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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of institutional factors in agricultural structural change in the European Union (EU) using the case study of land mobility in Ireland. A range of agricultural land use options are compared in order to examine the effect of domestic and EU policy instruments on land mobility.

Using socio-economic data from the Teagasc National Farm Survey, three hypothetical farms are created using a microsimulation approach to compare incomes across farm systems and land use options. Tax and subsidy policies are applied to derive returns for the hypothetical farms under a variety of land use scenarios.

The analysis finds that in comparing four hypothetical scenarios, leasing out agricultural land on a long-term basis can prove more profitable for cattle and tillage farmers than farming the land. Only dairy farmers derive consistently higher disposable incomes from farming their land as opposed to leasing it out. Changes in CAP rules can also negatively affect farmers taking advantage of Ireland’s tax-based leasing incentives.

A gap in the literature exists in terms of how institutional factors may act to prevent either land supply or demand channels from functioning properly. This paper addresses that gap, using Ireland as a case study.

This paper aims to assess the rate and land category contributing to the changes in seven land-uses in the Kintampo North Municipality of Ghana and the effect of the decisions of land users on future landscapes.

LANDSAT images were classified to generate land use/cover maps to detect changes that had occurred between 1986 and 2014. In total, 120 farmers were also interviewed to determine their perceptions on land use changes. Interval, category and transition levels of changes were determined. Savanna woodland, settlement and forest were mostly converted to farmland in both intervals (1986-2001 and 2001-2014).

Results showed that rock outcrop, plantation, cropland and savanna woodland increased at an annual rate of 13.86, 1.57, 0.82 and 0.33 per cent, respectively, whilst forest, settlement and water body decreased at 4.90, 1.84 and 1.17 per cent annual rate of change, respectively. Approximately, 74 per cent of farmers will not change land use in the future, while 84.2 per cent plan to increase farm sizes.

The study shows that more land cover will be targeted for conversion as farmers expand their farmlands. There is the need for strict implementation of appropriate land use/cover policies to sustain food production in the region in this era of changing climate and population increase.

This research assessed the land use changes in the Kintampo North Municipality and its impacts on agriculture and carbon stocks release via land use changes. It identified how the decisions of the local farmers on land management will affect future landscape.

The Vietnamese Mekong River Delta (VMD) is one of the most affected deltas by climate change in the world. Several studies have investigated factors influencing farmers' climate change adaptation behaviors in the region; however, little is known about the effectiveness of such measures. This paper examines the determinants of adaptation strategies among VMD rice farmers and assesses the impacts of such practices on rice yield.

Endogenous switching regressions were employed using a survey data of 300 rice-producing households in An Giang and Tra Vinh provinces in 2016.

The results show that farmers receiving early disaster warnings are more likely to adopt adaptation measures to climate change. If nonadaptors had chosen to respond, their rice yield would have increased by 0.932 tons/ha/season.

The data sample is small and collected from two provinces in the VMD only; therefore, the results may be specific for the study sites. However, future research can adopt the proposed method for other regions.

The study estimates the production impacts of farmers' decisions on whether or not to adapt to extreme climate events. The proposed approach allows for capturing both observed and unobserved behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of farmers’ risk perceptions regarding rubber farming on their land use choices, including rubber specialization and crop diversification.

A cross-sectional survey data of some 600 smallholder rubber farmers in Xishuangbanna in Southwest China is employed. This paper develops a general conceptual framework that incorporates a subjective risk item into a model of farmers’ land use choices, thereby developing four econometric models to estimate the role of risk perceptions, and applies instrumental variables to control for the endogeneity of risk perceptions.

The results demonstrate that risk perceptions play an important role in smallholders’ decision-making regarding land use strategies to address potential risks in rubber farming. Smallholders with higher risk perceptions specialize in rubber farming less often and are more likely to diversify their land use, thereby contributing to local environmental conservation in terms of agrobiodiversity. The land use choices of smallholder rubber farmers are also associated with ethnicity, household wealth, off-farm employment, land tenure status, altitude and rubber farming experience.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the implications of farmers’ risk perceptions and shows entry points for improving the sustainability of rubber-based land use systems.

In rural areas, geographic location is key to market access and labor mobility of farm households. This paper aims to investigate the opportunities and constraints of smallholder rubber farmers in southwest China to adjust to the changes in economic and institutional conditions, namely the declining rubber prices, emerging land rental markets and growing off-farm job opportunities.

The empirical basis is a dataset of some 600 rubber farmers in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, collected in March 2015. The study uses instrumental variable and recursive bivariate probit models to account for possible endogeneity and selection bias.

With rubber prices in decline, the elevation of rubber plantations is an essential factor for the costs of access to the local factor markets and influences farm households' possibilities to adopt coping strategies. Notably, we find a U-shape type of relationship between the location and renting-out land due to the decline in rubber profitability. Rubber producers in low elevations are better bestowed with access to local markets. Households in high elevations, where rubber planting came in later, can shift to new crops like tea. However, the economic resilience of farmers in middle elevations is low due to their higher adjustment costs.

The paper provides a constructive basis for designing more location-specific development policies and can help avoid the past often ineffective blanket measures. Its implications have significant relevance for areas with similar conditions, for example, the remote, ethnic minority–dominated and mountainous rural areas in China.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing Indonesian farmers’ use of the warehouse receipt system (WRS) and their choice of private and public warehouses.

Primary data were collected through questionnaires administered to 500 farmers in two districts, Subang and Cianjur, in West Java Province in Indonesia. Binary logit regression was employed to examine the factors influencing farmers’ use of the WRS. Binary and bivariate probit regressions were employed to determine the factors influencing farmers’ choice of private and public warehouses.

The empirical results of the binary logit regression revealed that age, land ownership, selling price, the use of the warehouse receipt as collateral security and the availability of transportation facility positively influenced farmers’ use of the WRS, whereas education, income, farm profit and participation in farmers’ group negatively influenced farmers’ use of the WRS. The results of the binary probit regressions revealed that profit, availability of insurance and processing facility positively influenced the farmers’ decision to use the private WRS, whereas education, production, selling price and distance from the farm to the warehouse negatively influenced farmers’ decision to use the private WRS. Age, education, selling price and distance from the farm to the warehouse positively influenced the farmers’ decision to use the public WRS, whereas production and availability of processing facility negatively influenced the decision of farmers to use the public WRS.

This study highlights the importance of education and government assistance regarding the provision of facilities and price indemnified insurance for successful implementation of the WRS.

This study provides an empirical contribution to the existing literature on the development of WRS in Indonesia. In terms of methods of analysis, previous studies used purely qualitative and descriptive methods, whereas this study employed econometric techniques (i.e. binary logit, binary probit and bivariate probit regressions) to examine the WRS in Indonesia. In addition, whereas previous studies explored the WRS in general, this study investigated the farmers’ use of the public and private warehouses in addition to exploring the WRS in general. Finally, the finding that the average annual profit of non-users was significantly higher than that of the users of the WRS is striking, and this could be attributed to the current challenges of the implementation of the WRS, including high transportation and warehouse rental costs.

Effective farmer participation in the rural land consolidation process has become increasingly important because it improves results in rural land consolidation and land use efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mechanism of farmers’ effective participation in Chinese rural land consolidation.

The authors empirically assess farmers’ effective participation in the rural land consolidation process in ten counties of China’s Hubei province. Focusing on an effective decision-making model, the authors comprehensively evaluated farmer participation using surveys that incorporated an index system and analyzed survey results using a structural equation model to examine factors that influenced farmer’s effective participation.

The results of the study suggest that the correlations between farmers’ effective participation and the impacting factors the authors proposed were particularly strong. In addition, participation ability, participation opportunity and participation incentive are strongly associated with effective farmer participation. Thus, the authors highlight that incentives should be provided to encourage farmers’ effective participation in rural land consolidation.

Because of the chosen approach and the set of the research object, the geographic context of the empirical survey work was limited; furthermore, the authors only studied the influencing factors at the individual level, leaving the interaction effects between governmental factors and farmer individual factors inadequately explained.

Despite those limitations, these results serve as an important reference for government agencies and stakeholder groups in rural land consolidation decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that affect farmer’s decision to allocate credit for livestock production. The results are expected to contribute to the understanding of what motivates smallholders to allocate credit to agricultural production in general and livestock production in particular. A better understanding of the farmers’ behavior in allocating credit for livestock would provide useful information for project implementers and financial institutions that work with small-scale livestock producers.

A cross-section data set collected in 2014 from 5,000 households and 497 rural communities in the major highland regions of Ethiopia is examined. The authors developed a conceptual framework for credit allocation decision. Percentiles, means, and standard deviation as well as t, χ² and Fisher’s exact tests for association and Cramer’s V measure for strength of association have been used to describe the status of farmer’s access to credit and analyze credit utilization, while a three-stage probit model with double sample selection is used to identify factors that affect household’s decision to allocate credit for livestock production.

After controlling for potential selection biases, sex and literacy status of household head, land size, wealth and access to livestock centered extension service are found to have a statistically significant effect on farmers’ decision to allocate credit to livestock production. The results showed female-headed households, wealthy farmers, farmers with small plot of land and farmers that have access to livestock centered extension services are more likely to allocate the credit for livestock production. The results suggest that policies aimed at improving access to credit together with access to livestock focused extension service are more effective in increasing livestock production.

The study’s findings should be viewed with perspective and caution, as only households with excess demand for credit were the subject of the research.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it is one of a very few empirical studies that try to identify factors that affect households credit allocation to livestock in systematic way that removed confounding effects using three-stage probit models. Given the emphasis on financial constraints in livestock development, new empirical insights on household credit allocation are essential to better inform development interventions. Second, the analysis relies on a comprehensive data set that represents the major agricultural system of the country.

Farmers all over the country have been exposed to various adaptation strategies to climate change. The adaptation options however focus too closely on technical skills and technologies and fail to address critical social factors such as culture, beliefs and values that influence the adoption and effective implementation of new adaptation technologies, skills and capacity. This paper aims to assess the socioeconomic factors influencing farmers’ specific adaptive strategies to climate change in Pwalugu and Balungu communities in the Talensi district of the Upper East Region of Ghana. This study used purposive sampling technique to select the study communities, whereas simple random sampling technique was used to select a total of 100 respondents from the selected communities. Questionnaires, key informant interviews and focus group discussions were used in collecting data from respondents. This study used detailed statistical test to analyze the data, and the results are presented in the form of figures and tables. This study highlights the legal and institutional context which must be adopted for effective response to climate change impacts in rural communities in Northern Ghana. It also recommends that government and relevant stakeholders should collaborate with financial institutions to ensure that funds are readily available to farmers to enable them to effectively adapt to climate change as well as provide training/workshop programs to farmers to enhance their capacity in planning and implementing effective strategies to climate change.

This study used the integrated methodological approach where quantitative methods were combined with appropriate qualitative methods. According to Sandelowski (2000), this method ensures reliability (the extents to which results are consistent over time) and validity (the means of which measurements are accurate) of the research. A combination of participatory methods, including key informant interviews, household questionnaire surveys and focus-group discussions were used, allowing local people the opportunity to participate by sharing their experiences and knowledge to outline possible solutions to the problem at hand. Multiple methods (Yeasmin and Rahman, 2012) are good at reducing the inadequacies of a single method. Cross-sectional study was used in designing the research. Variables were measured or determined at the same period in a given population. This method allowed the assessment of practices, attitudes, knowledge and beliefs of a population in relation to a particular event or phenomenon (Olsen and George, 2014).

The findings of this study revealed farming as the major occupation in the two communities with males being dominant. Diverse livelihood activities such as fishing, animal/poultry rearing, firewood/charcoal production, hunting and driving were other activities respondents engaged to earn a living. In terms of institutional arrangements, avoidance of bush burning and tree felling were the norms influencing decision-making in the two communities. Fear of being punished, animals feeding on some of the grasses, trees inducing rainfall as well as benefits respondents get from trees were the reasons these norms were adhered to in the study area. Access to land, gender dynamics and finance were identified as the socioeconomic factors in the study area. High demands by landowners, last minute change of mind by landowners, limited fertile lands, lack of money to acquire lands, behavior of tenants, number of acres required and lands far from water bodies were the challenges associated with acquiring land in the communities. Access to finance influenced respondents’ ability to acquire fertile lands, lands closer to water bodies and any number of acres of their choice. Gender however impeded women adaptation strategies to climate change. Women were not allowed to own land and other property in the form of animals simply because they are seen as migrants and they do not know the history of the land.

This is a master’s thesis project. This paper shows the socioeconomic factors, which are influencing farmers’ specific adaptation to climate change in the Talensi district of Ghana.