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Pakistan is listed among the countries that are extremely vulnerable to climate changes and it has experienced several climatic and natural disaster shocks with adverse impacts on its agricultural sector and farmers livelihoods. This study investigates adaptation to climate change as a means of farm survival and farm exit in Pakistan by using panel datasets and empirically employs Multinomial Logit Model (MLN) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The results reveal, first, farm experience significantly increases the likelihood of climate change adaptation and decreases the likelihood of farm exit. Second, land and livestock ownership both have positive and significant impact on farm survival with adaptation strategies and decrease the probability of farm exit. Third, climatic disasters have positive and significant impact on farm exit. Four, extension services have negative and significant impact on adaptation strategies and increase the probability of farm exit for those farms who did not receive climate change adaptation strategies information timely. Finally, TPB results illustrate that non-adapters climate change future intensions are affected by attitude, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms. The study findings bring scholars and policymakers attentions towards next level of climate change impact on farm exit, and are useful for farm survival and recruiting new farmers by promoting mixed-crop livestock production systems in the face of climate change, and during viral diseases such as Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) of animals that caused a large number of animals deaths nationally and internationally.

Agriculture is a primary source of livelihoods in developing countries. The process of entry and exit of farming activities continues to play an important role in maintaining competition in agriculture and allocating resources between agriculture and other sectors. However, climate changes and other economic and social shocks have been severely affecting farmers’ livelihoods. This article examines rural household livelihood transition in the context of farm entry and exit decisions in rural Pakistan. Using 1867 rural household survey data, we brought insights into how livelihood assets, climate shocks, climate investment and locational characteristics affect their farm entry and exit decisions. The results indicate that the proportion of farm entry (24%) was higher than that of farm exit (15%). The major factors were crop inputs using as credit with a huge markup, crop inputs sold by farmers on net cash in financial crisis, climate shocks and poor climate investment that contributed to farm exit. They were household head characteristics, land ownership (family farm), and livestock ownership that increased the likelihood of farm entry decisions. Farm exit decisions were significantly and positively associated with household migration status, irrigation water shortage, off-farm income, crop input used as credit, crop diseases, climate shocks and lack of local government role in sharing climate knowledge. Furthermore, Propensity Score Matching (PSM) results found that the entry decision significantly decreases household income, while the exit decision significantly increases household income and food security status. These findings provide insights into farm entry and exit for those who are planning livelihood transition, and offer recommendations on how to overcome the constraints faced by farming businesses, agricultural sustainability, self-sufficiency and food security during the transition nationally and internationally.

The aggravation of extreme weather events has dramatically increased the risk of severe water shortages and seriously threatened agricultural production. The Huang-Huai-Hai region, an important agricultural production region in China, is subject to a severe water shortage and is often hit by drought. As a result, water-saving technologies (WSTs) have been implemented. It remains unclear how effectively these WSTs can reduce crop yield loss, crop yield variation, and the loss of net crop income caused by water scarcity. Therefore, this paper aimed to analyze the role of WSTs in response to drought by establishing a multi-objective expected utility function based on 988 farmers across the Huang-Huai-Hai region. Econometric analysis employing an endogenous switching regression model showed that using WSTs can significantly reduce crop yield loss and net income loss caused by drought. Adopting household-based WSTs or community-based water-saving technology generates even greater positive effects on crop yield and farmers’ net income. Therefore, the government should promote farmers’ adoption of more advanced WSTs by increasing subsidies and strengthening policy support.

Using a logistic model, this paper empirically investigated farmers' perception of climate change and its determinants based on a field survey of 1 350 rural households across five major grain producing provinces in China. The results show: i) There is an apparent difference in perception levels for long-term temperature and precipitation changes. Specifically, 57.4% of farmers perceived the long-term temperature change correctly, but only 29.7% of farmers perceived the long-term precipitation change correctly; ii) The factors influencing the farmers' perceptions are almost completely different between precipitation and temperature, the former are mostly agriculture related, while latter are mostly non-agriculture related, except for farm size; and iii) Farmers are not expected to pay more attention to long-term precipitation changes over the crop growing seasons, because less than 30% of farmers can correctly perceive long-term precipitation change. Therefore, to improve the accuracy of farmers' perceptions of climate change, the government is recommended to: i) enhance education and training programs; ii) speed up land transfer and expand household land farm size; iii) develop farmer cooperative organizations; iv) invest more in agricultural infrastructure, specifically in major grain producing regions; and v) improve the agricultural environment and increase farming income.

Water availability is a major constraint on grain production in China, therefore, improving irrigation efficiency is particularly important when agriculture faces extreme weather events. This paper first calculates irrigation efficiency with a translog stochastic frontier production function and then investigates what happens when extreme weather events occur via a Tobit model. The estimated results reveal several important features of irrigation practices: i) irrigation efficiency is lower when extreme weather events occur; ii) large variations in irrigation efficiency occur across irrigation facilities; iii) the farm plots exhibit an extreme distribution across efficiency levels; and iv) water-saving techniques, technology adoption, and the maintenance of farmers’ economic resilience are major determinants of irrigation efficiency. Based on these results we propose the following recommendations: i) farmers should balance crop yield and water use; undertake relevant training programs and adopt water-saving techniques; ii) local governments and researchers should help farmers to find the optimal level of irrigation water use based on their own circumstances and provide better water-saving techniques and training programs rather than simply encouraging farmers to invest in irrigation facilities in the most extreme weather years; and iii) the income level of farm households should be increased so as to improve their resilience to natural disasters.

From 1985, an increasing gap has emerged between the official statistical measures of meat production and meat consumption in China, which has raised concerns from many researchers using such data. In this paper we report the results of 428 observations (survey of 107 urban and rural households×4 quarters) from 7 provinces conducted in 2010, and compare them with the official statistical data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC). We conclude that the main reason for the discrepancy is due to the underreporting of consumption, which is due mainly to the omission of consumption away from home.

Investigates the time-series properties for the balanced estimates of Great Britain's gross domestic product (GDP) from 1870-1913. Analysis of findings related to the GDP estimates; Doubts on the existence of long-swings phenomena in Great Britain prior to 1914; Disparate properties of the balanced and compromise GDP estimates.