Using cross-sectional data and a propensity score matching technique, this paper investigates the impact of cooperatives on adoption of agricultural technologies. Our analysis indicates that cooperative members are more likely to be male-headed households, have better access to agricultural extension services, possess oxen, participate in off-farm work, and have leadership experience. We also found that geographic location and age of household head are strongly associated with cooperative membership. Our estimation results show that cooperative membership has a strong positive impact on fertilizer adoption. The impact on adoption of pesticides turns out to be statistically significant when only agricultural cooperatives are considered. Further analysis also suggests that cooperative membership has a heterogeneous impact on fertilizer adoption among its members. The results suggest that cooperatives can play an important role in accelerating the adoption of agricultural technologies by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia.
Rural producer organizations (RPOs), such as farmers' organizations or rural cooperatives, offer a means for smallholder farmers in developing countries to sell their crops commercially. RPOs hold particular promise for Sub-Saharan Africa, where small-scale farming is the primary livelihood but commercialization of food crops is very limited. Using the experience of smallholders in Ethiopia as a case study, this research monograph identifies the benefits of RPOs for small farmers, as well as the conditions under which such organizations most successfully promote smallholder commercialization. The evidence from Ethiopia indicates that RPOs do increase farmers' profits from crop sales, but that the beneficiaries do not tend to be the poorest smallholders. Moreover, an RPO's marketing effectiveness is precarious: it can easily diminish if the number or diversity of its members increases or if it provides more non-marketing services. The authors conclude that RPOs have a role to play in the agricultural development of Sub-Saharan Africa, but that role should be complemented by other programs that directly target the poorest farmers. Further, the effectiveness of RPOs should be preserved by allowing them to follow their own agendas rather than being encouraged to take on non-marketing activities. The assessment of RPOs presented in this monograph should be a valuable resource for policymakers and researchers concerned with economic development and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Understanding how differences in precision agriculture (PA) technology adoption may impact crop productivity is important for assisting farmers to make more informed adoption choices. Also, examining if strategic alliances amongst agricultural cooperatives can provide benefits to farmers is relevant. This dissertation therefore consists of three essays that provide insights into how PA technology adoption choices may improve crop productivity, and how mergers or other forms of strategic alliances amongst agricultural cooperatives can provide additional benefits to cooperative-member farms. The first study of this dissertation evaluates potential crop productivity improvements that can be attributed to adoption of PA technologies. In this study, treatment effect estimators are incorporated into a stochastic frontier analysis framework to estimate the impact of PA technology adoption on technical inefficiency of corn production. Empirical estimations utilize data from the Kansas Farm Management Association consisting of 444 farms between 2002 to 2015. This includes non-adopters and adopters of two PA technologies: precision soil sampling (PSS) and variable rate technology (VRT). The sample data is pre-processed by using propensity score matching to account for potential underlying differences between adopters and non-adopters that may have spillover effects on the outcome of interest, technical inefficiency. Results suggest that adoption of PA technologies had no statistically significant impact on reducing technical inefficiency of corn production, in the presence of some degree of covariate imbalance. In the first study, differences amongst adopters are not considered, that is whether farms adopt PSS only or both PSS and VRT. However, estimates of technical inefficiency reductions may be masked by differences in adoption choices. The results of the first study therefore inspire the second study of this dissertation. The second study, accounts for differences in PA technology adoption choices by grouping adopters as either adopters of PSS only or adopters of both PSS and VRT. The methodology and data of the first study are adapted to estimate the impact of PA technology adoption on technical inefficiency of corn production under each adoption choice. In the presence of some degree of covariate imbalance, results suggest that, regardless of adoption choice (i.e., whether farms adopt PSS only or both PSS and VRT), adoption had no statistically significant effect on reducing technical inefficiency of corn production. The third study of this dissertation examines potential gains that agricultural cooperatives may accrue from mergers. An ex-ante data envelopment analysis approach is employed. Empirical estimations utilize data from CoBank, consisting of 749 midwestern agricultural cooperative observations from 2011 to 2015. Potential overall merger effects are decomposed into learning effects, scope effects, and scale effects. Findings show that generally, there are non-trivial overall potential gains from mergers. Overall merger gains are primarily driven by improvements due to learning effects and scope effects. Scale effect on the other hand tends to work against all merger combinations, with higher associated revenue reductions (or cost increases) for mergers between larger sized cooperatives compared to mergers between smaller cooperatives.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requested that the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Research Council (NRC) convene a panel of experts to examine whether publicly funded agricultural research has influenced the structure of U.S. agriculture and, if so, how. The Committee to Review the Role of Publicly Funded Agricultural Research on the Structure of U.S. Agriculture was asked to assess the role of public-sector agricultural research on changes in the size and numbers of farms, with particular emphasis on the evolution of very-large-scale operations.
Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Agrarian Studies, Wollega University (School of graduate studies), language: English, abstract: This study analyzed factors affecting modern agricultural technology adoption by farmers and the impact of technology adoption decision on the welfare of households in the study area. The data used for the study were obtained from 145 randomly selected sample households in the study area. Binary logit model was employed to analyze the determinants of farmers’ decisions to adopt modern technologies. Moreover, the average effect of adoption on household incomes and expenditure were estimated by using propensity score matching method. The result of the logistic regression showed that household heads’ education level, farm size, credit accessibility, perception of farmers about cost of the inputs and off-farm income positively and significantly affected the farm households’ adoption decision; while family size affected their decision negatively and significantly. The result of the propensity score matching estimation showed that the average income and consumption expenditure of adopters are greater than that of non-adopters. Based on these findings it is recommended that the zonal and the woreda leaders extension agents farm and education experts, policy makers and other development oriented organizations have to plan in such a way that the farm households in the study area will obtain sufficient education, credit accessibilities and also have to train farmers to make them understand the benefits obtained from adopting the new technologies. These bodies have also to arrange policy issues that improve farm labour participation of household members and also to arrange the ways in which farmers obtain means of income outside farming activities.
The year 2018 marks 40 years of reform and development in China (1978–2018). This commemorative book assembles some of the world’s most prominent scholars on the Chinese economy to reflect on what has been achieved as a result of the economic reform programs, and to draw out the key lessons that have been learned by the model of growth and development in China over the preceding four decades. This book explores what has happened in the transformation of the Chinese economy in the past 40 years for China itself, as well as for the rest of the world, and discusses the implications of what will happen next in the context of China’s new reform agenda. Focusing on the long-term development strategy amid various old and new challenges that face the economy, this book sets the scene for what the world can expect in China’s fifth decade of reform and development. A key feature of this book is its comprehensive coverage of the key issues involved in China’s economic reform and development. Included are discussions of China’s 40 years of reform and development in a global perspective; the political economy of economic transformation; the progress of marketisation and changes in market-compatible institutions; the reform program for state-owned enterprises; the financial sector and fiscal system reform, and its foreign exchange system reform; the progress and challenges in economic rebalancing; and the continuing process of China’s global integration. This book further documents and analyses the development experiences including China’s large scale of migration and urbanisation, the demographic structural changes, the private sector development, income distribution, land reform and regional development, agricultural development, and energy and climate change policies.
