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Since the start of seed and other market reforms in the 1990s, the annual number of improved varietal releases for maize in Kenya has increased substantially. Prior to the reforms, private firms were restricted in introducing new varieties, could not protect their intellectual property and farmers had to rely exclusively on improved seeds developed and marketed by the public sector. Reforms have resulted in not only private firms entering the market and releasing improved varieties, but also an increase in varietal releases by the public sector. The purpose of this paper is to review some of the key policy reforms related to maize in Kenya, and their impacts on varietal development and yields.

The authors estimate a yield model that relates national maize yields to a number of input policy variables. The authors employ a two-stage least square regression, as one of the explanatory variables – the number of varietal releases – is likely endogenous with yield. The authors use policy variables such as public R&D, the number of plant breeder’s rights issued, and the years since private varieties have been introduced as instrument variables to estimate their influence new varietal releases directly, and then new varieties, inputs and other policies to measure their impact on yields.

The results show that policy changes such as the introduction of intellectual property rights had an important impact on the number of improved maize varieties released. However, the outcomes of the policy change such as the number of varieties and the share of area under improved varieties has no impact on increasing maize yields. The authors argue that this is because farmers continue to use older improved varieties because of the dominance of a parastatal in the maize, seed market and that newer improved varieties may not have the assumed yield advantage. Future policy and programs should be directed toward increasing the adoption of improved varieties rather than simply releasing them.

This paper provides evidence that while policy change may lead to new varietal development and release, its aggregate productivity impacts may be limited without additional reforms and intervention.

This study examines the heterogeneous correlations between rural farmers' land renting behavior and their grain production when they experienced a significant price decline.

We used well-timed panel data obtained from a two-round survey held in 2013 and 2017 among 621 households in the North China Plain. The empirical analyses were conducted by using the pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) and fixed effects models.

Rural tenants were having heterogeneous responses in land renting behavior and agricultural production when there was a price decline. A group of optimistic tenants (as professional farmers) were more likely to enlarge the farm scale for grain production through land rental markets but decrease variable investment levels (and subsequently decreased productivity) to cope with price decline. In contrast, nonprofessional farmers (the other rural tenants) were rather pessimistic about market performance, and they significantly decreased their grain production area to cope the price decline, but there was no decrease in grain productivity through reducing variable inputs.

This study contributes to the extant literature on the relationship between farmers' land renting-in behavior and agricultural production. By dividing the tenants into professional and nonprofessional farmers, we argue that there is a significant heterogeneous correlation between rural tenants' land renting behavior and grain production when farmers experience a price decline.

Transformation of smallholder agriculture from subsistence to more commercially-oriented production is one of the strategies advocated for improving rural households' food security and general welfare. The purpose of this paper is to assess potential differential effects of smallholder commercialization intensity on the different dimensions of food security.

Using household data from rural Tanzania, the study employed Tobit regression and Generalized Propensity Score (GPS) approaches to analyze smallholder commercialization intensity and associated food security effects.

Results show that smallholder commercialization has heterogeneous effects on the different dimensions of food security. Specifically, lower levels of commercialization are associated with lower food availability, access, utilization and stability. At higher intensities of commercialization, smallholders have higher food availability and access but modest improvements in food utilization and stability. Findings suggests that heterogeneous effects of commercialization on food security and the multi-dimensional nature of food security are important aspects to consider in the design of strategies to improve smallholder agriculture for enhanced food security and welfare.

It is important to point out that while food security is still a complex phenomenon, one that cannot be analyzed easily, so is commercialization. This study has used only one of the many definitions of commercialization.

Most existing literature on smallholder commercialization groups farmers into commercial and subsistence-oriented households. However, smallholders commercialize at various levels of intensity. This paper, conversely, analyzes the potential effects of different levels of commercialization on the various aspects of food security. Further, unlike extensive literature that focus on a narrow definition of food security, this paper expands the evidence of the implications of smallholder commercialization on the different dimensions of food security namely, food availability, access, utilization and stability.

The authors investigated cocoa farmers' access to subsidized fertilizer in Ghana and implications on productivity.

Primary data were sourced from 435 cocoa farmers. Cragg hurdle and two-step Tobit model with continuous endogenous regressors/covariates were applied for the drivers of cocoa farmers' participation in fertilizer subsidy programme and productivity. Propensity score matching (PSM), inverse-probability weights (IPW) and augmented inverse-probability weights (AIPW) were applied for productivity impact assessment of fertilizer subsidy.

All the farmers were aware of fertilizer subsidy for cocoa production in Ghana. Farmers became aware of fertilizer subsidy through extension officers, media and other farmers. Half of cocoa farmers benefitted from fertilizer subsidy. Averagely, cocoa farmers purchased 292 kg of subsidized fertilizer. Many socio-economic, farm-level characteristics and institutional factors determine cocoa farmers' participation in fertilizer subsidy programme, quantity of subsidized fertilizer obtained and productivity. Beneficiaries of fertilizer subsidy recorded higher cocoa productivity than non-beneficiaries. Hence, fertilizer subsidy for cocoa production in Ghana leads to a gain in productivity.

There should be more investments in fertilizer subsidy so that all cocoa farmers benefit and obtain the required quantities.

The authors provide new evidence on cocoa productivity gain or loss emanating from fertilizer subsidy by combining different impact assessment techniques for deeper analysis: PSM, IPW and AIPW.

This study aims to investigate whether the participation in land rental markets helps to mitigate impacts by climate change on multidimensional poverty in Thailand and Vietnam.

The authors use precipitation data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and self-reported shocks from the Thailand Vietnam Socio-Economic Panel (TVSEP) project to estimate climate change. Data from the TVSEP are also used to calculate a multidimensional poverty index (MPI). Fixed-effect logit panel regressions with interaction terms are implemented to analyze the above mentioned.

The results show that land rental markets are used as mitigation strategies to climate change in Thailand and Vietnam. The participation in land rental markets also reduces multidimensional poverty. However, as a mitigation strategy, land rental markets are only successful in certain circumstances.

The results show that there is potential in using land rental markets as mitigation strategies to climate change. Further research is needed to better understand which adaptation strategies, besides land rental market participation, and which combinations of different adaptation strategies are successful to mitigate negative effects induced by climate change.

The results show that there is potential in using land rental markets as mitigation strategies to climate change. Therefore, education in the participation in land rental markets and how to use them as a mitigation strategy can be a way to increase households' resilience to negative effects induced by climate change. Households make better decisions regarding their land when they are better informed on the functionality of land rental markets. Additionally, being better informed increases self-confidence to participate in land-rental markets.

Land rental markets as a mitigation strategy to climate change rarely have been studied, and if so, mainly the effect of leasing land has been studied. Additionally, the authors implement new measures of poverty – a multidimensional view on poverty which provides new insights into who are the poor and how they can be lift out of poverty.

The first Wisconsin Ph.D.s who came to MSU with an institutional bent were agricultural economists and included Henry Larzalere (Ph.D. 1938) whose major professor was Asher Hobson. Larzalere recalls the influence of Commons who retired in 1933. Upon graduation, Larzalere worked a short time for Wisconsin Governor Phillip Fox LaFollette who won passage of the nation’s first unemployment compensation act. Commons had earlier helped LaFollette’s father, Robert, to a number of institutional innovations.⁴ Larzalere continued the Commons’ tradition of contributing to the development of new institutions rather than being content to provide an efficiency apologia for existing private governance structures. He helped Michigan farmers form cooperatives. He taught land economics prior to Barlowe’s arrival in 1948, but primarily taught agricultural marketing. One of his Master’s degree students was Glenn Johnson (see below). Larzalere retired in 1977.

The purpose of this paper is to look forward to explore the links between projected rapid rates of agribusiness expansion and Africa's economic growth, equity and spatial development.

The paper draws inferences from 30 years of agribusiness value chain research in Africa.

Africa's agribusinesses stand poised for exceptionally rapid growth over the coming 40 years. Because of strong interdependencies between agribusiness and agriculture, productivity growth in agribusiness systems will critically affect Africa's overall economic growth rate, its spatial development patterns and progress toward poverty reduction. But the necessary efficiency gains in agribusiness performance will not appear automatically. They will require substantial private investments, a competitive private sector and heightened public attention in areas where governments have historically proven weak: promoting regional trade, improving town and regional planning, financing scientific research, funding higher education and building commercially viable rural financial systems.

Researchers can help by assembling empirical evidence in these topic areas and by examining value chain models that stimulate private sector investment, accelerate efficiency gains and facilitate access and egress by the poor.

Drawing on 30 years of value chain research in Africa, the paper examines links between agribusiness trajectories and economic growth, equity and spatial development.

The most recent and prestigious scientific research shows that nitrogen leaching caused by over-used nitrogen fertilizer rapidly acidifies all soil types in China, revolutionizing the basic understanding of the mechanism of soil acidification. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of nitrogen on soil acidity over the long run, which is the shadow price of nitrogen.

In a discrete dynamic programming model, this paper compares the nitrogen application and soil pH between optimal nitrogen control that takes the shadow price of nitrogen into consideration and myopic nitrogen control that ignores that shadow price. Using a five-year panel experimental data on a rapeseed-rice rotation, this paper simulates and numerically solves the dynamic model.

Both theoretically and empirically, this paper shows that the over-use of nitrogen and the decline in soil pH are explained by ignorance of the shadow price of nitrogen. Compared with optimal nitrogen control, myopic nitrogen control applies more nitrogen in total, resulting in lower soil pH. In addition, over-use in the first season contributes to soil acidification and the carry-over effects mitigate that problem.

This paper enriches the literature by extending the study of the environmental impact of nitrogen leaching to its impact on the long-term loss in agricultural production, providing a new theoretical framework in which to study soil acidification rather than conventionally treating soil acidification as a secondary consequence of acid rain, and showing the possibility of using nitrogen control to mitigate soil acidification when lime applications are not feasible due to socio-economic constraints.