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This introduction to the special issue deploys a framework, inspired by realist synthesis and introduced in Section 1 , that aims to untangle the contexts, mechanisms, and outcomes associated with investments that link poverty reduction and rural prosperity within a broad agri-food systems perspective. Section 2 considers changes in contexts: Where are agricultural research investments most likely to be an engine of poverty reduction? Over the past 25 years, there have been profound changes in the development context of most countries, necessitating an update on strategic insights for research investment priorities relevant for the economic, political, social, environmental, and structural realities of the early 21st Century. Section 2 briefly surveys changes in these structural aspects of poverty and development processes in low-income countries, with particular attention to new drivers (e.g., urbanization, climate change) that will be of increasing salience in the coming decades. In Section 3 , we turn to mechanisms: What are the plausible impact pathways and what evidence exists to test their plausibility? Poor farmers in the developing world are often the stated focus of public sector agricultural research. However, farmers are not the only potential beneficiaries of agricultural research; rural landless laborers, stakeholders along food value chains, and the urban poor can also be major beneficiaries of such research. Thus, there are multiple, interacting pathways through which agricultural research can contribute to reductions in poverty and associated livelihood vulnerabilities. This paper introduces an ex ante set of 18 plausible impact pathways from agricultural research to rural prosperity outcomes, employing bibliometric methods to assess the evidence underpinning causal links. In Section 4 , we revisit the concept of desired impacts: When we seek poverty reduction, what does that mean and what measures are needed to demonstrate impact? The papers in this special issue are intended to yield insights to inform improvements in agricultural research that seeks to reduce poverty. History indicates that equity of distribution of gains matters hugely, and thus the questions of “who wins?” and “who loses?” must be addressed. Moreover, our understanding(s) of “poverty” and the intended outcomes of development investments have become much richer over the past 25 years, incorporating more nuance regarding gender, community differences, and fundamental reconsideration of the meaning of poverty and prosperity that are not captured by simple head count income or even living standard measures.

Farm models are potentially relevant tools for policy impact assessment. Governments and international organizations use impact assessment (IA) as an ex-ante policy process and procedure to evaluate impacts of policy options as part of the introduction of new policies. IA is increasingly used. This paper reviews both the use of farm models in such policy IAs in the European Commission, and the development and use of farm models for policy IA by the scientific community over the past decade. A systematic review was performed, based on 202 studies from the period 2007–2015 and results were discussed in a science-policy workshop. Based on the literature review and the workshop, this paper describes progress in the development of farm models, challenges in their use in policy processes and a research and cooperation agenda. We conclude that main issues for a research agenda include: 1) better understanding of farmer decision-making and effects of the social milieu, with increased focus on the interactions between farmers and other actors, the link to the value chain, and farm structural change; 2) thorough and consistent model evaluation and model comparison, with increased attention for model sensitivity and uncertainty, and 3) the organization of a network of farm modellers. In addition, the agenda for science-policy cooperation emphasizes the need for: 4) synthesizing research evidence into systematic reviews as an institutional element in the existing science-policy-interfaces for agricultural systems, 5) improved and timely data collection, allowing to assess heterogeneity in farm objectives, management and indicators, and 6) stronger science-policy interaction, moving from a research-driven to a user-driven approach.

The international agricultural research centers known as CGIAR have played an important role with regard to global food security. Yet, their mandate remains debated: Should they concentrate on producing global public goods, for which they arguably have a comparative advantage, or should they engage in “downstream” activities of the research-development continuum and promote technology adoption on the ground, so as to increase their impact? This paper contributes to resolving this debate by developing a new conceptual framework, which is based on transaction costs economics and makes it possible to identify a range of factors that determine the comparative advantage of international versus national organizations. The different transactions involved in the development and uptake of products from international agricultural research are illustrated by an empirical case study of the legume improvement program of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Data collection involved a participatory mapping technique (Net-Map) as well as key informant interviews. The paper draws attention to the governance problems involved in downstream activities, which influence the comparative advantage of international versus national organizations in the research-development continuum. Policy implications are derived for the ongoing reform of the CGIAR and for future research on this topic.

Since the 1980s, many developing countries have introduced policies to promote seed industry growth and improve the delivery of modern science to farmers, often with a long-term goal of increasing agricultural productivity in smallholder farming systems. Public, private, and civil society actors involved in shaping policy designs have, in turn, developed competing narratives around how best to build an innovative and sustainable seed system, each with varying goals, values, and levels of influence. Efforts to strike a balance between these narratives have often played out in passionate discourses surrounding seed rules and regulations. As a result, however, policymakers in many countries have expressed impatience with the slow progress on enhancing the contribution of a modern seed industry to the overarching goal of increasing agricultural productivity growth. One reason for this slow progress may be that policymakers are insufficiently cognizant of the trade-offs associated with rules and regulations required to effectively govern a modern seed industry. This suggests the need for new data and analysis to improve the understanding of how seed systems function. This paper explores these issues in the context of Asia's rapidly growing seed industry, with illustrations from seed markets for maize and several other crops, to highlight current gaps in the metrics used to analyze performance, competition, and innovation. The paper provides a finite set of indicators to inform policymaking on seed system design and monitoring, and explores how these indicators can be used to inform current policy debates in the region., Highlights • Despite several decades of policy reforms, decisionmaking on seed systems in many developing countries remain poorly informed by market- and policy-relevant indicators. • We explores Asia’s rapidly growing seed industry to illustrate current gaps in metrics used to analyze performance, competition, and innovation. • We present a finite set of seed system indicators to inform policymaking. • We discuss how these indicators might be used to shape competing narratives and inform current policy discourse around seed system develop in the region.

In complex mixed crop-livestock systems with limited resources and biomass scarcity, crop residues play an important but increasingly contested role. This paper focuses on farming systems in the semi-arid areas of Zimbabwe, where biomass production is limited and farmers integrate crop and livestock activities. Conservation Agriculture (CA) is promoted to intensify crop production, emphasizing the retention of surface mulch with crop residues (CR). This paper quantifies the associated potential economic tradeoffs and profitability of using residues for soil amendment or as livestock feed, and explores alternative biomass production options. We draw on household surveys, stakeholder feedback, crop, livestock and economic modeling tools. We use the Trade-Off Analysis Model for Multi Dimensional Impact Assessment (TOA-MD) to compare different CR use scenarios at community level and for different farm types: particularly the current base system (cattle grazing of maize residues) and sustainable intensification alternatives based on a CA option (mulching using maize residues ± inorganic fertilizer) and a maize– mucuna (Mucuna pruriens) rotation. Our results indicate that a maize–mucuna rotation can reduce trade-offs between CR uses for feed and mulch, providing locally available organic soil enhancement, supplementary feed and a potential source of income. Conservation Agriculture without fertilizer application and at non-subsidized fertilizer prices is not financially viable; whereas with subsidized fertilizer it can benefit half the farm population. The poverty effects of all considered alternative biomass options are however limited; they do not raise income sufficiently to lift farmers out of poverty. Further research is needed to establish the competitiveness of alternative biomass enhancing technologies and the socio-economic processes that can facilitate sustainable intensification of mixed crop-livestock systems, particularly in semi-arid environments.

Brazil is among the world’s largest grain producers and exporters. Its high productivity is the result of its technology in tropical agriculture, the way Brazilian farmers apply these technologies in their farms and Brazil’s particular production conditions. The literature offers few scientific papers that describe and enhance decision support systems for agricultural planning in tropical agriculture, especially those that include two annual harvests in the same area. This paper brings important contributions to understand the double-crop production systems that make Brazil one of the world’s leading and most competitive grain-producing countries. It proposes a decision support model focused on production planning in multiproduct farms under risk conditions and applies this theoretical model of farm planning that uses operations research to understand the different productive resource allocations in farms engaged in grain production. This model was implemented in a representative farm in the Sorriso region, one of the main grain producing areas in Brazil. The efficient frontier curves calculated in the study revealed that the representative farms in this region maximized their production factors. The results showed that the production system adopted by the producers in Sorriso has achieved good financial returns with lower risks.

In this paper we use a network perspective to study the micro level of agricultural innovation systems and investigate the different roles and functions that collaborating actors have to perform to spread their innovation both horizontally and vertically. Based on a literature review, we distinguish between three separate network functions: (1) learning and knowledge co-creation, (2) upscaling and institutional entrepreneurship and (3) outscaling and innovation brokerage. We investigate how these different functions have been performed in the case of the Northern Frisian Woodlands (NFWs) in the Netherlands over a period of 17 years. We have constructed the two-mode affiliation networks of the actors involved in various multidisciplinary research projects and lobbying events. We have analysed these networks using Social Network Analysis and measured the participation rates, relative degrees and the main paths through time with the Search Path Node Pairs algorithm. The results show that the three functions are not evenly distributed over all participants in an innovation network. For each of these three functions there is a small group of people that form a core group of knowledge creators, institutional entrepreneurs and innovation brokers. The analysis of the main paths through these projects and events shows the close interaction between the lobbying and knowledge co-creation functions. The ability to perform more than one innovation function over a longer period of time is extremely rare, but those people who can pull this off are very important for the success of an innovation network. This paper therefore concludes that the organisers of innovation networks should take try to organise their collaboration in such a way that it becomes easier for individuals to perform multiple roles within an innovation network.

In the European Mediterranean basin, pasture-based sheep farming systems are mostly located in marginal/High Nature Value areas. These production systems are multifunctional, and their economic, environmental and social roles are equally important and recognised by policy makers and by society. However, the number of animals and holdings is decreasing, and there is great uncertainty regarding the reproducibility of these farming systems, which depends on many internal and external farm factors and their interactions. The aim of this paper was to perform a comprehensive assessment of sustainability in different sheep farming systems in north eastern Spain using the MESMIS framework. We followed a case-study approach to perform an in-depth investigation of 4 sheep meat and dairy farms with different intensities of reproduction management. Critical points of sustainability, including weaknesses and opportunities, were obtained using a participatory process with stakeholders (farmers and technical advisers) that resulted in the selection of 37 sustainability indicators that were classified according to the systemic attributes defined by MESMIS (productivity, stability, self-reliance, adaptability, equity) and according to the classical sustainability pillars (social, economic and environmental). Some underlying patterns could be observed when analysing sustainability pillars, attributes and indicators. A positive relationship between productivity and intensification level in meat farms was observed; however, economic sustainability was determined not only by on-farm but also by off-farm activities. The economic efficiency of farming (without considering subsidies) was mainly explained by the capture of added value in the dairy systems and the combination of high animal productivity as well as high forage and feed self-sufficiency in the meat systems. Social issues were also central to explaining sustainability at the farm level, including the prospects of generational turnover and the manner in which farmers perceive and rate their activity. A clear trade-off between economic and environmental indicators was observed, i.e., the higher the economic sustainability, the lower the environmental sustainability. Each farm scored differently for diverse attributes, pillars and individual indicators. The scores differed according to size, structure, resource availability and managerial skills, which implies that it would be difficult to apply a holistic sustainability analysis to farming systems instead of individual farms. A number of methodological questions arose during the evaluation process relative to the stakeholders perception of these indicators, their relevance and meaning, the reference values for comparison, or their validity to assess sustainability across spatial and temporal scales. These questions are discussed in the paper.

The intensification of agricultural productivity through technological innovation has often been reported to induce considerable social and economic transformation in the rural communities where those innovations are introduced. This paper investigates those changes in the case of acadja, a particular technique for intensifying fishing, which has been adopted in various parts of the developing world. Using the case of Lake Volta in Ghana, the paper investigates the social and economic impacts of this technique, looking in particular into issues of income, assets and (re)distribution of the wealth created by those acadjas. Our analysis shows that the impact of acadjas on fishing communities is mixed. While acadja certainly helps to enhance the supply of protein-rich food and may have trickle down effects at the community level, those positive contributions are greatly reduced by other more negative effects. The data show in particular that acadjas are not a poor-neutral technology in the sense that their contribution to household income seems to benefit disproportionably the wealthiest owners. As such, acadja fisheries often create negative sentiments amongst the households who cannot afford investing in this technology, creating a situation which may lead to social tension and intra-community conflicts.

In agriculture, value chain research provides a capacity to increase efficiencies, business integration, responsiveness and ultimately market competitiveness. In sugar, such research has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, and has been motivated by low world sugar prices and rising costs of production. In this paper, we highlight the future opportunities in value chain research to achieve more profitable and sustainable sugar industries in different countries. We do this by: (a) conducting an extensive review of value chain research in sugar; (b) assessing the change resulting from chain research using case studies in the Australian and South African sugar industries; highlighting challenges to value chain research; and (c) considering opportunities and methodologies used in other industries. The paper makes several conclusions and recommendations. In particular we show that value chain opportunities require more than just a technical solution, and need collective participation from across the chain, and usually evolutionary change management. Also, we show that whilst value chain thinking and research in sugar has targeted to achieving a lean system, there are potentially greater benefits in developing an agile chain. From a modelling perspective, we highlight the future prospects of multi-agent approaches to accommodating complexities of addressing value chain opportunities in sugar. While the focus of this paper is on sugar value chains, much of the information is relevant to chains of other agricultural commodities.

This paper presents a scenario-based analysis of the impacts of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform for upland agriculture using a Welsh case-study. Specifically the paper examines the impacts of the introduction of the single-farm payment (SFP), the modulation of direct payments under Pillar I of the CAP and the increase in agri-environment payments under Pillar II. Three enterprises are examined, upland sheep rearing with lamb finishing, spring- and autumn-calving suckler-cattle with calf rearing. These enterprises are modelled under conditions in 2002/3, 2004/5 and for the reformed CAP in 2005/6. To support this analysis a livestock system model (LSM) was implemented. The model assesses alternative management regimen using a flexible state-transition approach. This simplifies the realisation and parameterisation of potentially complex management regimen. The model tracks fodder requirements to achieve targets based on defined diets. The LSM underpins whole-farm analyses of stocking-rates, labour and other resource requirements and net-farm income. From the case study the paper concludes that the impacts of the introduction of the CAP reform on the financial performance of the systems are small but negative (a net reduction of around 5% in support). The larger reduction in direct payments (15–18%) is partially offset by agri-environment measures. The paper concludes that while SFP encourages a more market-oriented outlook, the adaptive capacity within systems as they stand is very limited. There are a range of possible adaptation strategies, but for the uplands the extensification of cattle systems by reducing stock numbers and cutting back on labour seems most probable.

Development has ended isolation in many parts of Kalimantan, Indonesia, and provides previously isolated communities with the opportunity for greater involvement in a market economy. This paper describes the use of a simulation model to study the possible impacts of greater involvement in cash cropping in swidden agricultural systems. The model uses both individual-based and rule-based modelling approaches. The model formulation is based on a previous report of the social structure, culture and agricultural production system of the Kantu in West Kalimantan [Dove, M.R., 1985. Swidden Agriculture in Indonesia: The Subsistence Strategies of the Kalimantan Kantu. Mouton Publishers, Berlin]. The model simulates: (1) births, deaths, marriage, household formation and dissolution; (2) land use decisions on the type, number and location of swidden cultivation; and (3) tracks the consequences of those decisions at a landscape level as well as the economic welfare of the households. The model deals with swidden cultivation of rice and the planting and tapping of rubber. The paper presents a simulation experiment that compares different land use strategies under a scenario of fluctuating rubber price. An important finding is that maintaining swidden cultivation as an option in the farming system, rather than permanently replacing swidden cultivation with cash cropping, appears to be a safer strategy to moderate the impact of commodity price fluctuations. � 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sustainability has become a central issue in the agricultural sector, both for researchers, producers and policy-makers. The two main objectives of this paper are: (1) to present an holistically designed ecological-economic model to evaluate farm and field-level environmental-economic tradeoffs with special reference to multi-objective policy-making and (2) to evaluate the impact of the Agenda 2000 reform on sustainability of organic farming. The model was implemented for the case of organic dairy farming in northern Tuscany (Italy). Minor differences were found between the environmental and technical results of the model under the MacSharry and Agenda 2000 reforms. However, gross margins under the Agenda 2000 regulations were considerably higher. The spatial detail of the model proved particularly useful in the evaluation of the impact of environmental sustainability thresholds. Sensitivity analysis indicated the weak environmental points of the farming system (in this case mainly soil erosion) and the feasible levels of the various environmental aspects and their associated socio-economic costs. The application of the model for alternative policy scenarios provided insights into ways in which the cost economic efficiency of the Agenda 2000 agri-environment support scheme could be improved. The paper concludes with suggestions for further model research to contribute to the design of cost-efficient agri-environment payment schemes. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper locates impact assessment research within the disciplinary constructs of agricultural economics, the institutions (rules of the game) and organizations (structures governed by these rules/norms) of agricultural innovation. The paper analyses the disciplinary limitations in impact assessment research. In the hard science culture of agricultural research the social sciences, closer to the reality of complex technological contexts, are less prestigious. Agricultural economics, the disciplinary root of impact assessment, imposes a major constraint by making institutional contexts and variations intractable and analysed at best as disturbances. Sophisticated econometric methodologies substitute for information on institutions, systems components and relationships. The paper presents an analytical framework to distinguish between the institutional and organizational variables in the agricultural innovation system. The case study of institutional and organizational change in Indian agricultural research and extension is used to demonstrate the role of institutions in determining the impact of agricultural science and technology. Impact assessment research is institutionally conditioned to look for end point consequences of research, such as yield increase, cost reduction, or farm income. This body of knowledge ignores crucial requirements such as the institutional framework (hierarchy for instance) and actors that facilitate these end point impacts. Mainstream impact assessment literature is not concerned about the important relationships among these institutions and actors, or about the impact of knowledge on these institutions and organizations. In the quest for end point consequences, estimated often as rates of return to investment, impact assessment has overlooked important requirements and relationships within agricultural innovation systems. An analysis of institutional learning using the key elements of an evaluation culture as proposed by program evaluators is used to demonstrate the need for impact assessment to engage with institutional questions and build the capacity for institutional learning. There is a felt need to move from impact assessment to a larger evaluation culture. Agricultural research evaluation has much to learn from regular program evaluation. This calls for more social science research besides neoclassical agricultural economics, and active interaction among the natural and social scientists, extensionists, farming communities, policy makers and other actors. Effective evaluation in general and impact assessment in particular depends on the institutional learning capacity of the actors, especially scientists and policy makers.

This paper develops a theoretical concept of uncertain control of an ecological–economic system in pest management. Uncertainty arises from imperfect knowledge of system inputs and inaccuracies in mathematical modeling, such as uncertainty about the population function of predators and prey, the effect of chemical and biological control instruments, and the nature of weather conditions. By using the Lyapunov theory and the adaptive control concept, the present paper shows that the Dynamic Economic Threshold of optimal control is a special case of uncertain control. Ecological and economic targets can be reached harmoniously under some reasonable constraints.

Although not conspicuous in its literature, agricultural modelling and its applications have inherited much from the field of operational (operations) research. In the late 1940s, techniques for mathematically simulating processes came into agricultural science directly from industry. The decision support system (DSS) concept followed almost 40 years later. It seems that the large differences between farm production and its management and industrial production and its management account for the failure of agricultural systems scientists to be more attentive students of the experiences in this parent field. In hindsight, the penalty of this is greatest in the matter of the problematic socio-technical relationship between scientific models built to guide practice and actual practice. As a socio-technical innovation, the agricultural DSS has much more in common with DSSs in business and industry than might be expected judging by the domain knowledge content. One implication is that the crisis in the parent field concerning the ‘problem of implementation’ could have served as a cautionary tale for agriculture. Although this opportunity was missed, it is not too late to tap problemstructuring and problem-solving insights from operations research/management science to aid our thinking about our own ‘problem of implementation’. This paper attempts this in constructing a framework for thinking about subsequent papers in this Special Issue. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The development of cropping systems simulation capabilities world-wide combined with easy access to powerful computing has resulted in a plethora of agricultural models and consequently, model applications. Nonetheless, the scientific credibility of such applications and their relevance to farming practice is still being questioned. Our objective in this paper is to highlight some of the model applications from which benefits for farmers were or could be obtained via changed agricultural practice or policy. Changed on-farm practice due to the direct contribution of modelling, while keenly sought after, may in some cases be less achievable than a contribution via agricultural policies. This paper is intended to give some guidance for future model applications. It is not a comprehensive review of model applications, nor is it intended to discuss modelling in the context of social science or extension policy. Rather, we take snapshots around the globe to 'take stock' and to demonstrate that well-defined financial and environmental benefits can be obtained on-farm from the use of models. We highlight the importance of 'relevance' and hence the importance of true partnerships between all stakeholders (farmer, scientists, advisers) for the successful development and adoption of simulation approaches. Specifically, we address some key points that are essential for successful model applications such as: (1) issues to be addressed must be neither trivial nor obvious; (2) a modelling approach must reduce complexity rather than proliferate choices in order to aid the decision-making process (3) the cropping systems must be sufficiently flexible to allow management interventions based on insights gained from models. The pro and cons of normative approaches (e.g. decision support software that can reach a wide audience quickly but are often poorly contextualized for any individual client) versus model applications within the context of an individual client's situation will also be discussed. We suggest that a tandem approach is necessary whereby the latter is used in the early stages of model application for confidence building amongst client groups. This paper focuses on five specific regions that differ fundamentally in terms of environment and socio-economic structure and hence in their requirements for successful model applications. Specifically, we will give examples from Australia and South America (high climatic variability, large areas, low input, technologically advanced); Africa (high climatic variability, small areas, low input, subsistence agriculture); India (high climatic variability, small areas, medium level inputs, technologically progressing; and Europe (relatively low climatic variability, small areas, high input, technologically advanced). The contrast between Australia and Europe will further demonstrate how successful model applications are strongly influenced by the policy framework within which producers operate. We suggest that this might eventually lead to better adoption of fully integrated systems approaches and result in the development of resilient farming systems that are in tune with current climatic conditions and are adaptable to biophysical and socioeconomic variability and change. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper quantifies and compares the energy efficiencies of conventional and organic farming systems in the UK from a human energy perspective. To date, studies comparing these two systems have neglected rudimentary questions regarding the effort and energy expenditure of farmers, instead devoting attention to consumer health and selected environmental issues such as global warming and recent energy crises. The need to focus on the human energy problem is seen as fundamental in this paper as it concerns not just the balance of calorific expenditure and consumption but also the possible negative health affects associated with high levels of energy and effort expenditure. Assessment of human energy expenditures and effort, and their health effects is relatively under-developed; consequently this paper uses a pilot study to explore methodology on which future study and theory could be based. The method developed draws on three plausible models for assessing human energy and effort expenditure: the nutritional, physiological and ergonomic. The case study builds annual and daily profiles of energy and effort expenditure of two farmers using annual labour profiles and task specific energy expenditure and intensity derived from physical measurements. Although the scope of the experiment is limited, making inferences about each system is difficult, the results reveal clear differences in the annual energy and effort expenditures of the two farmers. Over a typical year the organic farmer experiences far more physical stress. Despite being more efficient in terms of overall energy, the organic farm is less efficient in terms of human energy, and the net energetic returns combined with effort intensity bring into question the health implications of organic livelihoods both in the short and long term.

Farm households form a significant unit of study for the rural policy analyst as it is at this level of aggregation that the decisions to participate in government policy initiatives and to adopt new technologies are taken, although the true micro-level impacts of such decisions might be felt more acutely at the intra-household level. This paper describes a range of modelling approaches that have been used to represent micro-level decision making related to sustainable agricultural development. While none of the examples was undertaken in a pluralistic framework, they illustrate that two or more methodologies can be integrated so that the complementarity and/or conflict between the results would enhance the quality of the outcomes. The paper argues that because of the integrated nature of the relationship between the farm household (or the decision-making unit), the farming system, and the environment, more progress can be made by using more than one methodology even though their assumptions may be incompatible and their results imply different solutions to the problem. The dialogue created by this diversity will provide better solutions than a reliance on one paradigm and its associated methodologies. One methodological approach will not be sufficient to capture the decision-making process and its subsequent impacts and a pluralist approach is advocated.

In the Savannah region of West Africa, the highly variable rainfall and poor soils have been shown to differentially affect the yield potential of various crops. The paper applies a simple risk programming model to assess the effects of price and yield risk on the incomes of smallholder farmers in northern region of Cote d'Ivoire. The analysis showed that by considering price and yield risks, it would be possible for farmers to improve their incomes. Considerable evidence has been gathered to show that smallholder allocative inefficiency is a common place in Cote d'Ivoire. This study also found that farmers were operating at sub-optimal levels. This could be due to several factors, including multiple market failures, lack of information on prices, price and yield risks, labor market search costs or high transaction costs. The results from this paper suggests that when such price series information on the risks of different crops are considered, farmers would be better off re-allocating their cropping to a more optimal cropping plan. In evaluating cropping systems in the Savanna zone it is important to consider not only the yield of alternative crops, but also the yield risk, price risk, and income risk that farmers face in adjusting their cropping patterns. Second, to reduce production risks faced by farmers, emphasis should be placed on yield-stability of technology interventions intended for farmers in this zone. Lastly, policy makers should focus efforts on achieving farm income stabilization for farmers in this zone by: (1) developing effective market price information transmission system; (2) providing low-cost but high-resolution climatic information; and (3) developing risk-management institutions. Unless policy makers improve the availability of information that allows farmers to improve their managerial capacity for making more risk-efficient cropping decisions, it is unlikely that farmers in the zone will be able to cope with the pervasive risks that affect their welfare and livelihoods.

Increasingly, natural resource policy makers and program administrators are requiring that analysis of proposed changes include estimates of both environmental and economic implications. That requirement poses a difficulty for researchers since the spatial scale of models used for environmental analysis and for economic analysis are structured differently. In this paper we show how the differing spatial scales can be reconciled in a national analysis involving an agricultural model with state- and county-level-based geographical boundaries and a watershed model involving watershed boundaries. This type of modeling system integration has been done in analysis of single or multiple watershed-level issues, but our paper is the first to show a method for a national-level analysis involving state- and substate-level economic results and small watershed environmental results. The procedures and results are shown for a national cropland erosion control policy and for the release by one state experiment station of improved crop varieties.

The paper introduces an optimizing linear model for analysing agricultural production under various water quantities, qualities, timing, prices and pricing policies. The model is designed to serve as a decision-making tool for planners of agricultural production on district and national levels. The output solutions provide the optimal mix of water-consuming activities to maximize the net income of the agricultural production of the districts and the water demands under various prices. It also provides the user with procedures to carry out ‘if–then’ sensitivity and scenario analyses and to generate optimal water demand curves. The paper presents the formulation of the model, indicating and analysing problems of linearity and scaling, the steps undertaken to examine and verify it, optimal water demand curves for eight districts in Israel (separately and as an integrated unit) and calculated estimates of water demand elasticity.

Two previous papers in this series (Nelson et al., this issue) described the use of the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) to simulate the effect of erosion on maize yields from open-field farming and hedgerow intercropping in the Philippine uplands. In this paper, maize yields simulated with APSIM are used to compare the economic viability of intercropping maize between leguminous shrub hedgerows with that of continuous and fallow open-field farming of maize. The analysis focuses on the economic incentives of upland farmers to adopt hedgerow intercropping, discussing farmers' planning horizons, access to credit and security of land tenure, as well as maize pricing in the Philippines. Insecure land tenure has limited the planning horizons of upland farmers, and high establishment costs reduce the economic viability of hedgerow intercropping relative to continuous and fallow open-field farming in the short term, In the long term, high discount rates and share-tenancy arrangements in which landlords do not contribute to establishment costs reduce the economic viability of hedgerow intercropping relative to fallow open-field farming, (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

In a context in which the framework of economic policy is changing radically, the objective of agricultural research programmes should be to support the development of systems which look likely to be ‘winners’ in the future. The Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) framework permits sensitivity analysis in which an inventory of possible ‘feasible’ technological developments may be examined for their impact on the underlying comparative advantage (implicitly, the longer-run competitive advantage) of the system. This is a fruitful procedure for the integration of technological and economic analysis, and can make a substantial contribution to the identification of ‘best-bet’ lines of technological development. This paper begins with a brief account of the role and usefulness of the PAM, a relatively straightforward logical framework for policy analysis, from which a range of ‘policy indicators’ may be estimated. The most important of these indicators is the Domestic Resource Cost (DRC) ratio, an approximate indicator of the ‘underlying comparative advantage’ of a commodity system, a characteristic which may be obscured by an overlay of policy interventions and ‘market failures’. The paper then explores two areas in which the use of the PAM can be extended. First, it examines the possibilities offered by the application of ‘new institutional economics’ (NIE) in a PAM context to changing rural market conditions precipitated by withdrawal of the state. Second, the paper reviews how PAM may be modified to incorporate environmental costs and benefits, and so address more adequately the sustainability of commodity systems.

Stakeholder analysis (SA) is a powerful tool for policy analysis and formulation, and has considerable potential in natural resource policy and programme development. It is an approach for understanding a system, and changes in it, by identifying key actors or stakeholders and assessing their respective interests in that system. It has been developed in response to the challenge of multiple interests and objectives, and particularly the search for efficient, equitable and environmentally sustainable development strategies. This paper reviews the underlying concepts and methods of SA and the underlying links between economic efficiency, equity and environmental concerns. It examines the particular characteristics of natural resources management (NRM) which make it particularly appropriate for the application of SA: these include multiple uses and users of the resource; unclear or open access property rights; temporal trade-offs; the presence of externalities; and imperfect markets. It discusses a classificational system which distinguishes between conflicts and trade-offs, and briefly reviews parallel methodological developments, including cost-benefit analysis (CBA), decision analysis, conflict resolution and social actor perspectives, and suggests areas of complementarity. A number of key issues are raised in the review that have implications for the future direction of SA. These include: the areas in which SA has particular relevance; its value to NRM policy-makers and others in overcoming trade-offs and conflict; the different levels and circumstances in which it might most usefully be applied; and its potential for representing the interests of different groups, including the most disadvantaged, as the basis for interventions. The paper highlights some research and methodological needs directly relevant to natural resource managers and intended beneficiaries, namely: (a) acquiring empirical knowledge and understanding of the key stakeholders involved in the process and the factors governing their resource allocation procedures; (b) developing improved systems, frameworks and methodologies for analysing situations and incorporating stakeholder and institutional concerns; (c) developing knowledge of the opportunities and scope for action by policy-makers and facilitators in the design of interventions and the resolution of conflicts.

The development of efficient agricultural extension strategies is dependent on the accurate prediction of farmer response to diverse extension messages and methods of delivery. Most research on adoption behaviour has concentrated on farmer characteristics as the main determinants of adoption rates. This paper focuses attention on extension agency activities (EAA) as an equally important variable. Ex-ante studies of three farmer populations predicted the existence of two distinct adoption scenarios; namely, managerial capacity (MC) dependent, where farmer MC plays an important role in adoption and MC independent, where the level of farmer MC does not appear to be involved in the adoption process. An experiment involving 108 farmers divided amongst four extension treatments was carried out to test the ex-ante hypotheses. Of the nine system × technology combinations tested, five were correctly predicted from the ex-ante model. This paper details reasons for the model's failure to predict accurately the four remaining cases. It is concluded that not only farmer MC and EAA, but also variables associated with economic climate, attributes of innovations, existence of structural constraints and appropriateness of technologies should be incorporated into the model in order to improve the predictability of adoption behaviour based on ex-ante studies.

This paper reviews three stages of thought about the role of agriculture in economic development. The first, dating back to the 1950s and 1960s but having its origins in Soviet industrialization policies in the 1920s and 1930s, advocated extensive discrimination against agriculture as a way to mobilize labor and resources for investment in a modern industrial sector. Massive intervention by government into investment decisions and resource allocations was thought to be necessary to utilize effectively the resources extracted from agriculture. Even if all key economic decisions were not controlled by a central planning agency, as in socialist countries, most developing countries actively sought to displace market forces in favor of government decisions and activities. The second school of thought, dating to the 1970s and 1980s, sought a market-oriented balance between the agricultural and industrial sectors. This balance was needed to stimulate a more effective and dynamic role of agriculture in economic development, such as providing labor for an industrial workforce, food for an expanding population witth higher incomes, savings for industrial investments, a market for industrial output, export earnings to pay for imported capital goods, and raw materials for agro-processing industries. These contributions form the core of modern economic analysis of the relationship between agriculture and the modern sector. In this market-oriented approach to development, special measures to extract resources from agriculture to force the pace of industrialization are not warranted. Equally, however, when markets are working well and the economy is open to international trade, no special government policies are needed for these linkages to operate efficiently. Although this market-oriented development strategy has done much to redress the ‘urban bias’ that discriminated against agriculture in early development plans, this paper argues that it does not go far enough. Evidence is presented that a set of important links between agriculture and the rest of the economy is not well mediated by market forces. Sensitive interventions by government are required if agriculture is to play its optimal stimulative role in economic development. Several examples are discussed in the paper. First, there are non-market contributions of agriculture to economic growth, which operate through three poorly understood mechanisms: the impact of food price stability on investment decisions: the contribution of agricultural growth to growth in total factor productivity for the entire economy; and ‘learning by doing’ on the part of governments, which helps them understand their appropriate role in the development process, especially in mobilizing resources for investment in public goods, such as rural infrastructure. Second, the agricultural sector plays a special role in alleviating poverty. Third, agriculture serves to protect certain environmental amenities, such as green space and concentrations of greenhouse gases. Strategies for agricultural development that rely solely on market forces perform much better than strategies that systematically displace the market. But to ignore the important non-market contributions of agriculture is to undervalue significantly the sector's role in economic development.

Indian agriculture is highly vulnerable to climate shocks, such as floods, droughts and heat-stress. In this paper, using a dynamic panel-data approach we have assessed the impact of rainfall-deficit and heat-stress on agricultural productivity, and subsequently evaluated effectiveness of crop diversification in mitigating their adverse effects. The findings show that both rainfall-deficit and heat-stress damage agricultural productivity, and the damage increases with increase in their severity. Nevertheless, we find crop diversification as an important ex ante adaptation measure to climatic shocks and its adaptation benefits are more apparent against severe shocks and in the long-run. Our findings reinforce the dynamic role of crop diversification in improving resilience of agricultural production systems to climatic shocks.

The increasing and often conflicting challenges that agricultural production systems face today require a more comprehensive approach to planning in the sector, integrating the economic principles of production with its social characteristics and ecological impacts. The paper presents an innovative attempt to incorporate biophysical criteria into a standard socio-economic optimisation model, illustrated through a study of the Slovenian dairy sector. The biophysical perspective on the system's functioning is determined by means of emergy analysis. This is an environmental accounting approach which reflects the cumulative environmental support needed to produce a certain output. The eco-centric perspective on the emergy approach complements the standard socioeconomic perspective of value that reflects the utility of a product (anthropocentric perspective). The model is developed based on a preceding analysis of socio-economic and emergy-based performance characteristics of different production types at the farm level that, when aggregated, constitute the sector. The multi-criteria optimisation model is supported by weighted goal programming (WGP) and aims to investigate the effects of two opposing agricultural policy paradigms on the organisation of the sector at the national level. The results show that a protectionist or eco-social focus of public interventions results in the sector's organisation with rather contrasting performance characteristics. The model outcome that represents a compromise between the two agro-political paradigms clearly suggests that incorporation of the emergy criterion into the optimisation model leads to a diverse and balanced structure and a more favourable economic and biophysical performance of the sector. Accordingly, the results confirm the complementarity of economic and emergy approaches and provide implications for a more comprehensive planning of agricultural activity.

This paper provides an ex-ante assessment of the impacts of climate and price variability on household income and food security in Ethiopia and Ghana. The study applies an agent-based modelling approach to highlight the role of coping and adaptation strategies under climate and price variability. Our simulation results show that climate and price variability adversely affects income and food security of households in both countries. Self-coping mechanisms are found to be important but insufficient to mitigate the adverse effects of variability, implying the need for policy interventions. Adaptation strategies composed of a portfolio of actions such as the provision of production credit and access to improved seeds are found to be effective in reducing the impacts of climate and price variability in Ethiopia. Similarly, policy interventions aimed at improving the provision of short-term production credit along with the existing irrigation facilities are important in Ghana. Finally, this study highlights the importance of capturing the distributional aspects of adaptation options by highlighting heterogeneous effects of variability and adaptation options.

This paper presents a multi-agent simulation that studies market competition in a multi-stage negotiation with both direct sales and intermediation, in the presence of cost heterogeneity at the agent (i.e., producer) level. Producers sell their products according to an adaptive reinforcement strategy. Product is sold to clients (small shops and consumers) according to two types of marketplaces, which are characterized by whether they obtain the product from intermediaries or directly from producers. The model is applied to the case of a networked market of potato (Solanum tuberosum) producers in Bogota, Colombia, and calibrated to real data. The results reveal that, contingent upon the number of producers, number of intermediaries, unit transportation cost and producers' culture, intermediation might lead to greater traded quantities than sales through farmers' (local) markets. Also, we found that increasing the intensity of competition among intermediaries is at odds with the increase of producers' long run profit. Thus, we conclude that intermediation still plays an important role to maintain the supply ecosystem, especially when transportation costs are important in a network of isolated and fragmented network of producers.

The agricultural sector is being called upon to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). A scenario approach was developed to explore the plausible futures of the French bovine sector and their impact on climate change. These scenarios encompass a Business As Usual scenario (S1-BAU) and alternative contrasting scenarios: (S2) cattle production increase to meet a high global demand under a liberal policy, (S3) refocus on internal demand within France, with an upmarket move to ‘green’ products, (S4) committed public policy to reduce GHG emissions. This paper analyses how key drivers of these scenarios (e.g. subsidies on investment, reduction of market risks, carbon tax, limitation of concentrate feed in animal diets) affect the evolution of production, economics, and environmental impact on climate change of typical French suckler cow and dairy farms, by means of simulations performed with a bio-economic model. To adapt their farming systems to the scenarios, farms can opt for variably intensive/integrated practices per animal and per unit land area. Some technological progress in animal production, crop production, and farm equipment is also modeled. Results show that in S1-BAU, milk production, net income and impact on climate change of dairy farms rise. Beef production and impact on climate change decrease slightly in suckler cow farms. Impact on climate change per unit of product decreases owing to higher productivity per animal and to a more integrated management of crop production. Alternative scenarios underline that reorienting public support toward farm investment would further intensify dairy farms and increase their income, but would reduce production and income of suckler cow farms and favor crop production (S2). Climate change impact per unit of product is more strongly reduced in S3 (organic farming with low feed concentrate) than in S2, but with a reduced production, particularly for milk. A carbon tax decreases emissions, but to the detriment of cattle production, especially suckler cow farms.

The liberalization of beef exports in Botswana is hotly debated among policy makers and relevant value chain actors. While some policy makers argue that such a move might increase prices for producers and make beef unaffordable for consumers, others suggest an open market would reduce the profitability of the beef sector in Botswana. At the same time, these impacts will be mediated by the presence of animal disease and the availability of sufficient feed and water. In this paper, we constructed an integrated system dynamics (SD) model that captures the feedbacks between the biological dynamics of cattle production, the economics of animal and meat marketing and trade, and the impacts that environmental pressures such as rainfall and animal disease have on the system. We used this model to run a series of scenarios associated with market liberalization and animal health shocks to quantify their impacts throughout the value chain, taking into account the feedbacks between biology, markets, and environment on the value chain itself. This approach allows for a holistic evaluation of policy options on different chain actors and whole chain performance, and provides a knowledge base for prioritizing interventions. Model results suggested that although disease control policies benefit all value chain actors, gains from market liberalization come at the expense of substantial losses to Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) and its contracted feedlots. They also suggest that combining market liberalization policy reforms with better animal disease controls greatly improved the financial performance of all value chain actors.

This paper reports on a study that identified a range of crop-trait combinations that are: agronomically suited to the EU; provide advantages to arable farmers and consumers; and are either already available in international markets, or advancing along the development pipeline and likely to become available by 2025. An expert stakeholder panel was recruited and asked for their views, using the Delphi approach, on the impact of these crop-traits on enterprise competitiveness, through changes to yields, production costs and product prices. In terms of input traits, there was consensus that traits such as herbicide tolerant/insect resistant (HT/IR) maize, HT sugar beet and HT soya bean would provide positive benefits for farmers. Output-side traits such as winter-sown rape with reduced saturated fats, were seen as offering benefits to consumers, but were either likely to be restricted to niche markets, or offer relatively modest price premia to farmers growing them. Our analysis of the financial impact of the adoption of GM crops more widely in the EU, showed that the competitiveness of the agricultural sector could well be improved by this. However, such improvements would be relatively small-scale in that large-scale national natural advantages from either economic or environmental conditions is unlikely to be overturned.

Agroforestry is increasingly regarded as an important adaptation and mitigation strategy against climate change. In particular, the use of fertilizer trees has been promoted as a practice that contributes to improved soil fertility through nitrogen fixation, by increasing supply of nutrients for crop production. While a lot of the evidence on the impact of fertilizer trees relies on on-farm experiments and correlational analysis, there is a paucity of rigorous evidence under actual smallholder farming conditions. This paper analyzes the impacts of adopting fertilizer trees such as Gliricidia sepium and Faidherbia albida on household food security. We draw on survey data of 338 farmers in Malawi and use an endogenous switching regression to rigorously analyze adoption impacts. Econometric results show that use of fertilizer tree adoption increases the value of food crops by 35%. Disaggregation of the impacts through stratification by land ownership further reveal that farmers with smaller farms of up to 2 acres realize the highest gains. Furthermore, fertilizer tree use in conjunction with improved maize seed also significantly increased value of food crops. This study offers preliminary insights that contribute to an emerging field of research on quantitative assessment of agricultural interventions such as agroforestry practices using novel analytical approaches. We provide some policy insights and recommend the need for future research to be designed around development initiatives that consider fine-scale variation in social, economic and ecological context of farmers to improve uptake and adaptation to realize the full potential of agroforestry in improving soil fertility and household food security.

Arable farming plays an important role in securing economic development in the rural region of Le Marche (Italy). However, this system could be unsustainable owing to the use of polluting inputs and the negative environmental effects induced by specialization. The objective of this paper is to analyze eco-efficiency of a sample of arable farms operating in the Le Marche region over the period 2011–2014 using the Farm Accountancy Data Network. For this aim, a two-stage analysis has been carried out. Firstly, eco-efficiency and pressure specific eco-efficiency scores are computed using Data Envelopment Analysis. Then, a robust regression analysis is carried out to identify the influence of a selection of economic, social and political factors on eco-efficiency. Results show that most arable farms exhibit a modest level of eco-efficiency and are characterized by specific eco-inefficiency in relation to the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Moreover, they indicate that farms are more eco-efficient if they are led by young farmers and participate to agri-environmental schemes. From these results, useful policy recommendations and conclusions can be drawn.

Objective This paper examines the ex-ante impacts of on-farm diversification and forward integration strategies on agricultural value chain resilience, with an empirical focus on Ghana’s cocoa value chain. Method System dynamics modelling was used to explore five scenarios involving variable-input on-farm diversification pursued by cocoa farmers in Ghana and the simultaneous adoption of forward integration strategies by Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. Results and Conclusions An adaptive strategy involving the simultaneous pursuit of variable-input on-farm diversification and a cooperative forward integration strategy by both Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire was found to result in the highest level of resilience. Under such an adaptive strategy, in-country processors will be the most impacted when the level of safety stocks are below 25% of the average stock level during the period of losses in raw material production. Significance The findings suggest that a policy direction that supports on-farm diversification and in-country processing enhances the aggregate resilience of the cocoa value chain, irrespective of the forward integration strategy adopted by Cote d’Ivoire.

Feed plays a key role for dairy farmers to produce in an environmentally sustainable and competitive way. It determines both costs and natural resource demand. In this paper, we investigated whether and how dairy farms could simultaneously reduce feed costs and overall natural resource use in the feed supply chain without reducing farm revenues. We applied the frontier method Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) on a data sample of specialized dairy farms in the region of Flanders (Belgium). Results showed potential simultaneous savings in costs and natural resources (up to 48%). This could mainly be achieved by increasing technical efficiency (proportionally minimizing the feed inputs, i.e. (i) on-farm produced roughage feed and (ii) purchased feed, consisting of concentrates and by-products) and to a lesser extent by increasing allocative efficiency (substituting these feed inputs up to a cost and/or natural resource use minimizing allocation). We offered farm advisors starting points to identify concrete improvement actions for individual farms, by graphically presenting improvement paths and by relating DEA's outcomes to Key Performance Indicators they are familiar with. High cost and natural resource efficiencies were related with (i) high milk production per cow obtained with as little as possible purchased feed, and (ii) low on-farm roughage production costs per ha associated with lower contract work costs and a lower proportion of grasslands in the available on-farm area. Finding a good equilibrium of purchased feed amounts and stocking density seemed to play a substantial role in optimizing allocative efficiency. Analysis with different frontier methods showed that the shape of the frontier influences the quantified improvement margins and the diagnosis of win-win and trade-off situations. Further research should focus on (i) the accuracy of the constructed frontier, (ii) relations with emission-related impacts and (iii) possible trade-offs between different resource types.

The potential role of irrigation of cereals as a response to climate change is under debate. Especially under temperate continental conditions empirical evidence of crop yield response to irrigation in interaction with nitrogen fertilizer supply is rare. Besides mean yield effects, irrigation reduces yield variance, which may be an incentive for farmers to use irrigation. This paper investigates the risk-efficiency of irrigation in cereal production in a temperate continental climate, based on data from a long term field experiment on a sandy soil. Irrigation and no irrigation of winter rye (Secale cereale) and winter barley (Hordeum vulgare) were investigated in three different nitrogen (N) fertilizer levels. Crop yield response data (1995–2010) to irrigation and N fertilizer were used to calculate net returns, certainty equivalents (CE) for different levels of risk aversion and the conditional value at risk (CVaR) as a downside risk indicator in two price scenarios. The scenarios were calculated with a total cost and a partial budget approach. Irrigation was found to be profit-maximizing in all partial budget calculations, which sometimes required higher N input to be profit-maximizing. Irrigation and N fertilizer reduction were identified as risk mitigation strategies, even though their impact was limited. Irrigation reduced the downside risk only in the partial budget calculations. The analysis based on the CE did not show improved risk efficiency with irrigated management options. In contrast, reduced fertilizer input proved to be risk efficient at specific levels of risk aversion. The price expectations of winter rye and winter barley had a much higher impact on the ranking of the management options than risk aversion based on the crop yield variances. At low crop prices for all levels of risk aversion, irrigation of winter barley and winter rye was only economically justified if fixed costs for irrigation were not taken into account. At high crop prices, irrigation of winter barley was also justified based on the total cost calculation. However, this advantage was only given at a very low level of risk aversion. With increasing levels of risk aversion irrigation was not efficient based on the CE in the total cost accounting scenario. In conclusion, irrigation of cereals can contribute to downside risk mitigation and increased profits, if fixed costs for irrigation are covered. However, this conclusion holds only when irrigation is combined with an increased N intensity. If total costs need to be accounted for, irrigation in cereals is not an appropriate risk reduction strategy and a reduction of N input is more effective.

Environmental measures in an agricultural context often lead to extra constraints in current farming. This suggests trade-offs between the environmental objectives and profitability. Whether trade-offs exist, or may be turned into win-win, depends on creative farm options to comply new constraints. This paper concentrates on Ecological Focus Areas as a new EU Common Agricultural Policy greening requirement, and investigates profitability changes of two greening options with permanent woody elements, hedgerows and alley cropping. We predicted discounted gross margins for a hedgerow and alley cropping greening option and four market scenarios on a representative arable farm in Flanders (Belgium). Starting from the tree row, over a distance of 1.64 times the tree height, relative crop yield is 70% as compared to a treeless situation. Between 1.64 and 9.52 times the tree height, relative yield is 107%. Beyond that point, the effect is considered negligible. Discounted gross margins are calculated to account for the time horizon. Relative discounted gross margins at farm level, compared to the business as usual option, vary between 91% and 108%, depending on market conditions and policy support. The calculations show that fulfilment of the 5% ecological focus area greening requirement on arable farms with hedgerows and alley cropping only becomes economically competitive to the traditional cropping systems with extra financial stimuli (e.g. greening payments). We also show and discuss how the calculations can be fine-tuned and used in policy making, e.g. by i) getting better insights in the tree-crop interactions, ii) including the effect of e.g. crop type, tree species, tree line space and tree line orientation in the meta-information, iii) evaluating this conditional competitiveness and suggesting a better linking between subsidy level and ecological value and ecosystem services and iv) exploring novel valorization channels for wood products.

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) has become the most important oil crop throughout the world. The growing palm oil production was mainly based on the expansion of cultivated area into forest areas, causing serious environmental and social concerns. Increasing yields on existing plantations is a potential pathway to reduce the undesired ecological impacts of oil palm agriculture while enhancing its social benefits. Although oil palm production is still dominated by large private estates, smallholder farmers are increasingly engaging in its cultivation. While there is some evidence that smallholders' palm oil yields show large variations and are often far below plantation standards, empirical studies on their agronomic performance are scarce. Based on crop modeling analysis and farm household survey data from Sumatra, Indonesia, this paper quantifies smallholder yield gaps relative to exploitable yield levels and analyses smallholders' production constraints. Results show that oil palm smallholdings offer a tremendous potential for future yield increases, because they obtain, on average, only around 50% of the cumulative exploitable yield over a 20 year plantation life cycle. In particular, we find yield gaps to be largest during the most productive phase of oil palm. Our results indicate that farmers do not adapt their labor and fertilizer inputs to the higher resource demand of the palm. In general, significant determinants of yield gaps are management practices such as fertilizer dosage, length of harvesting intervals and plant mortality. Supported smallholders perform relatively better compared to independent farmers. In summary, our study shows that there is large potential to increase productivity of smallholder oil palm systems in Sumatra. In order to exploit this opportunity, farmers' awareness about the changing management requirements of oil palm over the plantation life cycle needs to be enhanced.

Farmers' cultivation choices affect the natural cycles of crops and impact their production. By assessing the farming activities, as influenced by crop types, land suitability and cultivation choices, the effectiveness of agricultural practices in terms of environmental impact can be evaluated. The study of the relationships between agriculture, environment and economic performance should be deepened, by considering the connection between agricultural activities and the use of natural resources beyond the economic issues, which are often taken as the unique or, at least, the main goal of human activities. The aim of this paper is to assess and to analyse in a comparative way the environmental and economic results of a crop production system at farm level. The methodology for the evaluation of environmental performance is based on a modified version of the Ecological Footprint account, used to measure the demand for natural resources linked to the farm's operations, which is compared with the Biocapacity of the crop system itself. The economic performances are assessed by means of crops' analytical budgets. The results provided by the case study analysis show that the considered farm cropping system reports an overall positive ecological balance (+ 2.4 gha) together with an acceptable gross margin (16,200 €). It emerges that crops with negative environmental performances sustain farm income, while the crops with a positive ecological balance bring a very limited contribution to economic profitability. Such results lead to some considerations about the importance of carefully considering the trade-off between economic and environmental consequences of farming activities in order to drive farmers towards a more sustainable behaviour.

In agriculture the systems approach has almost become orthodoxy. It is widely accepted as an intellectual framework for implementing change. This paper argues that current systems thinking, in seeking to define the sociological underpinnings of the systems movement, fails to address adequately unequal power in human organizations. This paper is concerned with power. It begins by emphasizing the multiplier effect of technology in bringing about change. It then argues that technology is not neutral since changes in practices brought by technological innovations also result in social changes. The theme is developed that the direction and implementation of technological change must confront the politics of power. A perspective for action in the social world is proposed based on an analysis of power in organizations in terms of authority and influence and on the resolution of conflict between interest groups and coalitions by negotiation, using the power-dependence theory. This leads to a framework for implementing change which employs the systems approach in the analysis of natural world systems and a power perspective for action in the social world.

It is generally accepted that farmers operating in traditional agricultural systems are highly efficient, given the resources and technology available to them. This has led to farm policies in third world countries which place a high emphasis on capital investments. This paper uses a frontier production function analysis to generate firm specific efficiency indices for traditional farms in three different areas in northern Nigeria. Computed indices are then employed in identifying both inter- and intra-area efficiency differentials. The relationships between technical efficiency and commonly used farm performance measures are also examined. The results indicate that efficiency scores range between 0·67 and 1·00. This implies that least efficient farmers could have obtained gross value of output 24–36% above their actual output. Thus, the results reported in this paper are not in total support of the conventional belief that no increase in traditional agricultural output is possible by a more efficient use of factors at the disposal of farmers. One implication of these findings is that extension programmes based on the experience of more successful farmers, even with traditional practice, can yield modest dividends.

Despite numerous empirical studies on the determinants of diffusion of chemical technologies among farmers in Nigeria, a reappraisal of the issue is undertaken in this paper. The need arises because previous studies assume that all potential adopters have equal opportunity to adopt an innovation and focus, therefore, upon individual characteristics to explain differences in the level of adoption over time. This paper assumes that the opportunity to adopt an innovation is unequal; hence, factors related to the supply of the innovation are considered alongside with the ‘demand’ factors. Evidence in this paper indicates that the ‘demand’ factors, such as farm size, product prices, degree of farm enterprise diversification, experience, total number of previous adopters and chemical cost, are statistically significant and have the expected sign. Furthermore, the ‘supply’ factors, such as the quantity of chemical available for sale, number of chemical distribution stations, frequency of extension contact and advertisement expenditure, are also statistically significant and have the expected sign. It is, therefore, suggested that, to enhance the diffusion of cocoa-spraying chemicals among Nigerian cocoa farmers, there is need for a policy which will emphasise adequate and prompt supply of chemicals to them as well as the provision of adequate information about the technology to farmers using all available media.

The management of production and marketing of short season, short shelf-life crops presents some special difficulties due to the limited time the product can be marketed. This paper analyses the mango industry in Australia as typical of crops with these characteristics. It develops a methodology for the analysis of current and future production and marketing potential. The seasonal production from each mango-growing district can be described by a normal curve. The timing and length of the season for each district is determined primarily by climate (heat units). Based on these features, a production model is constructed which forecasts mango outputs for all districts in tonnes per week with inputs of tree numbers, tree age and yield per tree. The three markets for mangoes are domestic fresh fruit, domestic processing and export. Current fresh fruit throughputs and prices have been quantified for the main metropolitan markets. For the Brisbane market, typical of others, a price-throughput-time model is generated showing that the expected negative relationship between price and supply is amplified as the season progresses. A substantially constant price range is superimposed on this price-supply relationship, reflecting consumer assessments of quality. The markets for processing and export are also explored. The paper provides a valuable aid to decision making in the mango industry based on modelling both production and marketing trends.

This paper examines the economics of egg production of forty co-operative farms in South-Western Nigeria. In the paper, cost functions are analysed by the use of ordinary least squares and weighted least squares. The impact of different factors of production on revenues was computed by fitting a production function that related total revenue to inputs. Results of the analysis indicated that productive inputs appeared to be combined in fixed proportions over all sizes of co-operative farms. Feed was found to account for over two-thirds of the costs on co-operative farms.

Most definitions of organic farming emphasise a holistic approach that combines quality production with sustainable practices and positive impact on resource conservation, biodiversity and animal welfare. Its founding values were also connected to small-scale production, minimisation of external inputs use, diversification and short market circuits. In the last two decades, organic farming has grown very rapidly, resulting in the subordination of its values to market forces. There has been a greater specialisation, an increase of scale, the involvement of large multinational corporations and the inclusion in global trade. This conventionalisation process and the connected certification standards, primarily focussed on banning the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers, may weaken the vision of organic farming as a more sustainable alternative to conventional farming. This paper aims to identify the factors that influence the choice of organic farmers for more sustainable practices that go beyond the strict limits imposed by certification. A probabilistic model was estimated using survey data collected from 352 Italian and Portuguese certified organic farmers. The results show that women and farmers longest engaged in organic farming are more likely to adopt sustainable practices. They also indicate that farm size, land ownership, the existence of some types of complementary activities and the sources of information used by farmers affect the adoption of such practices.

Crop residues have several uses in smallholder mixed crop-livestock systems. This paper examines determinants of households’ maize stover use as livestock feed, fuel and soil amendment in maize-based systems in Ethiopia. In these systems maize stover is primarily used as feed (56% of biomass) and fuel (31%), with the feed use share negatively associated with maize production potential. We develop a Seemingly Unrelated Regression model to capture the interdependence of crop residue uses. Results show extension training on crop residue retention in the field results in more residue use for soil amendment and less for feed. Farmers with more livestock tend to use more residues for feed and less for soil mulch. Cropping pattern, farm size, agro-ecology and crop residue production also influence crop residue utilization. Conservation agriculture interventions have implications for crop residue use and need to consider access to information, cropping patterns, resources endowments and other socio-economic factors in their development and targeting.

This paper describes the economic, environmental, and energy issues of the farm to biorefinery continuum related to production of ethanol from soluble sugars recovered from sweet sorghum using the BE3 (bioenergy economics, energy, and environmental) model methodology. A comparative analysis of five process configurations was conducted to determine how process decentralization affects the total production system. An increased integration of on-farm processing resulted in a moderate increase in the breakeven sales price of ethanol ($0.08/L), however the substantial increase in value-added agricultural practices (approximately 180%) can offer greater returns to the farm operation. Benefits outside the scope of this analysis related to decentralized processing include: increased rural development, reductions in transportation requirements, additional income to farmers, and dissipation of some environmental impacts. Using a single parameter sensitivity analysis for those process configurations the greatest economic impacts were found to be related to conversion efficiency, crop yield, and press efficiency. Conservative values were used throughout the process modeling procedure (e.g. crop yield, Brix level of juice, conversion efficiency, and by-product usage), yet with system optimization, breakeven sales price could be significantly decreased.