Suchergebnisse

Arising from an International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) project, this book explores the most promising innovations in technology, institutional, and policy approaches for creating additional and better farm business opportunities for smallholder farmers.

The Green Revolution brought modern science to bear on a widening Asian food crisis in the 1960s. The speed and scale with which it solved the food problem was remarkable and unprecedented, and it contributed to a substantial reduction in poverty and the launching of broader economic growth in many Asian countries. Improved cereal varieties, fertilizers, irrigation, and modern pest control methods lay at the heart of the Green Revolution, yet it was much more than a technology fix. It also required a supporting economic and policy environment. The need for markets that could handle the surge in production and the need to educate farmers about the new technology and ensure that they had access to the inputs and receive an adequate reward to their investments, led governments across Asia to actively intervene in launching and implementing the Green Revolution. Government interventions were also important for ensuring that small farmers were included in the revolution and did not get left behind. Even with the success of the Green Revolution, there are remaining social and environmental problems that still need to be resolved and a continuing need to increase yields to meet Asia's growing food needs. There is also urgent need to bring the Green Revolution in an appropriately modified form to Sub-Saharan Africa. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP4; Policy communications; 2020 ; DGO

Modern technology - a combination of modern varieties, increased use of fertilizer and irrigation development - has contributed substantially to increased rice productivity in South and Southeast Asia. However, there has been less consensus whether this technology has increased or decreased production variability. The authors report about a macro-analysis of changes in rice production stability between the period preceding the advent of modern varieties and the period following their release in the Philippines, and contrast these results with a comparable analysis of rice production in India. (DÜI-Sen)

Drought is a recurrent and often devastating threat to the welfare of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where three-quarters of the arable land has less than 400 mm of annual rainfall, and the natural grazings, which support a majority of the 290 million ruminant livestock, have less than 200 mm. Its impact has been exacerbated in the last half century by the human population increasing yearly at over 3%, while livestock numbers have risen by 50% over the quinquennium. Virtually no scope exists for further expansion of rainfed farming and very little for irrigation, hence there is competition between mechanized cereal production and grazing in the low rainfall areas, and traditional nomadic systems of drought management through mobility are becoming difficult to maintain. Moreover droughts seem to be increasing in frequency, and their high social, economic, and environmental costs have led governments to intervene with various forms of assistance to farmers and herders, including distribution of subsidized animal feed, rescheduling of loans, investments in water development, and in animal health. In this paper we examine the nature and significance of these measures, both with respect to their immediate benefits and costs to the recipients and to governments, and to their longer term impact on poverty and the environment. We conclude that while they have been valuable in reducing catastrophic losses of livestock and thus alleviating poverty, especially in the low rainfall areas where they are the predominant source of income, continued dependence on these programs has sent inappropriate signals to farmers and herders, leading to moral hazards, unsustainable farming practices, and environmental degradation, while generally benefiting the affluent recipients most. ; Non-PR ; GRP5; IFPRI1 ; EPTD

Natural disasters can be extremely disruptive to farmers and to others whose incomes depend on a successful crop. Society can gain from more efficient sharing of crop and natural disaster risks. However, the costs associated with traditional agricultural risk programs have historically exceeded the gains from improved risk sharing. This paper explores government intervention in agricultural risk markets and discusses new approaches to risk sharing with limited government involvement. In particular, we build the case for introducing negotiable state-contingent contracts settled on area crop yield estimates or locally appropriate weather indices. These instruments could replace traditional crop insurance at a lower cost to government while meeting the risk management needs of a wider clientele. ; IFPRI3 ; EPTD ; Non-PR

Developing countries allocate scarce government funds to investments in rural areas to achieve the twin goals of agricultural growth and poverty alleviation. Choices have to be made between different types of investments, especially infrastructure, human capital and agricultural research, and between different types of agricultural regions, e.g., irrigated and high- and low-potential rainfed areas. This paper develops an econometric approach and provides empirical evidence on the impact of government investments in rural India using district-level data. While irrigated areas played a key role in agricultural growth during the Green Revolution era, our results show that it is now the rainfed areas, including many less-favored areas that offer the most growth for an additional unit of investment. Moreover, investments in rainfed areas have a much larger impact on poverty alleviation, making this a win-win development strategy. These results have important policy implications, and challenge conventional thinking that public investments in rural India should always be targeted to irrigated and other high-potential areas. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP3; Theme 9 ; EPTD; DSGD

Natural disasters can be extremely disruptive to farmers and to others whose incomes depend on a successful crop. Society can gain from more efficient sharing of crop and natural disaster risks. However, the costs associated with traditional agricultural risk programs have historically exceeded the gains from improved risk sharing. This paper explores government intervention in agricultural risk markets and discusses new approaches to risk sharing with limited government involvement. In particular, we build the case for introducing negotiable state-contingent contracts settled on area crop yield estimates or locally appropriate weather indices. These instruments could replace traditional crop insurance at a lower cost to government while meeting the risk management needs of a wider clientele. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1 ; EPTD

Developing countries have to allocate limited government resources for rural areas among different investment activities and regions to achieve the twin goals of productivity growth and poverty alleviation. This is particularly important at a time when many countries are facing severe financial constraints. This paper develops a framework and provides empirical evidence on the impact of government investments in technology, irrigation, education and infrastructure on agricultural productivity growth and rural poverty reduction in rural India. The results reveal that government investments in more favored areas played significant roles during the green revolution period. But the marginal returns from additional government investments in these areas have declined in more recent years. It is now the less-favored areas where marginal returns are higher. This result has important policy implications for where government investments should be targeted in order to achieve further productivity growth and rural poverty reductions. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP3; Theme 9 ; EPTD; DSGD

Problems associated with risks in agriculture are one of the reasons that many governments intervene directly in agricultural product and factor markets. Risk-related interventions include guaranteed prices, subsidized credit, and publicly provided crop insurance. Such interventions can be expensive, both in their cost to the national exchequer and in their effects on aggregate resource allocation. Even then, they may not be effective in achieving their goals. This book is addressed to the question of whether and how governments should intervene in providing formal risk-sharing institutions to assist farmers. It is particularly concerned with crop insurance and in providing guidance as to when it is a relevant public policy intervention and how it can most effectively be used. ; PR ; IFPRI1