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This study aims to explore the smallholder farmers’ perceptions of climate change and its adaptation options (changing crop variety; improved crop and livestock; soil and water conservation [SWC]; and irrigation practices) and drought indices in the Dire Dawa Administration Zone, Eastern Ethiopia.

A cross-sectional household survey was used. A structured interview schedule for respondent households for key informants and focus group discussions were used. This study used both descriptive statistics and an econometric model. The model was used to compute the determinants of climate adaptation options in the study area. Drought characterization was carried out by DrinC software.

The results revealed households adapted to selected adaptation options. The model results confirmed that education level, farm size, tropical livestock units (TLUs) and access to agricultural extension services have positive and significant impacts on changing crop variety by 0.0014%, 0.045%, 0.032% and 0.035%, respectively. The likelihood of farmers’ decisions to use adaptation strategies (family size, TLU, agricultural extension service and distance from the market) has positive and significant impacts on SWC. The reconnaissance drought index (RDI6) of ONDJFM and AMJJAS showed extreme and severe drought index values of −2.88 and −1.96, respectively.

This study used a locally adopted climate change adaptation intervention for smallholder farmers, revealing the importance of drought characterization indices both seasonally and annually.

This study explores whether targeted microcredit can effectively alleviate households’ multidimensional relative poverty (MdRP) in rural China in the new era following the poverty elimination campaign and discusses it from a gendered perspective.

This study applies a fixed-effects model, propensity score matching (PSM) and two-stage instrumental variable method to two-period panel data collected from 611 households in rural western China in 2018 and 2021 to explore the effects, mechanisms and heterogenous performance of targeted microcredit on households’ MdRP in the new era.

(i) Targeted microcredit can alleviate MdRP among rural households in the new era, mainly by reducing income and opportunity inequality. (ii) Targeted microcredit can promote women’s empowerment, mainly by enhancing their social participation, thereby helping alleviate households’ MdRP. The effect of the targeted microcredit on MdRP is more significant in medium-educated women households and non-left-behind women households. (iii) The MdRP alleviation effect is stronger in villages with a high degree of digitalization.

Learn from the experience of targeted microcredit. Accurately identify poor groups and integrate loan design into financial health and women empowerment. Particularly, pay attention to less-educated and left-behind women households and strengthen coordination between targeted microcredit and digital village strategies.

This study clarifies the effect of targeted microcredit on women’s empowerment and households’ MdRP alleviation in the new era. It also explores its various effects on households with different female characteristics and regional digitalization levels, providing ideas for optimizing microcredit.

Collaboration in agricultural value chains (AVCs) has the potential to increase smallholders’ participation in international value chains and increase their benefits from participation. This scoping review explores existing collaboration models among stakeholders of AVCs in developing countries, examines enablers and constraints of collaboration and identifies policy gaps.

We systematically searched three databases, CAB Abstracts, Econlit (EBSCO) and Agricola, for studies published between 2005 and 2023 and included 59 relevant studies on AVC collaboration.

The primary motivations for collaboration are to enhance market access and improve product quality. Key outcomes of collaboration include improvements in farmers’ welfare, market participation and increased production; only a few studies consider improved risk management as an important outcome. Robust support from government and non-governmental entities is a primary enabler of collaboration. Conversely, conflicts of interest among stakeholders and resource limitations constrain collaboration possibilities. Collaboration involving high-value crops prioritizes income increases, whereas collaboration involving staple crops focuses on improving household food security.

This study may have publication bias as unsuccessful instances of collaboration are less likely to be published.

This study is unique in highlighting collaboration models’ characteristics and identifying AVC policy and programmatic areas where private firms, farmers’ groups, local governments and donor agencies can contribute.

This study aims to comparatively measure the impact factors of financial inclusion and their spillover effects for Belt and Road countries using panel data from 57 countries in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2021 and relevant indicators from three dimensions: availability, usage and quality to construct a digital empowerment index of financial inclusion.

A spatial Durbin panel model is constructed to empirically test the impact mechanism of financial inclusion under digital empowerment.

Results reveal that improving a country’s quality of regulation, technology and residents’ financial literacy significantly contributes to the development of its financial inclusion, while improving its neighboring countries’ financial literacy also boosts its financial inclusion development. This study provides theoretical support for evaluating the development level of inclusive finance in “Belt and Road” countries, promoting the development of inclusive finance and alleviating the problem of financial exclusion.

This study is original as it creates a research paradigm for “Belt and Road” countries, enabling systematic testing and comparative analysis of inclusive finance development. It incorporates traditional and digital services, evaluating them based on sharing, fairness, convenience and specific group benefits. An inclusive financial index is constructed using the coefficient of variation and arithmetic weighted average methods. Additionally, it introduces a more rational analysis approach for the influence mechanism and spatial effect, using an economic geography nested matrix and spatial Durbin model to explore spatial effects in inclusive finance.

This study aims to explore how sustainable business models (SBM) can be developed within agri-innovation systems (AIS) and emphasize an integration of the two with a systemic understanding for reducing food loss and value loss in postharvest agri-food supply chain.

This study conducted longitudinal qualitative research in a developing country with food loss challenges in the postharvest supply chain. This study collected data through multiple rounds of fieldwork, interviews and focus groups over four years. Thematic analysis and “sensemaking” were used for inductive data analysis to generate rich contextual knowledge by drawing upon the lived realities of the agri-food supply chain actors.

First, this study finds that the value losses are varied in the supply chain, encompassing production value, intrinsic value, extrinsic value, market value, institutional value and future food value. This happens through two cumulative effects including multiplier losses, where losses in one model cascade into others, amplifying their impact and stacking losses, where the absence of data stacks or infrastructure pools hampers the realisation of food value. Thereafter, this study proposes four strategies for moving from the loss-incurring current business model to a networked SBM for mitigating losses. This emphasises the need to redefine ownership as stewardship, enable formal and informal beneficiary identification, strengthen value addition and build capacities for empowering communities to benefit from networked SBM with AIS initiatives. Finally, this study puts forth ten propositions for future research in aligning AIS with networked SBM.

This study contributes to understanding the interplay between AIS and SBM; emphasising the integration of the two to effectively address food loss challenges in the early stages of agri-food supply chains. The identified strategies and research propositions provide implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to accelerate sustainable practices for reducing food loss and waste in agri-food supply chains.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the tourism economy affects local food availability, access, utilization and stability in dessert-prone agricultural heritage sites. Specifically, the study aims to explore the relationship between the tourism industry and local agricultural practices and how this connection influences food security in the Siwa Oasis, located in the Western Desert of Egypt.

The study employs a qualitative exploratory research design using in-depth interviews and focus groups to investigate the impact of the tourism economy on food security and identify potential benefits and limitations for food security in the region.

The research reveals that the tourism economy in Siwa Oasis has only a marginal contribution to food security. The study highlights a lack of a strong connection between the tourism industry and local agricultural practices within the heritage site. As a result, the potential benefits and synergies that could be achieved between tourism and agriculture have not been fully realized, leading to a limited impact on food stability.

This study primarily relies on qualitative data from Siwa Oasis, Egypt, which may limit the generalizability of findings beyond this specific context. Additionally, while the study provides valuable insights into the complex relationship between tourism and food security, it does not quantitatively measure the magnitude of tourism's impact. Future research could incorporate quantitative methods for a more comprehensive understanding of this relationship in diverse desert-prone regions. Finally, the study highlights the need for more integrated approaches to enhance food security through tourism, but the specific strategies and policy recommendations require further investigation and adaptation to local contexts.

This study underscores the need for tourism development strategies that prioritize food security in desert-prone areas like Siwa Oasis. Policymakers and stakeholders should promote sustainable tourism practices that enhance local agriculture, create diversified income sources and foster equitable benefits for communities. Moreover, recognizing the seasonal nature of tourism, interventions to address food shortages during off-peak periods are crucial. Efforts should also focus on skill development and gender-inclusive opportunities within the tourism sector to ensure broader community participation. Additionally, collaborations between tourism and agriculture should be encouraged to optimize food availability and stability while preserving cultural food traditions.

This study adds original insights by examining the specific impact of the tourism economy on food security in dessert-prone agricultural heritage sites. The study's originality lies in its exploration of the untapped potential for synergy between the tourism and agricultural sectors and the implications for local food security. This research contributes to understanding how tourism can improve food security in specific contexts and provides valuable insights into sustainable development in heritage sites.

A better understanding of the determinants of demand through accurate estimates of the elasticity of import demand can help policymakers and exporters improve their market access and competitiveness. This study analyzed the EU's demand for imported potato from major suppliers between 1994 and 2018, with the aim to evaluate the competitiveness of Egyptian potato.

This study adopted an import-differentiated framework to investigate demand relationships among the major potato suppliers to the EU's. To evaluate the competitiveness of Egyptian potato on the EU market, expenditure and price demand elasticities for various suppliers were calculated and compared.

The empirical results indicated that as income allocation of fresh potatoes increases, the investigated EU markets import more potatoes from other suppliers compared to imports from Egypt. The results show that EU importers may switch to potato imports from other suppliers as the import price of Egyptian potatoes increases, which enter the EU markets before domestically produced potatoes are harvested.

Due to data unavailability, the present study relied on yearly data on quantities and prices of EU potato imports. A higher frequency of observations should allow for considering seasonal effects, and thereby providing a more transparent picture of market dynamics and demand behavior of EU countries with respect to potato import from various sources of origin.

The study used a system-wide and source differentiated approach to analyze import demand. In particular, the empirical approach allowed for comparing different demand models (AIDS, Rotterdam, NBR and CBS) to filter out the superior and most suitable model for that data because the suitability and performance of a demand model depends rather on data than on universal criteria.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the application of blockchain to agri-food supply chains, including key issues and trends. It examines the state of the art and conceptual structure of the field and proposes an agenda to guide future research.

This article performs a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer software on a sample of 205 articles from the WoS database to identify research trend topics.

The number of publications in this area has increased since 2020, which shows a growing research interest. The research hotspots are related to the integration of blockchain technology in the agri-food supply chain for traceability, coordination between all actors involved, transparency of operations and improvement of food safety. Furthermore, this is linked to sustainability and the achievement of the sustainable development gtoals (SDGs), while addressing key challenges in the implementation of blockchain-based technologies in the agri-food supply chain.

The application of blockchain in the agri-food supply chain may consider four key aspects. Firstly, the implementation of blockchain can improve the traceability of food products. Secondly, this technology supports sustainability issues and could avoid disruptions in the agri-food supply chain. Third, blockchain improves food quality and safety control throughout the supply chain. Fourthly, the findings show that regulation is needed to improve trust between stakeholders.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the blockchain phenomenon in the agri-food supply chain by optimising the search criteria. Moreover, it serves to bridge to future research by identifying gaps in the field.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about the diversity of credibility arrangements in new audit spaces “in the margins” of auditing and the implications of such arrangements.

The paper is based on an in-depth qualitative study of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) rights certification run by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights (RFSL) during its first decade of operation. We have interviewed employees and studied documents at the certification units within the RFSL. We have also interviewed certified organizations.

We highlight two features that explain the unusual credibility arrangements in this audit practice: the role of beneficiaries in the organizational arrangements chosen and the role of responsibility as an organizing value with consequences for responsibility allocation in this certification. These features make it possible for the RFSL to act as a credible auditor even though it deviates from common arrangements for credible audits.

The RFSL certification is different in several ways. First, the RFSL acts as both a trainer and an auditor. Second, the trainers/auditors at the RFSL have no accreditation to guarantee their credibility. Third, the RFSL decides for itself what standards should apply for the certification and adapts these standards to the operation being audited. Therefore, this case provides a good opportunity to study alternative credibility arrangements in the margins of auditing as well as their justifications.

We study five exogenous shocks: climate, violence, price hikes, spoilage and the COVID-19 lockdown. We analyze the association between these shocks and trader characteristics, reflecting trader vulnerability.

Using primary survey data on 1,100 Nigerian maize traders for 2021 (controlling for shocks in 2017), we use probit models to estimate the probabilities of experiencing climate, violence, disease and cost shocks associated with trader characteristics (gender, size and region) and to estimate the probability of vulnerability (experiencing severe impacts).

Traders are prone to experiencing more than one shock, which increases the intensity of the shocks. Price shocks are often accompanied by violence, climate and COVID-19 shocks. The poorer northern region is disproportionately affected by shocks. Northern traders experience more price shocks while Southern traders are more affected by violence shocks given their dependence on long supply chains from the north for their maize. Female traders are more likely to experience violent events than men who tend to be more exposed to climate shocks.

The data only permit analysis of the general degree of impact of a shock rather than quantifying lost income.

This paper is the first to analyze the incidence of multiple shocks on grain traders and the unequal distribution of negative impacts. It is the first such in Africa based on a large sample of grain traders from a primary survey.