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FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Papers
These working papers consist of intermediate research that may further evolve into academic publications or serve as background or preliminary studies for FAO's flagship publications, divisional series and other major publications.
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Household Vulnerability to Food Security in the Face of Climate Change in Paraguay
Authors: Paul A. Ervin and Lyliana Gayoso de ErvinPublication Date: October 2019More LessClimate change may have devastating effects on agricultural productivity and food security, impacting significantly the poorest households. In this study, we analyse the effect climate change is expected to have on agricultural productivity, caloric consumption, and vulnerability to food insecurity of household agricultural producers in Paraguay. Our results suggest that increasing temperatures and reduced precipitation will reduce agricultural productivity and caloric consumption, and increase vulnerability to food insecurity. Specifically, a 1 percent increase in average maximum temperatures is associated with a 5 percent reduction in agricultural productivity. A 5 percent reduction in agricultural productivity translates into nearly a 1 percent reduction in caloric consumption. Vulnerability to food insecurity in Paraguay is expected to increase by 28 percentage points by 2100 due to climate change, increasing fastest in areas where temperatures are increasing and rainfall is diminishing. We estimate that improvements in infrastructure, farm technology, and education may reduce nearly half of the expected future adverse effects of climate change on household vulnerability to food insecurity. With current climate trends in Paraguay, policy makers will need to prioritize and tailor adaptive and mitigating interventions to the needs of the different geographical locations of the country.
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Economic Development and the Evolution of Internal Migration
Authors: Andrea Cattaneo and Sherman RobinsonPublication Date: August 2019More LessThis paper uses Demographic and Health surveys to estimate internal migration between and within rural and urban areas for 31 countries at different stages of development. The methodological approach is to estimate migration transition matrices indicating the shares of the population (by gender) that move or stay in rural and urban areas over three periods (childhood and two forward periods). Results indicate that rural-to-rural migration is the dominant form of migration in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia that are still relatively less developed. For countries that have already undertaken the path of structural transformation, rural-to-urban migration is greater than intra-rural migration. Sizeable urban to rural migration flows are found in many countries, with rural returnees often contributing substantially to these urban-to-rural flows, which has implications for development options in both rural and urban areas. Return migration to rural areas is particularly large in countries in relatively early phases of development, and higher for males than for females. For the sample of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, on average 61 percent of males and 34 percent of females migrating from urban-to-rural areas are return migrants who lived in rural areas as children. The analysis also confirms anecdotal evidence that migrants move in several steps: in the overall sample of countries, at least 41 percent of males and 36 percent of females who move once will move a second time (or more). Internal migration patterns vary considerably according to gender in some regions of the world; however, in countries that are further along the path of structural transformation, and particularly urbanization, the magnitude of migration flows appears to be similar across genders.
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Climate-Change Vulnerability in Rural Zambia
Authors: Federica Alfani, Aslihan Arslan, Nancy McCarthy, Romina Cavatassi and Nicholas SitkoPublication Date: June 2019More LessThis paper examines the impacts of the El Niño during the 2015/2016 season on maize productivity and income in rural Zambia. The analysis aims at identifying whether and how sustainable land management (SLM) practices and livelihood diversification strategies have contributed to moderate the impacts of such a weather shock. The analysis was conducted using a specifically designed survey called the El Niño Impact Assessment Survey (ENIAS), which is combined with the 2015 wave of the Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Surveys (RALS), as well as high resolution rainfall data from the Africa Rainfall Climatology version 2 (ARC2). This unique, integrated data set provides an opportunity to understand the impacts of shocks like El Niño that are expected to get more frequent and severe in Zambia, as well as understand the agricultural practices and livelihood strategies that can buffer household production and welfare from the impacts of such shocks to drive policy recommendations. Results show that households affected by the drought experienced a decrease in maize yield by around 20 percent, as well as a reduction in income up to 37 percent, all else equal. Practices that moderated the impact of the drought included livestock diversification, income diversification, and the adoption of agro-forestry. Interestingly, the use of minimum soil disturbance was not effective in moderating the yield and income effects of the drought. Policies to support livestock sector development, agroforestry adoption, and off-farm diversification should be prioritized as effective drought resiliency strategies in Zambia.
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Paving the Way to Build Resilience of Men and Women
Authors: Gayatri Koolwal, Marco D’Errico and Ilaria SistoPublication Date: March 2019More LessDespite significant recent improvements in measuring resilience, there are still relevant gaps in the analysis. One of the relatively unexplored aspects of resilience is whether a genderspecific analysis of resilience capacity can become relevant for policy use. This paper contributes to the literature on resilience by analysing a data set with one of the most adopted resilience indicators and highlighting the emerging gaps. There are many reasons why policy makers should be targeting women with their resilience-enhancing activities’. The descriptive analysis, at the individual level, indicates that women — and in particular, older, widowed women — tend to be more likely to live in consumption-poor households. Households with widowed, female heads are more likely to experience food insecurity. Finally, widowed and younger female heads of household, as compared to other female heads, were more likely to suffer persistent shocks and consequent losses. A practical application to the Uganda case study, also, reveals that women’s education appears to play a larger role in mitigating persistent exposure to, and losses from shocks, compared to men’s education. All these reasons suggest that policy makers’ attention should be focused on women. This ultimately translates into the need for better and more gender-specific resilience analysis. In order to move ahead with this, it is necessary to employ better-specified data collection and analysis tools and approaches.
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How Do Extreme Weather Events Affect Livestock Herders' Welfare?
Authors: Valentina Conti, Nicholas J. Sitko and Ada IgnaciukPublication Date: November 2018More LessThis paper examines the impact of the harsh 2012 winter on livestock herding households in Kyrgyzstan and identifies policy options to increase household resilience to such shocks. While existing studies mostly focus on rainfall shocks in tropical or dry climate areas, this analysis examines the exceptionally harsh winter that hit Kyrgyzstan in 2012, which resulted in the death of 25 000 animals. Using a unique household panel survey, merged with observed temperature data, the analysis finds that, on average, the negative effects of the winter shock on household welfare are significant and persistent over time, leading to a 5 percent and a 8 percent decrease in households’ food consumption expenditure in the short- (2011–2013) and medium-run (2011–2016), respectively. When disaggregating by income quantiles, the evidence shows that negative impact is concentrated in the upper quantiles of the welfare distribution. Several policy options are identified as effective in mitigating the negative welfare impacts of the weather shock. First, supporting households to restock their herds following weather shocks is found to significantly improve medium-term welfare by 10 percent relative to those that did not restock. Restocking efforts can be addressed in a holistic manner that takes into account immediate household needs, while simultaneously building long-term resilience in the livestock sector. This may include mitigating animal losses through the development of local forage markets that increase the availability of winter forage, combined with efforts to improve the genetic pool of livestock species through breeding programmes that select for resiliency traits. Second, results show that households living in regions with higher access to public veterinary services had significantly better welfare outcomes following the winter shock. Improvements of veterinary services and strengthening community-based organizations focusing on livestock and pasture development may help herding households to cope with weather shocks.
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Climate Resilience Pathways of Rural Households
Authors: Solomon Asfaw, Giuseppe Maggio and Alessandro PalmaPublication Date: November 2018More LessClimate variability and extreme events continue to impose significant challenges to households, particularly to those that are less resilient. By exploring the resilience capacity of rural Ethiopian households after the drought shock occurred in 2011, using panel data, this paper shows important socio-economic and policy determinants of households’ resilience capacity. Three policy indications emerge from the analysis. First, government support programmes, such as the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), appear to sustain households’ resilience by helping them to reach the level of pre-shock total consumption, but have no impact on the food-consumption resilience. Secondly, the “selling out assets strategy” affects positively households’ resilience, but only in terms of food consumption – not total consumption. Finally, the presence of informal institutions, such as social networks providing financial support, sharply increases households’ resilience by helping them to reach preshock levels of both food consumption and total consumption.
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Cropping System Diversification in Eastern and Southern Africa
Authors: Giuseppe Maggio, Nicholas J. Sitko and Ada IgnaciukPublication Date: September 2018More LessCrop diversification is an important policy objective to promote climate change adaptation, yet the drivers and impacts of crop diversification vary considerably depending on the specific combinations of crops a farmer grows. This paper examines adoption determinants of seven different cropping systems in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, and the impact of their adoption on maize productivity and income volatility – using a multinomial endogenous treatment effect model. These cropping systems consist in different combinations of four categories of crops: dominate staple (maize), alternative staples, legumes, and cash-crops. The study finds that relative to maize mono-cropping systems, the vast majority of systems have either neutral or positive effects on maize productivity, and either reduce or have neutral effects on crop income volatility. In particular, cropping systems that include legumes produce better outcome in most cases than those that feature cash crops. From a policy perspective, three recurrent determinants of diversification are found. First, private sector output market access is an important driver of diversification out of maize mono-cropping. Policies crowding in private output market actors can help to promote a wide range of more diverse cropping systems. Second, proximity to public marketing board buying depots discourages the adoption of more diverse cropping systems. Therefore, reforms to these institutions must be part of any diversification strategy. Finally, in all countries and for all systems, land size is a key determinant of adopting more diverse systems. Thus, land policy is an integral element of any boarder diversification strategy.
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Food Security and Conflict
Authors: Charles Martin-Shields and Wolfgang StojetzPublication Date: September 2018More LessDuring the previous decade there has been an increased focus on the role of food security in conflict processes, both in the academic and policy communities. While the policy community has pushed forward with new programs, the academic debate about the causal linkages between food security and conflict remains debated. This article emphasizes the endogeneity that characterizes the coupling between food (in)security and violent conflict. We make three contributions. First, we define conflict and food security using the standard Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the FAO databases, and illustrate how intervening factors influence the relationship between conflict and food security at the micro and macro levels. Second, we provide a comprehensive review of the literature on linkages between food security and conflict, focusing on findings that account for endogeneity issues and have a causal interpretation. Third, we highlight policy-affecting data gaps beyond endogeneity and chart ways forward to improve the existing bodies of data and support new data collection to fill the academic gaps and support policy making. Our article supports to the ongoing debate around the causal relationship between food security and conflict, while also providing policy makers with analysis of data challenges and opportunities for innovation in food security and peacebuilding.
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The Impact of Markets and Policy on Incentives for Rice Production in Rwanda
Authors: Léopold Ghins and Karl PauwPublication Date: July 2018More LessThe prioritization of rice as a strategic food and cash crop in Rwanda has paid dividends, with production increasing by one-third during 2010–2015. However, production expansion has failed to keep pace with growing consumption demand. In 2015, around 30 percent of national consumption was met by imported long grain rice. The paper aims to single out the constraints which have been preventing the Rwandan rice sector to fully seize market opportunities in recent years. Looking at Nominal Rates of Protection faced by agents in the rice value chain over 2005–15, we find rice producers enjoy significant price incentives, mostly as a result of protective trade measures. Other factors, however, appear to be hindering investments in land, the adoption of modern inputs, and the production of high quality rice that can more readily substitute imports. This evidence is used along with recent literature and stakeholder interviews to formulate policy recommendations.
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Food Security and Armed Conflict
Author: Stijn van WeezelPublication Date: March 2018More LessSignificant progress has been made in improving global food security, yet some countries still face severe challenges. In some cases, violent armed conflict has potentially contributed to local food insecurity due to disruption of food production and agricultural markets. Despite the relevance of this topic in context of tracking global food security, there is a paucity of empirical work examining this cross-country variation. Therefore, this study uses country-level data, covering 106 countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America between 1961–2011, to estimate the relation between conflict and food security. Results show that conflict is associated with a large estimated reduction in the national dietary energy supply and highlight the negative correlation between conflict and food security, illustrating how certain types of conflict could potentially undo years of progress.
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Institutions, Economic Freedom and Structural Transformation in 11 Sub-Saharan Countries
Authors: Alessandro Carraro and Panagiotis KarfakisPublication Date: January 2018More LessGood institutions are a fundamental pre-requisite to successfully achieve structural transformation in growing developing countries (UNECA, 2016). Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a rapid growth but a weak and slow structural transformation process, which is mainly characterized by the reallocation of labour from agriculture to low skilled services. The focus of this paper is to explore how political and economic institutions affect structural transformation in a panel of 11 sub-Saharan African countries. Our empirical analysis reveals a positive and statistically significant effect of quality of institutions and economic freedom measures on structural transformation between sectors, which translates into movement out of agriculture. Better institutions appear to not improve productivity within sectors, however results highlight the important role played by institutions in facilitating reallocation or resources across sectors. Our findings suggest that improving the legal system, providing a stable macroeconomic environment, and improving freedom to exchange across borders will facilitate structural transformation processes in sub-Saharan African countries. We finally recommend that measures undertaken by governments should be included in a set of targeted policies designed according to countries’ characteristics.
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