Abdur Rouf Sarkar

Inefficiencies in farmland rental markets remain an important constraint to agricultural modernization and efficient land allocation in developing economies, where participation in land rental transactions remains limited despite ongoing institutional reforms. Although existing studies have emphasized tangible economic factors such as land rents, credit access, and agricultural subsidies, considerably less attention has been given to whether intangible assets, such as geographical indication‐based branding, influence farmland rental market participation. This study examines the relationship between Specialized Agricultural Geographical Indication (SAGI) certification and farmers' decisions to rent farmland in or out in rural China. Using data from the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey and an Endogenous Switching Probit model to account for nonrandom selection into SAGI areas, the study estimates the treatment effects of SAGI certification on farmland rental participation. The results show that SAGI certification increases the estimated probability of renting farmland in by 4.36% and renting farmland out by 9.18% among treated households. The larger effect on farmland rental out suggests heterogeneous responses to SAGI certification, with resource‐constrained smallholders more likely to lease out farmland while better‐endowed producers are better positioned to expand their operations. Mechanism analysis indicates that these effects are associated with both economic and political channels, including higher farmland‐related revenues and production costs, improved information provision, and greater access to agricultural subsidies. The effects also vary according to contracted landholding, credit access, e‐commerce training, market distance, and village governance conditions. Overall, the findings suggest that geographical indication policies may contribute not only to agricultural product branding but also to farmland reallocation and changes in rural production structures.

Youth unemployment in Bangladesh poses a major barrier to inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Despite agriculture being the country’s largest employment sector, youth engagement continues to decline, leaving vast potential for innovation and employment unrealized. Previous studies have addressed this issue in fragmented ways, but no systematic synthesis exists for Bangladesh. This study fills that gap by providing the first systematic review of youth unemployment and agricultural transformation in Bangladesh, presenting an evidence-based framework for inclusive youth engagement. Guided by the PRISMA protocol, peer-reviewed and grey literature were systematically reviewed from Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate. The findings reveal persistent gender disparities, with young women experiencing disproportionately higher unemployment despite rising participation. An increasing share of youth remains not in employment, education, or training (NEET), reflecting a growing mismatch between academic qualifications and labor market demands. Yet, agriculture offers untapped opportunities in agribusiness, agri-food value chains, non-core farming services (e.g., logistics, soil testing, organic packaging), and digital agri-solutions. Emerging digital technologies and big data applications enable youth to make data-driven decisions in weather forecasting, pest management, crop planning, and marketing enhancing productivity and resilience. The sector’s relative robustness during the COVID-19 pandemic underscores its potential to absorb youth labor and sustain livelihoods. Real-life cases of successful agri-entrepreneurs further demonstrate these opportunities. The study proposes a youth-inclusive agricultural transformation framework emphasizing participation across value chains, digital innovation, capacity building, and enabling institutions to foster equitable and sustainable youth employment.

Financial risk protection (FRP), assessed at the population level through catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) and impoverishment indicators under SDG 3.8, reflects the extent to which health systems shield households from financial hardship due to out‐of‐pocket (OOP) payments. FRP must be distinguished from disease‐specific cost‐of‐illness studies, which measure condition‐level OOP expenditures rather than population‐level financial protection. In Bangladesh, persistent gaps in FRP continue to expose households to financial hardship and impoverishment. Despite a growing evidence base, no study has systematically mapped the evolution of health‐related financial burden research in Bangladesh. This review synthesizes two decades of scholarship encompassing population‐level FRP and disease‐specific cost‐of‐illness evidence as analytically distinct categories. Following PRISMA guidelines, we reviewed 93 peer‐reviewed articles published between 2005 and 2025 from Web of Science and Scopus databases. Bibliometric mapping was combined with thematic synthesis to analyze publication trends, citation patterns, collaboration networks, and methods. Population‐level evidence on CHE incidence, determinants, impoverishing effects, and coping mechanisms was synthesized as primary FRP indicators, while disease‐specific OOP studies were examined as contextual evidence on condition‐level cost burdens. Results show a high and rising CHE burden disproportionately affecting rural, low‐income, disease‐affected, and disaster‐prone households. Health system regressivity, expanding private provision, and limited risk pooling exacerbate financial vulnerability. Thematic analysis reveals a transition from descriptive studies to equity‐oriented, solution‐focused research aligned with SDG‐era priorities. This review provides an evidence base for strengthening equitable, resilient health financing reforms in Bangladesh and underscores the need to distinguish population‐level financial protection from disease‐specific cost burdens in future research.

Context: Climate variability threatens monsoon rice systems, yet most studies focus on yield, overlooking how climate stress affects farmers' efficiency in converting inputs into output. In Bangladesh, where rainfed wet-season rice dominates cropped area, understanding this efficiency channel is critical for adaptation. Objective: This study examines how seasonal climate variability shapes technical inefficiency in wet-season rice production, and whether technology-related adaptive capacity and hazard-exposure environments condition this relationship. Methods: Plot-level panel data (6,841 observations) from three waves of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey were linked with district climate data. A true random-effects stochastic frontier model separates farm heterogeneity from time-varying inefficiency. Climate variables enter the inefficiency equation; moderation is tested via interactions with improved seed adoption, extension access, and flood-prone, drought-prone, and saline-affected hazard exposures. Results and conclusions: Monsoon rainfall is positively and nonlinearly associated with technical inefficiency, attenuating at extreme totals. Deviations from local climate norms reveal a distinct anomaly-sensitive channel, with inefficiency rising as rainfall departs from expectations in either direction. Improved seed adoption reverses the heat-inefficiency relationship yet amplifies rainfall-inefficiency, ruling out uniform buffering. Climate-inefficiency associations vary systematically across hazard environments, with strongest amplification in drought-prone areas, heat-dominant effects in flood-prone zones, and elevated baseline inefficiency in saline-affected coastal systems. Significance: Climate variability shapes agricultural performance through an efficiency pathway that is nonlinear, stressor-specific, and spatially conditioned. Adaptation should target input-management efficiency alongside yield, tailored to specific stressors- and hazard-contexts rather than uniformly. This framework is transferable to monsoon-dependent smallholder rice systems across South and Southeast Asia.