BACKGROUND A recent Lancet article reported the first reliable estimates of suicide rates in India. National-level suicide rates are among the highest in the world, but suicide rates vary sharply between states and the causes of these differences are disputed. We test whether differences in the structure of agricultural production explain inter-state variation in suicides rates. This hypothesis...

Improving nitrogen (N) use efficiency in crop production is important for obvious economic and environmental reasons. Nitrogen fertilization of corn usually provides the greatest return on investment of any crop input; therefore, farmers and their agricultural advisors must insure adequate N is available for the crop to maximize yields and economic returns. Soil contains N in organic (soil orga...

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the impact of financial assistance to farms on crop biodiversity in an uncertain setting. The findings reveal that risk aversion is an important driving force for crop biodiversity conservation. Riskaverse farmers can hedge against the uncertainty they face by allocating land to different crop species. However, policies intended to sta...

ABSTRACT-The agricultural sector encompasses activities that are exposed to diverse risks. Risks in the agricultural sector are unavoidable but manageable. Crop insurance is a management tool in the agricultural sector. Crop insurance is a strategy to cope with the production risks of the agricultural sector and to secure farmers’ income in the future. Mango is a major horticul...

We specify a three-stage production function for rice cultivation which incorporates the sequential nature of both production shocks, including weather, and input choices based on sequentially updated information sets of history of realized shocks and observed changes in crop growth. The production function is CES across stages, thus taking into account substantial complementarities between dif...

Seed is the most important input to harvest a good crop. The potential yield of crop depends on the quality of the seed used for cultivation of crop. Use of quality seeds alone can enhance the crop productivity by 15-25%. One of the main reasons for low productivity of crops is unavailability of reliable quality seeds in the local markets. To enhance productivity, seed should be of high quality...

Introduction There are several methods to manage corn rootworms, including crop rotation, rootworm insecticides, and corn rootworm (CRW) transgenic traits. The use of CRW transgenic traits in corn hybrids has allowed farmers to manage CRW without using soil-applied insecticides. However, rootworm populations resistant to the transgenic traits have been confirmed in Iowa, leading some farmers to...

We examine the existence and identify the sources of advantageous selection in the Philippine crop insurance program for corn. Out of the many potential sources considered, we find that using hybrid instead of genetically modified seeds is a source of advantageous selection in this market as farmers who use hybrid seeds purchase more insurance and are also more productive. We also find that far...

In the ear’ly 1980s, however, it became evident that farm exports would decline and that farm income growth would fall short of earlier expectations. From 1980 to 1986, farmers lost $293 billion in equity as farm real estate values declined to r’eflect the lower’ earning potential. Moreover, as crop prices fell by 14,4 percent from 1980 to 1986, many farmers were unable to meet their debt oblig...