Takeshima, Hiroyuki

Akramov, Kamiljon

Djanibekov, Nodir

Abduvalieva, Nilufar

Mirkasimov, Bakhrom

Economic resilience within the agrifood system is becoming increasingly crucial for assuring sustainable development. This is particularly so in regions with volatile and fragile environments, including Central Asia. Evidence remains scarce regarding what factors can enhance the economic resilience of agents within the agrifood system, including the resilience of productivity and technical efficiency. We partly fill this knowledge gap using the unique panel datasets of farm enterprises in Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan, collected in 2019 and 2022, during which these enterprises experienced significant economic shocks in input prices. Using novel methods that combine Inverse Probability Weighting and panel stochastic frontier analyses models, we show that farmers who received more agricultural training and who had been granted greater autonomy in their production decisions in 2018 experienced greater resilience in technical efficiency despite the need to reduce the use of chemical fertilizer and oil/diesel in response to their price surges. Our findings suggest that providing critical public goods like information (related to training) and enabling environment (related to decision-making autonomy) can potentially enhance the resilience in the technical efficiency of farm enterprises. Furthermore, with chemical fertilizer and oil/diesel being potentially environmentally harmful inputs, these farmers also indirectly demonstrated resilience toward environmental sustainability.

Resilience in farm technical efficiency and enabling factors: Insights from panel farm enterprise surveys in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

Lawal, Akeem

Demand for mechanization in Nigeria is growing in a fairly consistent way predicted by economic theories. The farming system has intensified and the use of animal traction has grown at a substantial rate. Demand side factors considerably explain the low adoptions of tractors in Nigeria. Where demand is sufficient for tractors, the private sector has emerged over time as a more efficient provider of hiring services (particularly farmer-tofarmer services) than the public sector. Conditions are consistent with the hypotheses that, because of generally low support for the agricultural sector in Nigeria in the past few decades, agricultural mechanization (tractor use in particular) has remained low despite the declining share of the workforce engaged in the agricultural sector. Agricultural transformation in the form of a declining agricultural labor force has happened partly through the growth in the oil industry since the 1970s. Instead of inducing further exit from farming, tractor adoptions in Nigeria might have helped those who have remained in farming to start expanding their production scale. A knowledge gap, however, still remains regarding the dominance of large tractors and the potential effects of tractor adoptions on smallholders who have yet to adopt them.

Overview of the evolution of agricultural mechanization in Nigeria

Andam, Kwaw S.

Edeh, Hyacinth

Knowledge gaps remain as to how longer-term public investments (PI) such as agricultural research and development (R&D), and short-term interventions through other public expenditures in agriculture (PEA) complement each other in enhancing productivity and efficiency in the agrifood sector. This study attempts to partly fill this gap by using nationally representative panel household survey data, subnational PEA data, locations of national agricultural R&D, and various spatial agroclimatic data in Nigeria. The analyses generally indicate that marginal returns to agricultural inputs/services (fertilizer, agricultural mechanization, irrigation, extension, agricultural equipment, and family labor) often increase by PI that raise overall agroclimatic similarity (AS) (through R&D locations), as well as increase PEA-share by subnational governments. There is often complementarity between these PI and PEA, particularly for extension services, investment in agricultural equipment, irrigation, and in the northern part of the country. Promoting further adoptions of modern inputs/services, increasing PEA-share, and selecting PI for agricultural R&D given in-country variations in agroclimatic conditions can help raise agricultural profitability and incomes in Nigeria.

Roles of public expenditures and public investments on the demand and productivity of agricultural inputs/services: Some insights from Nigeria

Zone, Phoo Pye

Win, Myat Thida

Masias, Ian

Mechanization service providers (MSP) in Myanmar were originally interviewed by telephone in May, June, July, and November 2020, covering mostly combine-harvester SPs (CHSP) and tractor SPs (TSP), to determine how their businesses were being affected by COVID-19 related restrictions. The results of those surveys were published in Myanmar Strategy Support Program Policy Notes 07, 12, 17, and 39, respectively. To trace the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their economic activities, a fifth phone survey of MSPs was done in mid-December 2020, administered mostly to SPs in harvesting activities. This Note reports on the results of the fifth survey, as well as on some trends from the earlier surveys.

Takeshima, Hiroyuki

Books

Your next favorite book is out there