Efficient information exchanges between sellers and buyers are essential if prices are to act as a signal for resource allocation in an economy. In the case of seed and planting materials, information on quality traits are often difficult for consumers (farmers) to obtain prior to purchase,...

Evaluating the impact on market performance of investments in agricultural market information systems (MIS) face several methodological challenges. These fall into two broad categories: (a) defining the dimensions of market performance to measure (which is a function of whom the MIS is designed...

Social networks play an important role in generating learning externalities that can drive the diffusion of innovative, and potentially poverty-reducing, technologies. This is particularly the case in developing countries where rural education, extension, and agricultural information services...

Agriculture in Ethiopia is changing. New players, relationships, and policies are influencing the ways in which information and knowledge are used by smallholders. While this growing complexity suggests opportunities for Ethiopian smallholders, too little is known about how these opportunities...

Despite evidence of the importance of differences in the source and type of information that women and men acquire, there is a persistent assumption that these gender dimensions of information acquisition are irrelevant to decision-making in cereal systems in South Asia. Yet women do play a...

Recent efforts to develop rice cultivars with drought-tolerance (DT) traits have resulted in the release of several varieties that demonstrate significant resiliency to drought stresses. In this paper, we use discrete choice experiments to examine farmers’ preferences for DT traits and explore...

Agriculture; developing countries; innovation; Ethiopia; Vietnam