Cotton is an unquestioned success of Zambia’s turn towards a market economy. After privatization in late 1994, seed cotton production rose from 32,000 metric tons (mt) to about 180,000 mt a decade later (three-year averages centered on 1994 and 2005). The number of farmers involved in the...

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Farm operators and spouses have increasingly engaged in off-farm work in recent years. Many studies have analyzed the role of government payments; however, little is known about the impact of health insurance coverage. This study builds on previous literature by using copulas to test for...

This brief reviews results of applied research regarding the role of government in staple food markets in East and Southern Africa. The purpose of the brief is to draw lessons for Mozambique as it decides how to use the grain storage silos it has been building since 2009. The authors suggest...

Precision agriculture and autosteer technology are, overall, profitable investments for farmers, as previous literature has established. However, what has not been investigated is whether or not farmers perceive these technologies as such. This research postulates that cotton farmers must see...

The substitution of capital for labor and new labor-saving technologies has reduced the labor required for farming, yet many farms today depend on hired labor in some form. Common in the literature is the assumption of perfectly substitutable farm labor. This has implications for the...

This study compares farm operators’ risk perceptions and actual realization of risk attitudes revealed through off-farm labor, enterprise diversification, and use of contracts, crop insurance, and other types of insurance, using data from 2001 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS)....

Agritourism is an alternative source of farm income. We examine farmers’ participation in agritourism activities to assess the impact of participation on farm household income and return to assets using a large farm-level survey. The results reveal that older, educated, and female...

Seafood processor preferences for hiring employees are explored in light of references, wages, and immigrant situations. The objectives of this study are to determine the relative importance of labor attributes, and to identify distinct clusters of processors in terms of preference for immigrant...

This paper investigates the effect of technological change on the demand for, and supply of, hired farm workers in the United States for the period 1950 to 1992. Particular attention is given to the proxy for technological change. We have used total expenditures, both by public and private...