This paper explores resource allocation decisions in Kenyan rangelands. We analyse choice decision of the producer to enter or not to enter livestock production, and the optimal herd size that is expected to yield maximum benefits to the herder. We apply the Heckman two-stage estimation procedure to correct for selectivity bias in the livestock production, optimal income and optimal herd size p...

Livestock have strong empowerment potential, particularly for women. They offer millions of women in the Global South opportunity to provide protein-rich foods home consumption and sale. with income opportunities expand their livelihood portfolios can strengthen women’s decision-making power. Fully realizing livestock’s potential is necessary sustainable livestock development. It requires, thou...

To fulfill the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is useful to understand whether and how specific agricultural interventions improve human health, educational opportunity, and food security. In sub-Saharan Africa, 75% of the population is engaged in small-scale farming, and 80% of these households keep livestock, which represent a critical asset and provide protection aga...

The livestock sector’s potential for contributing to economic development and poverty reduction has so far remained largely untapped, and it is difficult to identify a single developing country where growth of the sector has been unambiguously pro-poor. Livestock have long been treated as an appendage to agriculture, with both policy-makers and development practitioners giving higher priority t...

A need exists to increase both knowledge and recognition of the values associated with ecosystem services and amenities. This article explores the use of hedonic pricing as a tool for eliciting these values. We take a case study approach, valuing several services provided by ecosystems, namely aesthetic quality (views), access to outdoor recreation, and the benefits provided by tree cover in Da...

Consider a decision support system for capital asset acquisitions (Wallingford and Sticklen 1985). The system helps users decide whether to purchase an asset or lease it from another company. Each of these alternatives leads to more specific decisions, such as whether to structure a leasing arrangement as a direct lease, a leveraged lease, or a conditional sale. All of these decisions depend on...

In this paper, we revisit and clarify the celebrated machine maintenance and sale age model of Kamien and Schwartz (KS) involving a machine subject to failure. KS formulate and solve the problem as a deterministic optimal control problem with the probability of the machine failure as the state variable. Thus, they obtain deterministic optimal maintenance and sale date. We study two underlying s...

Savannas worldwide are vital for both socioeconomic and biodiversity values. In these ecosystems, management decisions are based on the perception that wildlife and livestock compete for food, yet there are virtually no experimental data to support this assumption. We examined the effects of wild African ungulates on cattle performance, food intake, and diet quality. Wild ungulates depressed ca...

Abstract Sire selection for beef on dairy crosses plays an important role in livestock systems as it may affect future performance and carcass traits of growing finishing crossbred cattle. The phenotypic variation found has raised concerns from meat packers due to animals with type characteristics. use morphometric measurements help understand the structures sire progeny selecting greater perfo...

This paper addresses the problem of determining the sale price and the production quantity under supply uncertainty. The problem is commonly observed in the agricultural industry. We consider a firm that initially leases farm space in order to grow fruit. The realized amount of fruit supply fluctuates due to weather conditions, diseases, etc. At the end of the growing season, the firm makes two...