Agricultural producers have been experiencing significant income pressures, leading to a search for alternative sources of income. One of such is value-added agricultural businesses that allow the farmers to stay on the farm and undertake entrepreneurial ventures to improve their finances. How do farmers make sense of their environment as they consider their options for value-added business ven...

The paper reports the first results of the EU funded Project WADI (Sustainability of European Irrigated Agriculture under Water Directive and Agenda 2000). The objective of the WADI project is to evaluate the economic, social and environmental sustainability of European irrigated farming under different scenarios concerning water policy and the Common Agricultural Policy. The methodology relies...

This paper examines the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) related capital assets and employment of information workers in the private non-farm sector of the US economy. The results from our empirical analysis based on annual data for 59 industries from 2002 to 2007 indicate that, after controlling for relative wages of information workers and other industry-spe...

This study evaluates the off-farm labor response of rural households participating in the Grain for Green program in China, the largest conservation set-aside program in the developing world. Using a panel data set that we designed and implemented, we examine the impact of the program on changes in off-farm labor participation between 1999 (pre-program) and 2004 (post-program) using a differenc...

As farm income from tobacco production has declined in recent years, there has been increasing interest in identifying alternative sources of income for tobacco farmers in the southern United States The recent termination of the tobacco quota program has accelerated the exit of tobacco farmers and has heightened concern regarding the availability of substitutes for tobacco production. In this s...

China’s new round tenure reform has devolved collective forests to individuals on an egalitarian basis. To balance the equity–efficiency dilemma, forestland transfers are highly advocated by policymakers. However, the forestland rental market is still inactive after the reform. To examine the role of off-farm employment in forestland transfers, a simultaneous Tobit system of equations was emplo...

There is an emerging consensus that the well-being of rural households improve with the blending of farm activities with non-farm economic activities. The diversification of rural livelihood positively impacts the well-being of the rural households. Eastern states however remained laggard in rural transformation due to myriad of endogenous as well as exogenous factors. With uneven distribution ...

UNLABELLED While studies have looked at the relationship of adolescent employment with health outcomes and risk behaviors, few have focused on children of hired farm workers. These children face unique challenges affecting their health and work environment. Exploring the frequency and nature of agricultural work characteristics among adolescent children of Hispanic hired farm workers is importa...