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The purpose of this paper is to examine households’ acceptability of local (Ofada) rice by identifying the quality attributes influencing marginal implicit prices (MIPs) paid by rice consumers’ households in South-West, Nigeria.

The data used for this study were collected from a survey of 600 rice-consuming households in the study area. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select the respondents. Well-structured questionnaires were used to collect information on general households’ socioeconomic characteristics, their desirability and preference for local (Ofada) rice, and market prices of Ofada rice. Kendall’s concordance test was performed to confirm agreement among respondents in their rankings of the rice quality attributes. Hedonic price function was used to examine the relationship between implicit prices paid by consumers based on quality attributes of local (Ofada) rice, as observed in the market.

The result of Kendall’s coefficient of concordance revealed that there is 73.74 per cent agreement in ranking quality attributes of local (Ofada) rice consumers’ households in the study area. Colour, perceived nutrient level, taste, grain shape and rate of breakage were the most ranked quality attributes with mean attribute ranking scores of 1.56, 1.69, 3.12, 5.53 and 5.86, respectively. The result of the hedonic pricing model revealed that households are willing to pay MIPs of ₦71.03 ($0.20), ₦45.23 ($0.13), ₦32.98 ($0.09), ₦21.06 ($0.06) and ₦14.41($0.04) per kg for colour, grain cohesion, grain shape, perceived nutrient level and perceived chemical storage, respectively, while discounting MIPs of ₦60.55 ($0.17), ₦19.36 ($0.05), ₦17.14 ($0.05) and ₦6.00 ($0.02) for texture, rate of breakage, perceived freshness and low swelling capacity per kg of local (Ofada) rice, respectively.

Continuous importation of rice into the country has many negative implications such as worsening of the poverty status of local rice farmers, unemployment of teeming youths engaged in rice value chain, and exposure to soaring and unpredictable price bringing unsustainable development. Lastly, over-dependency on rice importation, if not checked, can also permit dumping of low quality and sometimes expired rice into the country. All aforementioned reasons will make it difficult for local rice to compete favourably with imported varieties.

Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and Hedonic model were used as a diagnostic tools. These diagnostic tools show the need for government and relevant stakeholders to focus on improving the quality of local (Ofada) rice, especially the undesirable attributes. This could be achieved by adopting modern processing technology, that will enhance production and consumers’ acceptability, which could make local (Ofada) rice have good market share against imported brands.

The economic value of a good is revealed by the consumer’s willingness to pay for the good, consequently increasing production through consumers’ acceptability, and improve living standard of farmers and processors through increased earnings.

The choice of a particular local rice, especially local (Ofada) rice, is made to estimate the effect of different attributes on the price paid by rice consumers’ households and to help in the development of effective technologies and policy that enhance better rice quality using both Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and Hedonic model to achieve the objective. For the first time this research has given clarity on the monetary value attached to local (Ofada) rice consumption by rice consumers’ households through quality attributes.

This study aims to discuss climate change, by modifying the timing of several agricultural operations, reduce the efficiency and yield of inputs leading to a lower production level. The reduction of the effects of climate change on production yields and on farmers' technical efficiency (TE) requires the adoption of adaptation strategies. This paper analyses the impact of climate change adaptation strategies adopted on maize farmers' TE in Benin.

This paper uses an endogeneity-corrected stochastic production frontier approach based on data randomly collected from 354 farmers located in three different agro-ecological zones of Benin.

Estimation results revealed that the adoption of adaptation strategies improve maize farmers' TE by 1.28%. Therefore, polices to improve farmers' access to climate change adaptation strategies are necessarily for the improvement of farmers' TE and yield.

The results of this study contribute to the policy debate on the enhancement of food security by increasing farmers' TE through easy access to climate change adaptation strategies. The improvement of farmers' TE will in turn improve the livelihoods of the communities and therefore contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2 and 13.

This study contributes to theoretical and empirical debate on the relationship between adaptation to climate change and farmers' TE. It also adapts a new methodology (endogeneity-corrected stochastic production frontier approach) to correct the endogeneity problem due to the farmers' adaptation decision.

Sago starch (Metroxylon sagu Rottb.) is one of the starches imported into Japan. Recently, sago starch has been promoted as a healthy type of starch because it is gluten-free and non-allergenic. This study aims to identify the factors affecting sago starch import demand during the period 1978–2017 in Japan by using a double logarithmic linear function. The study revealed that the price of sago starch, GDP, aging population rate and tariff-rate quota policy are significant factors influencing sago starch importation in Japan.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors affecting formal credit constraint status of rural farm households in Vietnam’s North Central Coast (NCC) region.

Using the direct elicitation method (DEM), the authors consider both internal and external credit rationing.

Empirical evidences confirm the importance of household head’s age, gender and education to household’s likelihood of being credit constrained. In addition, households who have advantages in farm land size, labour resources and non-farm income are less likely to be credit constrained. Poor households are observed to remain restricted by formal credit institutions. Results from the endogenous switching regression model suggest that credit constraints negatively impact household’s consumption per capita and informal credit can act as a substitute to mitigate the negative influence of formal credit constraints.

One limitation arises from the usage of the DEM to identify credit constrained households. The method cannot detect effective and ineffective constraints. Another limitation is the inability of cross-section data to capture long-term impacts of credit constraints on household welfare. Finally, causes of credit constraints from the lender’s view cannot be observed.

The results suggest that it is necessary to enhance the credit allocation regime to reduce the transaction cost and provide target households with sufficient credit. It should be emphasized that high transaction cost and the mismatch between credit demand and supply stemming from information asymmetry. The government can help formal financial institutions to reduce information cost by encouraging the active role of social organizations such as Women Unions, Youth Unions and Veteran Unions in bridging rural farm households with formal lenders.

There are limited studies focusing on determinants of credit constraints and their impacts on rural farm households. To the best of the knowledge, there is no study evaluating the impact of credit constraints on rural farm household welfare particularly in Vietnam. In addition, the studies related to credit constraints only considered full quantity rationing (households applied for the loan but were rejected), omitting the case of partly quantity rationing (loan obtained by the borrowers is less than their demand) and self-rationing.

China's agricultural production trusteeship is characterized by the organic link between household operation of small-scale peasant economy and agricultural socialized services, which releases agricultural development vitality and promotes agricultural modernization. As one of the agricultural production trusteeship modes, the whole process trusteeship is suitable for the actual situation of China's aging population and labor force transfer. This paper aims to construct an evolutionary game model containing multistakeholder to explore the behavior decisions through numerical simulation and to provide useful suggestions for the formation of a positive and stable trusteeship relationship and the sound development of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production.

The paper incorporates village committees, service organizations and farmers into the same research framework, selects “guarantee + dividends” as the income distribution method and applies the evolutionary game method to analyze behavioral choices and evolutionary paths of stakeholders. By constructing the expectation function, establishing the replicator dynamic equations and analyzing the tripartite evolutionary stability strategy, the authors explore the factors that affect the stakeholders’ strategy choice and determine asymptotically stable points and stability conditions.

(1) There is a game relationship among village committees, farmers and service organizations in the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production, asymptotically stable points (0,0,1) and (1,1,1) are obtained through calculation. (2) The proportion of stakeholders' strategy choice, the weight of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production in the performance appraisal of the village committee, the village committee's supervision cost, the village committee's reputation effect and the penalty for false dividends of the service organization will affect the speed at which the curve representing the tripartite relationship approaches two asymptotically stable points.

The countermeasures proposed in the paper have excellent reference value. (1) For areas that have realized the project: Village committees can solve the trusteeship problems exposed in the initial areas and improve farmers' satisfaction with the project. (2) For areas that have not realized the project: Those regions will receive more experience references and enhance their confidence in this project. The limitation of the paper is that it takes the main grain-producing areas in only the three northeastern provinces of China as the research object. The next research object will be extended to the whole country.

This paper propose strategies for realizing the orderly operation of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production: first, increase the proportion of stakeholders' strategy choices; second, reduce the village committee's supervision cost; third, increase the weight of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production in the performance appraisal of the village committee; fourth, improve the village committee's reputation effect; fifth, increase the penalty for false dividends of the service organization.

Agricultural production trusteeship is in its initial stage in China. The interest relationships between stakeholders are not yet clear. The paper innovatively applies the evolutionary game method to the research field of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production. According to conditions in China, based on ensuring the guaranteed income, the paper introduces the dividend income variable and establishes a tripartite game model of village committees, service organization and farmers. The paper provides suggestions for the orderly and healthy development of China's agricultural production trusteeship and provides experience for the operation of other modes of agricultural production trusteeship.

The purpose of this paper is to examine farmers’ access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity in the Northern Savannah ecological zone of Ghana.

Secondary data from the Ghana Feed the Future baseline survey involving a total sample of 2,968 farm households were used. The conditional mixed process (CMP) framework was applied to estimate access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity simultaneously. As a system estimator the CMP corrects for possible heterogeneity and sample selection bias.

The results from the estimations revealed that age, literacy, farm non-mechanized equipment, and group membership were the variables influencing farmers’ access to credit. Credit constraint conditions were determined by household size, locality, group membership, and household durable assets. Finally, the results showed that productivity of farmers was dependent on marital status, household size, locality, farm size, commercialization, farm mechanized equipment, group membership, and household durable assets.

This paper is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to use the CMP framework to jointly estimate access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity. The results indicate that estimating credit access and constraint models separately would have yielded biased estimates. Thus, this paper informs future research on farmers’ credit access, credit constraint, and productivity for informed policymaking.

Cocoa is regarded as a brown-golden crop, but its value chain activities are dominated by the elderly. Hence, focussing attention on the young generation of farmers is the surest way to reverse this trend and secure the future of the cocoa industry. This paper, therefore explores factors influencing youth participation in cocoa value chain activities in Ghana.

Primary data were collected using a multistage sampling technique. The authors used a semi-structured questionnaire in collecting data via interviews. Through the theory of utility maximization, a multivariate probit (MVP) model was estimated to identify factors influencing youth participation in cocoa value chain activities in Ghana.

The author found that some of the value chain activities are complementary, while others are substitutes. Participation in cocoa value chain activities is influenced by access to land, participation in training programmes in cocoa production, membership of Next Generation Cocoa Youth Programme (MASO), access to agricultural credit and other demographic characteristics.

Relevant information and youth-targeted projects enhance their participation in value chain activities.

This paper is one of the few studies that empirically analyses drivers of youth participation in cocoa value chain activities in Africa.

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.

This paper aims to investigate how awareness influences the adoption of positive selection (PS) technology among smallholder yam farmers in West Africa. PS has the potential of increasing yield and reducing disease incidence and severity in yam production.

This paper applies the average treatment effect (ATE) methodology to estimate the rates of awareness and adoption of the PS technology and associated factors using data from 678 smallholder seed yam farmers in Ghana and Nigeria.

The results indicate that the actual adoption rates of PS technology are 58 and 55%, while the potential adoption rates are estimated at 89.5 and 79.3% for Ghana and Nigeria, respectively, if the PS technology was fully disseminated. This leads to adoption gaps of 31.7 and 24.8%, respectively, for Ghana and Nigeria stemming from incomplete awareness of the PS among the population of yam growing farmers. The PS adoption is high among the educated young farmers who are members of farmer based organizations and participate in demonstrations.

Promotional efforts for enhancing awareness and adoption of PS should target educated youth willing to participate in field demonstrations and should focus on scaling up of PS technology to ensure quality farmer saved seed yams and enhance yam productivity in West Africa.

The introduction of PS in seed yam production is quite recent also its introduction to seed yam farmers in West Africa. Subsequently, a better understanding of what the adoption status would be should everyone in the population of yam farmers are aware of PS is vital for policy, research and development.

This study aims to identify the marginal impact of introducing a signal attribute of pasture-raised beef on consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for other independent attributes.

The study is divided into two steps. The first, qualitative, consisted of investigating the values consumers have regarding beef production. To this end, 52 interviews with Brazilian and US consumers were conducted using laddering. In the second, quantitative, six experiments, (face to face and online) with 267 consumers of beef were performed.

As a result, the main value found for the Brazilians was security, while for the Americans was self-direction. For consumers, the WTP for animal welfare was the most important in the choice experiments where this information was present.

These findings offer an alternate beef differentiation, enabling it to be sold with higher added value by integrating these.