Kaiyu Lyu

This study aims to examine the influence of crop insurance on the utilization of chemical fertilizers using plot-level data. The dataset utilized in this analysis consists of information obtained from 1039 participants residing in four major grain-producing provinces (Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Henan, and Sichuan) in China. To address the potential issue of endogeneity, instrumental variables were employed to establish a causal relationship within the empirical model. The findings of this study indicate that crop insurance does not exert a statistically significant impact on overall fertilizer input in China. Nonetheless, the effect varies across different categories of farmers. Specifically, large-scale farmers experience a moderate reduction in fertilizer input as a result of crop insurance, while small-scale farmers do not demonstrate a significant effect. It is essential to strike a balance between risk protection and the potential influence of moral hazard in order to enhance future crop insurance policies.

Rice productivity needs to be increased to feed Bangladesh’s growing population. Productivity can be increased by adopting improved varieties and management practices, which require additional capital inputs. In this article, we aim to e...

Rice agriculture provides millions of households with a steady source of income and employment. However, for small and marginal farmers, the exorbitant cost of production inputs presents a formidable obstacle in their pursuit of acquiring it. Credit constraints are a significant impediment to the adoption of agricultural technologies. Therefore, this paper identifies the determinant of access to rural credit and its impact on Boro rice production technology adoption in Bangladesh using cross-sectional data. The study employed probit regression, propensity score matching (PSM), inverse probability weighting (IPW), and inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) techniques. The findings indicate that age, family size, working members, and involvement in safety net programs negatively and significantly influence access to rural credit, while earning persons in the family, literacy, rice farming experience, remittance, and total income positively influence access to rural credit. The positive and significant ATT values suggested that access to rural credit has a positive and significant effect on technology adoption and the level of technology use. It was also found that access to rural credit has a heterogeneous effect. In particular, non-government organization (NGO) credit has a more significant impact on technology adoption than formal bank credit. Access to credit and the adoption of agricultural technologies can be greatly improved with the help of a location-specific rural credit policy and strong monitoring from the formal banking sector.

Conservation tillage plays a crucial role in preventing soil erosion, improving soil quality, and encouraging sustainable agriculture. This study analyzes the effects of conservation tillage on farmers’ technical efficiency and its underlying mechanisms, using a sample of 853 households and 1706 land plots from China’s Jilin, Sichuan, Jiangsu, and Henan provinces. The results indicate that conservation tillage can enhance technical efficiency, resulting in an average increase of 0.022 units, The study further demonstrates that conservation tillage technology primarily enhances technical efficiency by increasing output and reducing production costs. This study proposes policy recommendations for promoting the use of conservation tillage technology to enhance farmers’ technical efficiency.

In Ethiopia, famine and extreme poverty are a result of insufficient food relief, poor macroeconomic factors, climate shocks, undiversified livelihoods based on low productivity in rain-fed agriculture, coupled with institutional incapacity. To serve as a context, this paper provides a comprehensive review of the conceptual framework of human development and capability paradigm to food security. In addition, it highlights evidence and a comparative analysis of the Asian green revolution experience, and places emphasis on sustainable and intersectoral growth through agricultural transformation and promotion of rural non-farm economy agenda to reverse the trends of protracted food crises in Ethiopia. Rapid, science-led, and employment-intensive agricultural growth, accompanied by the promotion of the rural non-farm sector, is of great importance to the rural economy. These will bring about farm sector competitiveness and enhanced productivity, environmental outcomes, acceleration of human development, new opportunities provided to the small-scale food producers, and desirable changes to the rural landscape. The study further introduces a brief analysis of the prominent role of social protection instruments in strengthening food entitlements and basic capabilities, including individual agencies. It suggests that actualizing sustainable food security and hastening human development under Ethiopia’s exclusive settings require the recognition of the rural economic heterogeneity as well as holistic and pragmatic policies, which promote sustainable and inclusive growth.