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Measuring Agricultural Knowledge and Adoption

November, 2014

Understanding the trade-offs in
improving the precision of agricultural measures through
survey design is crucial. Yet, standard indicators used to
determine program effectiveness may be flawed and at a
differential rate for men and women. The authors use a
household survey from Mozambique to estimate the measurement
error from male and female self-reports of their adoption
and knowledge of three practices: intercropping, mulching,

Tajikistan - Autonomous Adaptation to Climate Change : Economic Opportunities and Institutional Constraints for Farming Households

September, 2014

Climate change presents significant
threats to sustainable poverty reduction in Tajikistan. The
primary impacts on rural livelihoods are expected to stem
from reduced water quantity and quality (affecting
agriculture), and increased frequency and severity of
disasters. Options for farming households to autonomously
adapt (and thereby move from climate vulnerability to
resilience) include adoption of on-farm and off-farm

Building Competitiveness in
Africa's Agriculture : A Guide to Value Chain Concepts
and Applications

March, 2012

The development and business communities
involved in the African agriculture and agribusiness sectors
have recently experienced a strong resurgence of interest in
promoting value chains as an approach that can help design
interventions geared to add value, lower transaction costs,
diversify rural economies, and contribute to increasing
rural household incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
countries. Enhancing value chain competitiveness is

Urban Infrastructure Investment and Rent-Capture Potentials

November, 2014

In a context of rapid urbanization and
energy transition, massive investments will be required to
develop efficient public transport networks. Capturing the
increase in land value caused by transport infrastructure
(for example, through a betterment tax) appears a promising
way to finance public transport. However, it is no trivial
task, as it is difficult to anticipate the rent creation.
This paper uses a simple city model based on urban economic

Promoting Agricultural Growth in Rwanda : Recent Performance, Challenges and Opportunities

September, 2014

Rwanda is experiencing its best
growth performance since independence. With average annual
GDP growth rate of 8 percent and 5.2 percent for
agricultural GDP from 1999-2012, Rwanda s recent growth is a
historical record. The poverty headcount fell from 59
percent in 2001 to 45 percent in 2011, and agriculture
continues to be one of the main drivers of growth and
poverty reduction in Rwanda, significantly lifting rural

Myanmar : Capitalizing on Rice Export Opportunities

March, 2014

Improving agricultural productivity and
promoting exports are top priorities for the Government of
the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Given the centrality
of rice to the rejuvenation of agriculture in Myanmar, the
rice sector is of critical importance, especially rice
exports. The government announced ambitious targets of 2
million metric tons (tons)2 of rice exports by 2014/15 and 4
million tons by 2019/20. Recent actual performance is

Economic Valuation of Climate Change Induced Biodiversity Impacts on Agriculture : Results from a Macroeconomic Application to the Mediterranean Basin

November, 2014

It is clear that climate change involves changes in temperature and precipitation and, therefore, directly affects land productivity. However, this is not the only channel for climatic change to affect agro-systems. Biodiversity is also subject to climatic change. The present paper illustrates a unique attempt to economically assess the potential effects of climate change induced impacts of biodiversity on the agricultural sector in terms of changes in land productivity, changes in agricultural output and, ultimately, changes in national GDPs.

Short- and Long-Run Impacts of Food Price Changes on Poverty

October, 2014

This study uses household models based
on detailed expenditure and agricultural production data
from 31 developing countries to assess the impacts of
changes in global food prices on poverty in individual
countries and for the world as a whole. The analysis finds
that food price increases unrelated to productivity changes
in developing countries raise poverty in the short run in
all but a few countries with broadly-distributed

Agriculture for Nutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean : From Quantity to Quality

March, 2014

The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC)
region has been in many ways successful in increasing
agriculture production and competitiveness, as well as
tackling nutrition. Mainstreaming nutrition considerations
into agriculture operations can increase the availability of
and access to nutritious food, which can improve the
nutrition status of individuals. The challenge is how to
bridge the gap that exists in region between being an

Is There a Farm-Size Productivity Relationship in African Agriculture? Evidence from Rwanda

March, 2014

Whether the negative relationship
between farm size and productivity that is confirmed in a
large global literature holds in Africa is of considerable
policy relevance. This paper revisits this issue and
examines potential causes of the inverse productivity
relationship in Rwanda, where policy makers consider land
fragmentation and small farm sizes to be key bottlenecks for
the growth of the agricultural sector. Nationwide plot-level

An Analytical Toolkit for Support to Contract Farming

December, 2014

Over the past century or so, a wide
assortment of pre-harvest agreements, joint ventures, deals,
and pledges that can be termed contract farming have been
brokered between farmers and buyers. During the 1980s and
1990s, contract farming was frequently criticized as a
potentially exploitative arrangement, which favored the more
powerful buyer and left the small-scale farmer and the
environment vulnerable to abuse. More recently, there is

Urban Agriculture : Findings from Four City Case Studies

November, 2013

Urban agriculture contributes to local
economic development, poverty alleviation, the social
inclusion of the urban poor and women, as well as to the
greening of the city and the productive reuse of urban
wastes. Urban agriculture encompasses a wide variety of
production systems in both urban as well as peri-urban
areas. This study examines the contribution of urban
agriculture to livelihoods, food security, health, and the