Participation in commercial agriculture holds considerable potential for unlocking suitable opportunity sets necessary for providing better incomes and sustainable livelihoods for smallscale farmers. This study examined factors that influence the intensity of market participation among smallholder farmers in Kenya. Data was obtained through a rapid rural appraisal and a household survey. A truncated regression model was applied in the analysis. Results showed that farmers in peri-urban areas sold higher proportions of their output than those in rural areas. Distance from farm to point of sale is a major constraint to the intensity of market participation. Better output price and market information are key incentives for increased sales. These findings demonstrate the urgent need to strengthen market information delivery systems, upgrade roads in both rural and peri-urban areas, encourage market integration initiatives, and establish more retail outlets with improved market facilities in the remote rural villages in order to promote production and trade in high value commodities by rural farmers.

Factors influencing the intensity of market participation by smallholder farmers: A case study of rural and peri-urban areas of Kenya

What are the farm-level impacts of Malawi's farm input subsidy program? A critical review

This study assessed the determinants of intensity of adoption of Improved Rice Varieties (IRVs) and the effect of market participation on farmers’ welfare in Nigeria using the Tobit and Heckman two-stage models, respectively. The sample consists of cross-sectional data of 600 rice farmers selected randomly from three notable rice producing States in Nigeria. The variables that positively and significantly influenced the intensity of IRVs adoption include income from rice production, membership of a farmers’ organization, and the distance to the nearest sources of seed, cost of seed, yield and level of training. Gender of household head, access to improved seed, years of formal education, and average rice yield were those variables that are positive and statistically significant in increasing the probability that a farmer would participate in the market. The result further suggests that any increase in the farmers’ welfare is conditional on the probability of the farmer participating in the rice output markets. In addition, higher yield, income from rice production, gender of household head, and years of formal education are the variables that are positive and statistically significant in determining households’ welfare. Therefore, it is recommended that formation of associations among the rural farmers should be encouraged. Access to seed and information about the IRVs are also essential to increase the intensity of its adoption. Programmes to improve contact with extension agents, increased access to credit, raising educational background and increasing the area devoted to cultivating IRVs are the factors to be promoted in order to increase market participation and hence improve the welfare of rural households.

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Agricultural technology adoption, commercialization and smallholder rice farmers’ welfare in rural Nigeria

This paper uses an exceptionally rich data set to test the extent to which markets in Madagascar are integrated across space at different scales of analysis and to explain some of the factors that limit spatial arbitrage and price equalization within a single country. We use rice price data across four quarters of 2000-2001 along with data on transportation costs and infrastructure availability for nearly 1400 communes in Madagascar to examine the extent of market integration at three different spatial scales - sub-regional, regional, and national - and to determine whether non-integration is due to high transfer costs or lack of competition. The results indicate that markets are fairly well integrated at the sub-regional level and that factors such as high crime rates, remoteness, and lack of information are among the factors limiting competition.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID999388_code138510.pdf?abstractid=999388&mirid=4

Spatial Integration at Multiple Scales: Rice Markets in Madagascar *

Land-based mitigation in climate stabilization

Agronomic research on crop response to nitrogen fertilizer suggests that a plateau function may be appropriate, but the plateau varies across fields and years. Available models that treat the plateau as a stochastic variable are not readily extendable to handle field or year random effects as seems to be appropriate based on the agronomic data. This article develops a method of estimating a response function with a stochastic plateau that can capture random effects. The method is then used to determine economically optimal levels of nitrogen fertilizer for wheat (Triticum aestivum). Copyright 2008, Oxford University Press.

Crop Input Response Functions with Stochastic Plateaus

Spatial price efficiency in Mozambique's post‐reform maize markets

Recent research has found that men trade stocks more frequently than women and receive a lower price as a result. The behavioral finance literature attributes this greater trading activity to men's overconfidence. Women's lack of overconfidence and past agricultural economics research suggests the possibility that women may be better at marketing grain than men. This article uses actual transactions of farmers marketing wheat and also finds that men trade more often than women. Women also sell two weeks later in the marketing year. There is no direct effect of gender on price received, but by storing longer women receive 1.4 cents/bushel less than men, on average. In contrast to the arguments in previous research, we argue that men's greater number of trades can be better explained by men enjoying trading rather than by overconfidence.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID937928_code251139.pdf?abstractid=937928&mirid=1

Gender Differences in Marketing Styles

Gender differences in marketing styles

Mozambique is one of the most promising African countries for producing biofuels and the national biofuel policy of 2009 identifies measures to incentivize biofuel production. Demand for biofuels i...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0376835X.2018.1548962

Emilio Tostao

Papers

Crop Input Response Functions with Stochastic Plateaus

Spatial price efficiency in Mozambique's post‐reform maize markets

Gender Differences in Marketing Styles

Gender differences in marketing styles

Economic impacts of developing a biofuel industry in Mozambique