The Government of Uzbekistan (GoU) has
recently adopted a policy to mechanize the cotton harvest as
part of its drive to modernize the agricultural sector.
Under Uzbekistan’s state-order system it is compulsory for
many farmers to grow cotton. They are contractually
obligated to produce stipulated quantities that are annually
set by the government, and must sell these to the GoU at a
price fixed by the government. Almost all cotton in

The author examine this relationship in
the context of agriculture in Ghana's Eastern Region.
Our work traces the connection from a set of complex and
explicitly negotiable property rights over land to
agricultural investment and, in turn, to agricultural
productivity. Using survey and focus group data, we find
that while the land tenure institutions may have some
benefits, they result in drastically lower productivity for

This paper uses a rural household survey
dataset collected in 2006 and 2008 to investigate the impact
of a market-based land resettlement project in southern
Malawi. The program provided a conditional cash and land
transfer to poor families to relocate to larger plots of
farm land. The average treatment effect of the program is
estimated using a difference-in-difference matching
technique based on propensity score matching; qualitative

Almost a decade after large land-based
investment for agriculture increased sharply, opinions on
its impact continue to diverge, partly because (positive or
negative) spillovers on neighboring smallholders have never
been rigorously assessed. Applying methods from the urban
literature on Mozambican data suggests that changes in the
number and area of large farms within 25 or 50 kilometers of
these investments raised use of improved practices, animal

This systematic country diagnosis (SCD)
for Chad aims to identify how to achieve the twin goals of
ending poverty and improving shared prosperity. It
acknowledges both: (i) the need for selectivity in pro-poor
interventions, and (ii) the inherent difficulty to do so
given the many competing binding reasons for poverty.
Selectivity means the identification of principal
opportunities for sustainable poverty reduction in the next

There is a growing recognition of
agriculture's potential to spur growth and reduce
poverty in Africa. Agriculture accounts for one-third of the
continent's gross domestic product (GDP), and
two-thirds of its citizens rely on the sector for their
incomes. Investments in agriculture will hence not only
improve productivity and the continent's ability to
feed a growing population, but will also lift families out

This study was undertaken in support of the World Bank
project, Agroweather Tools for Adapting to Climate
Change. The overall goal of this pilot project is to establish
community-based agro-weather risk management
tools. These tools are to be supported by a flow of weather
and climate information via information and communication
technology (ICT) delivery systems.
While some advice is provided on how farmers
can use meteorological and climatological information
in their operations, this is not the main thrust of the

The last poverty assessment for Rwanda
was conducted in 1997. Three years after the genocide, the
country was characterized by deep and widespread poverty,
rock-bottom health indicators, and pervasive hunger and food
insecurity. In real terms, gross domestic product (GDP) per
capita was lower than it had been in 1960. In real terms,
the economy quadrupled between 1995 and 2013. Enrolment in
primary school is near universal and infant and child

Renato and Hecinta are raising six young
children in a rural area of Mozambique’s northern Nampula
Province. On just half a hectare, they grow rice, maize,
beans, cashew, peanuts, cabbage, and tomatoes, selling what
they can and eating the rest. But, like many of the 475
million smallholder household’s worldwide, agricultural
production is just one of their many income-generating
activities. They balance several sources of income, within

This paper uses farm panel data from
China to examine the dynamics of land transactions, machine
investments, and the demand for machine services. Recently,
China's agriculture has experienced a large expansion
of machine rentals and machine services provided by
specialized agents, which has contributed to mechanization
of agricultural production. The empirical results show that
an increase in nonagricultural wage rates leads to expansion

In conflict-prone situations, access to
markets is necessary to restore economic growth and generate
the preconditions for peace and reconstruction. Hence, the
rehabilitation of damaged transport infrastructure has
emerged as an overarching investment priority among donors
and governments. This paper brings together two distinct
strands of literature on the effects of conflict on welfare
and on the economic impact of transport infrastructure. The

This report assesses the impact of
participation in farmer organizations (FOs) on food security
of rural households in Cambodia. The study is particularly
set out to following: (1) examine FOs’ roles and operation
and challenges for improving household’s food security; (2)
analyze household’s characteristics that determine
participation in FOs; (3) assess the impact of FOs on food
security and livelihood of the rural poor; and (4) provide