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Begin New Search Topic Agriculture Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution United Nations University Publication Year within 10 Years

1. Gendered implications of the waves of COVID19 and economic upgrading trajectories in digital value chains: Insights from Kenyan agricultural platforms

Author:
Aarti Krishnan, Monica Nganga, and Tim Foster
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Women play a critical yet under-researched role in global digital agri-food value chains, especially in smallholder production, which affects how they are able to economically upgrade (improve crop yields and product quality, and increase product diversification). Research suggests that women’s participation in agricultural platform-driven value chains facilitates the overcoming of barriers such as access to productive resources and engenders upgrading. However, studies have shown mixed evidence of the benefits of ag-platforms, and there are very limited data on female farmers’ contribution. Their economic upgrading possibilities are further compounded by the onset of shocks such as COVID-19. Predominantly only anecdotal evidence exists of how such shocks impact women in agriculture generally, let alone those using digital platforms. This paper seeks to answer the question: To what extent has the intensity of COVID-19 affected economic upgrading possibilities for women in platform-driven ag-value chains? The paper attempts to unpack economic upgrading through the different regimes of COVID-19, illustrating the dynamic effects experienced by women living through the shock. The paper uses a mixed methods approach, combining daily transaction data for over 3,000 farmers from 2019 to 2021 with 40 interviews of various value chain actors. The results show that women have been able to upgrade through the shock in terms of crop productivity and product quality more successfully than men, although there are differences across the different regimes of COVID-19; however, women have downgraded in terms of product diversification. The results are robust using pooled OLS, fixed effects, random effects, and seemingly unrelated regressions. The paper highlights a critical need to unpack shocks as a succession of regimes, rather than treating them as homogeneous entities, in order to provide a more holistic understanding of how women cope.
Topic:
Agriculture, COVID-19, Value Chains, and Gender
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

2. India’s economic development since independence: An interpretative survey

Author:
Kunal Sen
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
When India became a republic in 1950, the economy was primarily agrarian, with threefifths of output originating from agriculture. In the sixty years since independence, there has been a significant transformation of economic activity away from agriculture, with less than one-fifth of output now originating from agriculture and the rest from manufacturing and services. Since the 1980s, along with structural change, there has been strong economic growth, till 2010, followed by a period of declining growth. In this paper, we describe India’s economic foundation, paying particular interest to the processes of economic growth and structural change. We begin with a brief discussion of the patterns of growth and structural change since independence. We then discuss the economic policies that have underpinned India’s economic development. Next, we discuss the evolution of the three main economic sectors—agriculture, industry, and services. We then provide a summary of India’s regional performance. We end with a discussion of India’s economic performance in the post-2014 period.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, and Industry
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

3. Weathering shocks: the effects of weather shocks on farm input use in sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Aimable Nsabimana
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
: There has been much discussion on climate change and its adverse effects on agriculture, including excessive loss of food production. In regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture is the major source of household livelihoods, shocks in weather patterns affect farmers’ expectations of farm yield and hence the decision to adopt farm inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides and the extent of their utilization, particularly given the relatively high cost of these inputs. In this study, I explore the relationship between weather shocks and the intensity of inputs use at the plot level using large-scale national panel data from three African countries: Niger, Nigeria, and Tanzania. By combining monthly drought index data with a rich Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture dataset, I find that the intensity of chemical fertilizer use reduces much more in drought-prone areas than in less drought-prone areas during growing seasons. I also find that drought during lean seasons is associated with higher pesticide uptake. The evidence suggests that drought induces farmers to purposively reduce farm investments, including yield-enhancing technology such as chemical fertilizer, hence worsening adverse farm yield effects.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Food Security, Weather, and Chemical Fertilizer
Political Geography:
Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

4. Agricultural risks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and farm household welfare and diversification strategies in Africa

Author:
Abdul Malik Iddrisu, Alhassan Abdul-Wakeel Karakara, and Evans S. Osabuohien
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Agricultural activities in many African countries are bedevilled by a range of risk factors. Using micro-level household datasets from a range of countries in Africa, we examine the drivers of agricultural risks, while exploring the role of context as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on household welfare, with a focus on farm households relative to their non-farm counterparts. We demonstrate that the probability of experiencing risks related to agriculture is significantly influenced by a range of individual- and farm-level/contextual factors, with these effects showing considerable variations across contexts and countries in Africa. We also find that farm households witnessed important reductions in their incomes during the COVID-19 period in Uganda. The study contributes to the design of evidence-based approaches to reducing farmers’ vulnerabilities to agricultural risks and pandemic-related shocks.
Topic:
Agriculture, Welfare, COVID-19, and Farming
Political Geography:
Africa

5. Agricultural input subsidy and farmers outcomes in Tanzania

Author:
Bethuel Kinyanjui Kinuthia
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper examines the impact of the government input subsidy—the National Agriculture Input Voucher—on farmers’ production and welfare in Tanzania as well as the factors that influence agricultural production in the country. The analysis is based on the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture for 2008–13. The study uses panel fixed effects and difference-in-difference and propensity score matching methods to examine the two objectives. The results show that the input subsidy programme resulted in an initial increase in maize and rice production but not in the long run and only in a few regions. In addition, there was a decrease in total production in the southern region and the programme had little effect on farmers’ welfare. The results show that this programme only partly met the expected outcomes in Tanzania due to mistargeting, inaccurate identification of households, and poor implementation.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Welfare, Farming, and Subsidies
Political Geography:
Africa and Tanzania

6. Gender divide in agricultural productivity in Mozambique

Author:
João Morgado and Vincenzo Salvucci
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
In this study we analyze the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Mozambique applying the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach on data from four agricultural surveys between 2002 and 2012. We find that female-headed households are on average substantially less productive (about 20 per cent) than male-headed households, and that differences are more pronounced in the centre-north compared to the south. The gap persists even though female-headed households are disproportionally found in relatively smaller plots, and a pronounced inverse-size productivity relation exists. We could identify some of the most important drivers of this divide linked to differences in endowments. However, a larger proportion is accounted for by the structural part, potentially linked to technical efficiency, pure discrimination, or other unobservable characteristics.
Topic:
Agriculture, Gender Issues, and Inequality
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique