in the series, African Successes: Sustainable Growth combines informative case studies with careful empirical analysis to consider the prospects for future African growth.