The paper examines effects of agricultural extension on crop yields in Kenya controlling for other determinants of yields, notably the schooling of farmers and agro-ecological characteristics of arable land. The data we use were collected by the Government of Kenya in 1982 and 1990, but the estimation results reported in the paper are based primarily on the 1982 data set. The sample used for es...

Teaching planning and decision making in agricultural systems at universities is often theoretically with few practical examples. Regularly there are not enough possibilities to get experience in planning a whole farm business having regard to all enterprises and all kinds of farm planning (production plan, financial plan,...). Making plans of separate parts of the farm without regarding the wh...

Small farms and smallholder farming systems play crucial roles in agricultural development in many developing countries. From the various rural development programs designed to support such farming systems, agricultural extension services are of at most importance. However, the benefit that farmers obtain from these services and the resulting impact depends, to a great extent, by their direct a...

This paper reviews recent development of China’s agricultural domestic support policy, especially the transition from taxing farmers and agriculture to providing direct subsidies to grain production and purchased inputs. A model-based quantitative analysis on the effects of these policy changes has been conducted. Simulation results suggest that recent policy changes have likely achieved the de...

This study examined the influence of socioeconomic variables of farmers on their choice of cassava varieties in Kogi State of Nigeria. A total of 360 cassava farmers were selected through multi-stage random sampling procedure. Data collected through structured questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics, customer-buying behavioral model and dynamic programming model. The results sh...

To quantify the respiratory disease burden among agricultural workers, we examined the 1988-1998 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) "Multiple Cause of Death Data" and the 1988-1994 Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data (NHANES III). Proportionate mortality ratios (PMRs) were determined for 11 respiratory conditions among 6 agricultural groups: crop farm workers, ...

This contribution is based on the personal experiences of the author as a typical crop farmer in Holland in 1925-1991, as a researcher at the Dutch Institute of Agricultural Engineering (19541964), and as the Director of that Institute in the period 1964-1983. In essence, the 20th century developments in mechanized agriculture are considered from a historical perspective. The future of farm mec...

This paper has examined three features of the rural economy in the context of transition of Indian economy: (a) shift in rural employment pattern, (b) trends in rural wages and agricultural growth, and (c) relationships between agricultural wages, productivity and rural non-farm employment (RNFE) in India. The change over of farm employment to non-farm employment has been found higher for male ...

Josephson, Anna Leigh. M.S., Purdue University, December 2013. How Population Density Influences Agricultural Intensification and Productivity: Evidence from Ethiopia. Major Professors: Jacob Ricker-Gilbert, Raymond J.G.M. Florax. We use household-level panel data to estimate how population density impacts agricultural intensification and farm income in Ethiopia. We hypothesize that increases i...