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Key performance indicators (KPIs) are in use to determine how and the extent to which the business objectives of an organization are achieved. This paper aims to evaluate the contribution of a research institute in terms of KPIs to support its process of decision-making towards, etc., innovation, sustainability and improvement.

In light of this, a systemic review was conducted on a set of relevant scholarly studies to identify the trends which shed light on the possible critical success factors to be effectively used in research institutes in association with the development of commercial agriculture. It examines whether, and if so how KPIs that are highly associated with those critical success factors are disruptive in research culture in an institute with certain organization design to promote research on innovative commercial agriculture.

The study highlighted some important aspects of commercial agriculture that showed strong links with possible critical success factors that could be used to develop a possible KPI set for a research institute. The salient features in a model performance management system with such KPIs of a research institute having strategical contribution for commercial agriculture are further elaborated.

This manuscript is a conceptual piece that advocates research institutes geared towards commercial agriculture development to begin using KPIs as part of research culture to evaluate their success. The paper suggests that commercial agriculture – perhaps, especially in developing countries – faces many challenges and using KPIs could help diagnose when and why essential processes break down. This study shows possible avenues of KPI use in research institutes that have not been very well discussed or discussed meagerly that have high potential to be integrated into successful KPIs towards innovative commercial agriculture.

This paper aims to examine the planning policy and legal framework governing the creation and operation of urban agriculture in Sydney, Australia’s global city. All levels of urban agriculture are considered – from domestic and small community gardens to large agribusiness – as all make an important contribution to agricultural production in an urban context.

Using the Australian State of New South Wales and its capital Sydney, as a focus, the study examines the recent trend of the recognition and re-establishment of agriculture as a desired land use in cities. Three examples are selected for closer scrutiny – Horsley Park Urban Agriculture Precinct, located in the Western Sydney Parklands; City of Sydney’s City Farm, located in the inner suburb of St Peters; and the Western Sydney Aerotropolis Agribusiness Precinct, located at a new airport on the fringe of Sydney.

As more city-dwellers embrace urban food production and as city authorities seek to encourage and facilitate farming activities, it is clear that regulatory structures which allow it to happen should be incorporated into urban planning legislation at (in the Australian context) state government level. If cities want to encourage urban agriculture, planning legislation needs to be part of the broader legal framework for enabling it to germinate and thrive.

This paper explores the emergence of two new types of urban agriculture: first, the multi-functional, small-scale urban farming operation, situated conceptually between a community garden and a full-scale commercial agricultural enterprise, and located spatially in the midst of built-up urban form; and second, the intensive, high tech export-oriented model exemplified by the Aerotropolis Agribusiness Precinct.

This article reviews the development and future of the Farm Credit System (FCS) as a government sponsored source of credit for American agriculture. While agriculture is now a minor sector of the U.S. economy, and there is considerable competition for the FCS from other lenders suggesting no further need for GSE status, it still may be possible to argue that there is some ongoing need. Although credit market imperfections are no longer as clear cut as in the past, they may still act as an impediment to a desirable allocation of capital. Consequently, refocusing the FCS may provide a relatively efficient form of government intervention that can enhance capital flows in rural areas.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the electricity consumption patterns across Indian states do converge.

This study considers 18 Indian states spanning over the period 1970-1971 and 2014-2015, using the recently developed Phillips and Sul panel convergence technique that accounts the multiple steady states.

The results provide the following insights. First, the authors find evidence of convergence in electricity consumption among all Indian states. This suggests that electricity consumption patterns for Indian states are converging to a common steady state. Second, to provide broader insights, we further investigate the convergence in electricity consumption among user groups such as agriculture, industry, commercial, domestic and miscellaneous. The results reveal that commercial, domestic and miscellaneous groups are also converging. Third, the non-convergence patterns in agriculture and industry enable us to investigate the possibility of clubs or the multiple common steady states. The results indicate the occurrence of three clubs in case of agriculture and two clubs in case of the industry. Fourth, this study also inspects the relative speed of convergence among the user groups. The results reveal the higher speed of convergence in case of the domestic user group.

The findings enable policymakers to formulate an appropriate energy policy to accommodate the future electricity demand across Indian states and prioritize low electricity consumption states so that they receive a greater share.

This is the first study that examines the convergence in electricity consumption across Indian states at aggregate and user groups using a new panel club convergence technique.

The present study aims at examining the determinants of occupational migration of unskilled labourer from domestic agriculture and their impact on farm business income (FBI) in Assam, India.

Primary data for this study were collected during June–November, 2019 from 224 farm (cultivator) households in two contiguous districts in central Brahmaputra valley of Assam. The study used three-stage least square (3SLS) estimation technique for jointly determining the factors influencing migration and remittances and their impact on FBI.

The result of this study confirms that occupational migration of unskilled labourer from domestic agriculture significantly reduced household FBI. In contrast to the inflow of remittances from migrants helped in increasing the FBI. The migration in the study area considerably influenced by household size, total value of assets holding, networking influence, distance to commercial bank and flood proneness of the village; while the number of migrants, number of dependents and age of migrants seen to be strong predictor of inflow of remittances. Findings of present study offer evidence in support of the new economics of labour migration (NELM) theory.

The study is restricted to a single crop (paddy) and constrained by the collection of longitudinal data with a revisit to the farm household pre and post-migration of the unskilled labourer from household agriculture.

This paper is based on a novel data set that has especially been collected to examine the determinants of occupational migration from agriculture and their impact on the FBI in Assam that has not been studied before.

The purpose of this study is to identify and review strategic government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. Four factors dictated the choice of these countries. In the first place, the study is set in African emerging markets – and the four countries are the widely acknowledged emerging markets in Africa (Onyiriuba, 2015). Secondly, the spread of the countries, to a large extent, mirrors Africa in general – Egypt and Morocco are in North Africa; Nigeria is a West African country; and, of course, South Africa. Thirdly, other countries in Africa tend to look up to the four countries, apparently as the largest economies in their respective regions. Needless to say, Nigeria alternates with South Africa as the largest economy in Africa. In this capacity, the two countries influence – indeed, mirror – continental Africa's emerging economic progress. Fourthly, lessons from agricultural policy and financing experiences of the four countries will certainly be useful to the other African countries. The specific objective of this paper is to determine how the government seeks to address the financing issues attendant on the risk-laden nature of agriculture through policy interventions. With this end in view, the paper analyses the strategic goals, objectives and beneficiaries of the agriculture financing policies of the government, as well as the constraints on access to finance by the farmers and the policy response.

The study involves a review of empirical literature and government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. The high risks in agriculture (Onyiriuba, 2015; Mordi, 1988), risk aversion behaviour of banks towards agricultural financing (Onyiriuba, 2015, 1990), and the reluctance of insurers to take on agricultural risks (World Bank, 2018; Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2016; Onyiriuba, 1990; Mordi, 1988) underpin this methodology. There are two other considerations: the needs to find out how government seeks to address the financing issues in agriculture through policy intervention, and to avoid unwieldy research, one that combines government and institutional policy perspectives on agriculture financing. Thus the study is not approached from the perspective of banks and other lending institutions; neither does it combine government and institutional policy perspectives. It rather focuses on government policy in order to properly situate implications of the findings.

The authorities seek to get rid of bottlenecks, ease participation and redress constraints on access to finance in agriculture through policy interventions as a means of sustainable economic growth. The findings are characteristic of emerging markets, rooted in the transitional challenge of opening economies, economic reforms and the March of progress. However, with agriculture and natural resources – rather than industrialisation – as the main stay of their economies, the African emerging markets face an uphill task in their development efforts. This is evident in the divergent and gloomy pictures in which the literature paints their agricultural economies.

Government should gear financing policies to boost output as a means of ensuring food security. It should address risk aversion tendencies among the lenders and feeble credit guarantee, subsidies and budgetary allocations to agriculture. This will ensure effective commitment of the lenders to agriculture and underpin agricultural insurance. However, it demands strengthening links in the chain of access to, and monitoring of, credit for agricultural production. A realistic policy response should target the rural economy – with youth, women and smallholder farmers as ultimate beneficiaries. These actions should be intensified as measures to boost farming and the rural economy.

Current literature fails to situate the empirical findings in emerging markets context, reflecting economies in transition. Besides, in its current state, the literature does not explicitly clarify that agriculture, like most other sectors in such economies, is bound to experience the observed financing constraints. Neither does it clearly reflect how and why the findings should be seen as fleeting realities of the March of progress in transitional economies. This study will help to fill the gap.

The agricultural sector remains the backbone of several emerging economies, including Kenya, where it contributes 34% to its gross domestic product (GDP). However, access to financing for agricultural activities appears to be very low compared to developed economies. Following this, governments in a number of countries have sought to introduce banking sector regulations to facilitate increased funding to the agricultural sector. Taking motivation of the interest rate capping regulations by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) in 2016, this paper examined the effect of these interest rate ceiling regulations on agri-lending in Kenya.

The paper employs random effects technique to estimate a panel data of 26 commercial banks in Kenya from 2014 to 2018 using the ratio of loans to agricultural sector to gross loans and the natural logarithm of loans to agricultural sector as proxies for agri-lending. Bank size, equity, asset quality, liquidity, revenue concentration and bank concentration are employed as control variables.

The results of the panel regression estimations show that the introduction of the interest cap resulted in increases in the proportion and growth in agri-lending compared with the pre-interest cap period. In addition, large banks and highly capitalised banks were found to be associated with lower agri-lending, with differences in the effects across pre-cap and post-cap periods.

From a policy perspective, the findings highlight the effectiveness of interest rate capping in meeting this objective and supports the calls for strengthening cooperation between the government and key stakeholders in the financial sector. This will allow for the effective enforcement of policies by the regulatory powers in a manner that guarantees sound and dynamic financial systems, particularly within the agricultural sector.

As far as the authors are aware, this the first paper to examine the effect of the interest rate cap regulation on agri-lending in Kenya.

In the backdrop of growing global concern on escalating CO₂ emission leading to climate disorder and controversy between economic growth and environment, this study undertakes a decomposition analysis of the top 20 emitters of the world during 1992–2016 with two objectives: to identify the relative contribution of the major driving factors in CO₂ emission and to comprehend the role and performance of sectoral energy consumption pattern in changing the emission level.

The paper uses variance analysis method to perform two stage decomposition: first, it decomposes emission into the major driving factors, and, secondly, it also decomposes fossil fuel intensity of different sectors into fuel mix and energy intensity effects, which are new in the literature.

The results indicate that aggressive pursuit for economic growth, particularly by developing countries, is the major reason behind unprecedented emission growth, with income effect, fossil fuel intensity effect and population effect having substantial roles. Considerable decline in dependence on fossil fuel, coupled with rising emissions, signifies that emission intensity is still to be harnessed. Sectoral decomposition shows that while fossil fuel intensity has declined in residential sector, it has remarkably shot up in industry, transport and commercial sectors. On the other hand, sectoral energy intensity has declined, particularly due to favourable performances of transport and commercial sectors.

The detailed country-wise sectoral analysis identifies the sectors with favourable contribution in curtailing emission and lends a direction to other countries for policy making.

This study contributes by incorporating multi-country sectoral segregation in decomposition analysis. It focuses not only on energy intensity, but on the effect of energy substitution in each sector as well. It identifies the sectors that have lowered their dependence on fossil fuel to highlight that emission can effectively be dealt with through a prudent choice of fuel mix.

One of the intractable problems in all democracies is how to deal with the paradox of political equality alongside economic inequality. All democracies uphold political and civil equality, yet they all maintain material inequality. A host of constitutional rights and liberties makes everybody in a democracy equal in a formal-legal way. Simultaneously, all democracies protect private property. Since property is always unequally distributed it follows that constitutional guarantees of property rights may undermine efforts to ensure material equality. If, as in South Africa, land was acquired by settlers through colonialism, then constitutional protection of property rights provides a legal sanction for colonial land theft.

Climate change and its imminent threat to human survival adversely impact the agriculture sector. In an impoverished country like The Gambia, economic costs of climate change are colossal. This study aims to establish a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for The Gambia’s agriculture sector to examine the effects of climate change on crops, livestock and sea-level rise.

This study used a CGE model with other climate change impact models to compute the impacts of climate change on The Gambia’s agriculture sector. The social accounting matrix calibrates the results from the various models, thereby generating the baseline results which exemplify a “steady-state” and policy shock results illustrating the medium- and long-term effects of climate change on the country’s agriculture sector.

The baseline results indicate the status quo showing the neglect of the agriculture sector due to limited investment in the sector. Hence, the sector is the “hardest hit” sector as a result of climate change. When the model factored in climate change in the medium term (2055) and long term (2085), the macroeconomic indicators of gross domestic product, national savings, wages, disposable income and consumer price index deteriorated, elucidating the vulnerability of the economy to climate change. The consumption of groundnuts, cattle and fish will decline by 5%, 5% and 4%, respectively, in the long term. However, the production of all agricultural commodities will decline by an average of 35% for the same period. The results for international trade show that exportation would decline while importation will increase over time. The general price level for agricultural commodities would increase by 3% in 2055 and 5% in 2085. Generally, the results manifest the severity of climate change in the agriculture sector which will have a multiplier effect on the economy. The impact of climate change would result in agriculture and economic decline causing hunger, poverty and human misery.

The caveat of this study revealed the nuances not captured by previous Gambian climate change studies, thus the novelty of the study.