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Regulatory options to improve seed systems for vegetatively propagated crops in developing countries
In many developing countries, smallholder farmers cultivating vegetatively propagated crops (VPCs) have limited access to quality planting material. This constraint can limit both the yield of and returns on VPC cultivation. Yet policy and regulatory initiatives designed to strengthen access to quality VPC planting materials have been relatively unsuccessful to date. Part of the problem is the unique biological and economic characteristics of vegetative propagation and its distinctness from cereal crops, which dominate narratives on seed system reforms. Drawing on qualitative analysis of policy and practice, this study examines reform options related to quality assurance regulations in four ...
Labor (mis?)measurement in agriculture
Livelihoods are changing rapidly in rural areas. Measuring and categorizing peoples’ labor activities in relation to the agricultural sector is important for understanding income earning opportunities and designing effective policy. Conventional data collection methods ask about individuals’ main work activities over the past year. Descriptions are recorded in the field, postcoded, and eventually categorized. This approach is costly to collect, fatiguing for respondents, and may create distortions. We show that a more direct approach, asking respondents to categorize their major work activities themselves, provides similar resulting data despite some caveats and lessons for best enumerat...
Conflict and agricultural performance: Evidence from Myanmar
Recent years have witnessed an escalation in conflict, especially in developing countries where a significant proportion of the population relies on agriculture. It is crucial to understand how these conflicts impact agricultural production, given its importance for food security and agricultural transformation in these regions. However, research exploring how persistent conflicts affect agriculture is still nascent. Our study adds to this body of research by establishing a causal link between ongoing conflicts and their impact on paddy production, a primary staple crop in Myanmar. This analysis is based on data from a nationally representative phone survey conducted amidst active conflicts....
Are we done yet? Response fatigue and rural livelihoods
Accurate understanding of peoples’ livelihoods activities is needed to inform effective policy. Existing evidence relies heavily on studies that use designated respondents to provide information about their household members, imposing significant costs on these respondents along with possible distortions in the data. In rural Ghana, we randomize the order that household members are asked about and estimate that response fatigue leads to undercounting of labor activities by 8% on average. Women are twice as impacted as men while youth are four times as impacted as older adults, distorting both within-household and population wide comparisons. These biases result from women and youth being listed systematically later in rosters and stronger effects of fatigue for them, conditional on roster position. The implications of our results extend to other topics of enquiry as well, wherever similar repetitive survey structures are deployed, such as birth records, plot-level inputs, and household consumption and expenditures.
The quality of agriculture and food security policy processes at national level in Malawi: Results from the 2017/18 Malawi Agriculture and Food Security Policy Processes Endline Survey
Over the past ten years, there have been several initiatives in Malawi to strengthen the processes through which the design and content of policies, strategies, and programs in the agriculture sector that affect the nation’s food security are established. In this report we present results of a study to assess the quality of these policy processes and the institutional framework through which they are conducted and how perceptions of the quality of those processes and institutions is changing over time. The study is based on a two-round survey of national stakeholders in Malawi on issues centered on agriculture or food security that was conducted in 2015 and 2017/18.
Agricultural extension in times of crisis and emergent threats: Effectiveness of a fall armyworm information intervention in Myanmar Author
Agricultural extension can have important impacts on vulnerable populations by increasing food production, which improves both rural incomes and urban food security. Yet, crises induced by violent conflict or disease outbreaks can sever the connections between extension agents and farmers. Understanding how agricultural extension systems can safely and effectively reach farmers in times of crisis could help stabilize agri-food systems in fragile states. In the context of COVID-19, a military coup, and an emergent threat of fall armyworm in Myanmar, this paper uses a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of two cellphone-based extension interventions – a direct-to-farmer and a lead farmer intervention – for fall armyworm control in maize. Despite low compliance, both interventions caused knowledge improvements. However, damage control estimates show that the lead-farmer group used pesticides most effectively. Similar cellphone-based lead-farmer programs could be an effective tool in fragile states and when faced with emergent threats to agriculture.
TRIPS Agreement of the WTO
This book examines the application of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in the fields of agriculture, public health and economic development in a Least Developed Country (LDC) such as Bangladesh. In particular, it evaluates the question whether the TRIPS’ one-size-fits-all approach compulsorily applicable for all countries, irrespective of their development standing, fulfils the developmental needs of Bangladesh and other such LDCs in the fields of agriculture, public health and economic development. The book shows that the TRIPS’ introduction of IPRs in the name of Plant Varieties Protection (PVP) and patent...
Urban food prices under lockdown: Evidence from Myanmar’s traditional food retail sector during COVID-19
Many governments imposed stringent lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic as a public health measure to suppress the spread of the disease. With consumer incomes already depressed, the potential impacts of these measures on urban food prices are of particular concern. This working paper examines the changes in Myanmar’s urban food prices during lockdown using detailed food price data collected from a panel of phone surveys conducted in August and September 2020 of 431 family-owned retail shops in Myanmar’s two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. We find that the supply side of Myanmar’s food retail sector was largely resilient to the shocks and lockdowns throughout the first six month...
Social Sciences
Beginning with volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 130 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities. The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is the oldest continuing reference work in the field. Katherine D. McCann is acting editor for this volume. The subject categories for Volume 57 are as follows: Electronic Resources for the Social Sciences Anthropology Economics Geography Government and Politics International Relations Sociology
