Policy makers in the United States often justify agricultural subsidies by stressing that agriculture is the engine of the rural economy. We use the increase in crop prices in the late 2000s to estimate the marginal effect of increased agricultural revenues on local economies in the U.S. Heartland. We find that $1 more in crop revenue generated 64¢ in personal income, with most going to farm pr...

Appendix 2 Social Accounting Matrices The archetypes were built on the basis of aggregate information for a set of low income food importing countries in the three continents, and social structure coming from Social Accounting Matrices from Kenya for the Africa Archetype, Sri Lanka for the Asia archetype, and Ecuador for the Latin America archetype. The Africa archetype is based on aggregate in...

This study examined the diffusion and perceived impact of agricultural-based mobile phone use among smallto medium-size limited-resource farm holders in Kamuli District, Uganda, where 42% of farm households now have a mobile phone. Interviews were conducted with 110 smallto medium-size farm holders – 56 men and 54 women. Respondents were chosen according to farm group (n=91) or non-farm group (...

This paper presents a spatial multi-agent programming model, which has been developed for assessing policy options in the diffusion of innovations and resource use changes. Unlike conventional simulation tools used in agricultural economics, the model class described here applies a multi-agent/cellular automata (CA) approach by using heterogeneous farm-household models and capturing their socia...

agricultural extension workers’ service has been placed as the central pattern of agricultural transformation in general and smallholder farmers in particular. due largely to this commensurately known trend, identifying factors that determine farmers’ access to extension workers’ service and the effect of the service on crop yield was found to be imperative. cross sectional data was collected t...

Many fear China’s accession to WTO will impoverish its rural people, via greater import competition in its agricultural markets. We explore that possibility bearing in mind that, even if producer prices of some (land-intensive) farm products fall, prices of other (labor-intensive) farm products could rise. Also, the removal of restrictions on exports of textiles and clothing could boost town an...

This study contributes to pioneering literature on the impact of mobile phone-based money transfer, especially in agriculture. It provides information regarding financial intermediation to the excluded through the use of new generation Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools, especially the mobile phone. The study employs propensity score matching technique to examine the impact of MMT...

An empirical model, based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, was developed to test the hypothesis that differences in farmers goals, objectives and attitudes are a determinant of strategic and entrepreneurial behaviour and will, therefore, result in differences in farm size. The theory states that a person s behaviour results from his/her goals and intentions, attitudes, perceived behavioural ...

Agricultural income volatility has become a major hurdle for Irish farmers and policymakers to overcome in their drive to increase investment, production and ultimately income in the sector. This paper studies data from 927 farms in the Teagasc National Farm Survey between 2005 and 2013, the first 9 years of the decoupled subsidy era. The primary income support for European farmers, the single ...