This Elmhirst lecture first discusses the features of the institutional environment which allow rural people in low income countries to design, plan and implement their own rural development. These are divided into two broad groups: the institutional environment for rural development (environment for the private sector, communities and civil society, local government, and sector institutions) a...

Water is an essential input for agricultural production. Agriculture, in turn, is globalized through the trade of agricultural commodities. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model that emphasizes four tradeoffs involving water-use decision-making that are important yet not always considered in a consistent framework. One tradeoff focuses on competition for water among different economic s...

A weakening dependence on rain-fed agriculture has been a hallmark of the economic transformation of countries throughout history. Rural citizens in developing countries today , however, remain highly exposed to fluctuations in the weather. This exposure affects the incomes these citizens earn and the prices of the foods they eat. Recent work has documented the significant mortality and morbidi...

International trade networks are manifestations of a complex combination of diverse underlying factors, both natural and social. Here we apply social network analytics to the international trade network of agricultural products to better understand the nature of this network and its relation to patterns of international development. Using a network tool known as triadic analysis we develop tria...

Bargaining, Strategic Reserves, and International Trade in Exhaustible Resources Author(s): Vincent P. Crawford, Joel Sobel and Ichiro Takahashi Reviewed work(s): Source: American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Nov., 1984), pp. 472-480 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1...

Cultivated plants have been selected by humans for increased yield in a relatively benign environment, where nutrient and water resources are often supplemented, and biotic enemy loads are kept artificially low. Agricultural weeds have adapted to this same benign environment as crops and often have high growth and reproductive rates, even though they have not been specifically selected for yiel...

Agricultural biotechnology holds a unique position in formulating food and trade policies due to its conflicting aspects: its potential to improve food security especially in developing countries, and the intense debates over its risks and unknown impacts on human health and the environment. Agricultural biotechnology, nevertheless, has been widely utilized to help enhance food security with it...

As we know, the decentralized management of agricultural production is inconsistent with the big market and circulation in our country. Facing this situation, we suggest strong enterprise construct third party agricultural public trade platform under the guide of the government in a way of market-based operation. The drive to build such platform from government, enterprises, peasant and agricul...