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The Moroccan agricultural sector employs around 40% of the country's total working population. Since the early 1990s, there has been a striking increase in the proportion of female wage laborers. This article investigates the effect of the gendered composition of the agricultural wage labor force on horticultural farms. We draw on an original data set collected in 2010, comprising 240 agricultural holdings located in the region of Souss Massa. The results suggest that local labor shortages do not play a major role in explaining the ratio of female hired wage laborers. Instead, it seems that quality requirements are encouraging farm holdings to hire a female labor force. [EconLit citations: Q12, O13, J43] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income diversification is considered one of the important household strategies for securing rural livelihoods. We investigate its patterns and determinants using data on 1,747 farm households collected in 2007-2008 from six regions in rural Senegal and Kenya. The empirical investigation shows that the regional variation in income diversification does not follow any clear patterns, with push and pull determinants acting concurrently within and between regions. Therefore, policies on income diversification need to be tailored to meet the development needs of specific regions. More generally, income diversification is significantly associated with household asset endowments, demographic factors, accessibility to rural towns, migration opportunities, and perceptions on food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on the agricultural household literature to understand the dynamics of wage labour on farms in a context of family farming. The recent evolution towards an increased use of seasonal wage labour motivates the original distinction of three types of labour: family labour, permanent-wage labour and seasonal-wage labour. Considering the two wage labour types and hiring cost for seasonal workers, our empirical results based on 2000 French data on fruit and vegetable farms suggest that the choice between hiring permanent or seasonal wage labour is not only determined by the seasonality of the activity. Indeed, the characteristics of the local labour market also affect the trade-off between permanent and seasonal wage labour. This result provides insights on the substitutability of the two labour types, especially when the local labour market is tight. Moreover, the substitution of seasonal-wage labour for permanent-wage labour can occur in the agricultural sector as a mean of increasing flexibility as well as reducing costs and commitments. Finally, family labour is found to substitute for wage labour and more specifically for seasonal-wage labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article studies migration and the diversification of rural economic activities in the Peanut Basin in Sénégal. Data from quantitative and qualitative surveys conducted in two villages of the basin from 2006 to 2007 are used. The authors discuss the decrease in peanut production starting in 1980 as a result of economic and climate factors, the basin's ethnic population including the Wolof, and the three main characteristics of the evolution of internal migration.

In this article, we discuss the efforts made by importers of fresh produce within a voluntary programme on food safety. We show theoretically that the larger the firms the lower their efforts directed at food safety. We test this proposition using original primary data from a voluntary programme implemented by French importers of fresh produce. Our results contrast with evidence from environmental economics that large firms are more likely to be proactive with respect to environmental safeguards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wide range of empirical studies show the extent to which the rise of supermarkets in developing countries transforms domestic marketing channels. In many countries, the exclusion of small producers from so-called dynamic marketing channels (that is, remunerative ones) has become a concern. Based on data collected in Turkey in 2007 at the producer and the wholesale market levels, we show that intermediaries are important to understanding the impact of downstream restructuring (supermarkets) on upstream decisions (producers). Results show first that producers are not aware of the final buyer of their produce, because intermediaries hinder the visibility of the marketing channel, thereby restricting a producer's choice to that of the first intermediary. Econometric results show that producers who are indirectly linked to the supermarkets are more sensitive to their requirements in terms of quality and packaging than to the price premia compensating the effort made to meet standards. Therefore, the results lead us to question the role of the wholesale market agents who act as a buffer in the chain and protect small producers from negative shocks, but who stop positive shocks as well, and thereby reduce incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents empirical work grounded in the soft budget constraint (SBC) literature. A loan is soft when a bank cannot commit the enterprise to hold to a fixed initial budget and/or the timing of repayment. Using data collected by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), 2002) in 26 transition economies, we analyze the determinants of managers’ expectations of having a soft loan. In particular, we find that managers’ expectations are lower when the initial financing requires collateral, and higher for larger firms and when firms had recently experienced financial distress. We also provide evidence that managers’ expectations influence their price responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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An abstract of the article "Migration and diversification of local economic activities: the case of the Peanut Basin in Senegal" by Céline Bignebat and Maam Suwadu Sakho-Jimbira is presented.