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"This book explains variations in institutional change within Japan Agricultural Cooperatives in the context of deepening demographic pressures and shifting market incentives"--

Agriculture, Cooperative --- Agriculture and state --- JA Group, Japanese farm households, Nōkyō co-op, Agricultural policy in Japan, Effects of globalization on Japanese farming, Japan Agricultural Cooperatives.

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This paper analyzes changes in agricultural production and economic welfare of farmers in rural Peru resulting from a large irrigation infrastructure rehabilitation project. The analysis uses a ten-year district panel and a spatial regression discontinuity approach to measure the causal effect of the intervention. While general impacts are modest, the analysis shows that the project is progressive - poor farmers consistently benefit more than non-poor farmers. Farmers living in districts with a rehabilitated irrigation site experience positive labor dynamics, in terms of income and agricultural jobs. Poor farmers increase their total income by more than USD 220 per year compared with the control group, while rich farmers do not experience such an income gain. The results also show crop specialization patterns in the economic status of farm households; poorer farm households increase their production of staple crops, such as beans and potatoes, while non-poor beneficiary farmers cultivate more industrial crops. Findings from this evaluation have important implications for pro-poor policy design in the agricultural sector.

Agricultural production --- Agricultural products --- Agricultural sector --- Agriculture --- Crop diversification --- Crops & Crop Management Systems --- Distributional effects --- Farm households --- Income --- Inequality --- Insurance --- Irrigation --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poor --- Poor farmers --- Poor policy --- Poverty line --- Poverty Reduction --- Regional Economic Development --- Rural --- Rural areas --- Rural development --- Rural infrastructure --- Rural infrastructure development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Social Protections and Labor

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In rural Indonesia, around 60 percent of workers engage in agriculture and face regular climatic shocks that may threaten their crop production, household income, and human capital investments. Little is known about households' ability to maintain consumption in response to these shocks. This paper uses both longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional data to examine the extent to which farm profits and household consumption are reduced by delayed monsoon onset, an important determinant of rice production in Indonesia. It also investigates whether poor households are more vulnerable to delayed onset. Overall, delayed onset has minor effects on rural households' profit and consumption. For poor households, defined as those with average per capita consumption in the lowest quintile, delayed onset the previous year is associated with a 13 percent decline in per capita consumption. Most of this decline is due to an increase in household size, however, and delayed onset two years ago is positively correlated with consumption. The findings suggest that poor households experience greater volatility but no lasting reduction in consumption following delayed monsoon onset.

Agricultural output --- Agricultural productivity --- Consumption --- Crop production --- Drought --- Farm households --- Farmland --- Household consumption --- Household income --- Household size --- Human capital --- Informal insurance --- Insurance markets --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Per capita consumption --- Poor --- Poor households --- Poor rural areas --- Poverty Reduction --- Regional Economic Development --- Rural --- Rural areas --- Rural Development --- Rural households --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Small Area Estimation Poverty Mapping

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Rich countries' agricultural trade policies are the battleground on which the future of the WTO's troubled Doha Round will be determined. Subject to widespread criticism, they nonetheless appear to be almost immune to serious reform, and one of their most common defenses is that they protect poor farmers. The authors' findings reject this claim. The analysis uses detailed data on farm incomes to show that major commodity programs are highly regressive in the United States, and that the only serious losses under trade reform are among large, wealthy farmers in a few heavily protected subsectors. In contrast, analysis using household data from 15 developing countries indicates that reforming rich countries' agricultural trade policies would lift large numbers of developing country farm households out of poverty. In the majority of cases these gains are not outweighed by the poverty-increasing effects of higher food prices among other households. Agricultural reforms that appear feasible, even under an ambitious Doha Round, achieve only a fraction of the benefits for developing countries that full liberalization promises, but protect U.S. large farms from most of the rigors of adjustment. Finally, the analysis indicates that maximal trade-led poverty reductions occur when developing countries participate more fully in agricultural trade liberalization.

Agricultural Liberalization --- Agricultural Products --- Agricultural Support --- Debt Markets --- Distributional Effects --- Economic Policies --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Farm Households --- Farm Income --- Farm Incomes --- Farm Sector --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Food Prices --- Free Trade --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Household Survey --- Income --- International Economics & Trade --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Political Economy --- Poor --- Poor Countries --- Poor Farmers --- Population Policies --- Post-Reform --- Poverty --- Poverty Reduction --- Private Sector Development --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Rural --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Rural Sectors

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August 1995 - By and large, it appears that the goals of agricultural reform are being met in Mexico. But measures such as decoupling income supports and price supports or reorienting research and extension could help farmers who cannot afford access to machinery and purchased inputs and services. Lopez, Nash, and Stanton report the results of a study of Mexican farm households using 1991 survey data and a smaller resurvey of some of the same households in 1993. One study goal was to empirically examine the relationship between assets and the output supply function. Using a production model focusing on capital as a productive input, they found that both the supply level and the responsiveness (elasticities) to changing input and output prices tend to depend on the farmer's net assets and on how productive assets are used. Regression analysis using data from the surveys shows that farmers who use productive assets such as machinery tend to be positively responsive to price changes, while those with no access to such assets are not. Another study goal was to monitor the condition of Mexican farmers in a rapidly changing policy environment. The 1991 survey data suggest that farmers with more limited use of capital inputs (the low-CI group) were more likely to grow principally corn and to grow fewer crops, on average, than the others. They also had more problems getting credit and were less likely to use purchased inputs, such as seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides, or to use a tractor to prepare the soil. They tended to be less well-educated, and their land tended to be of lower quality. Results from the panel data showed conditions generally improving for the average farmer in the sample area between 1991 and 1993, during a period when agricultural reforms were implemented. Cropping patterns were more diversified, the average size of landholdings increased, the average farmer received more credit (in real terms), more farm households earned income from off-farm work, and more farmers used purchased inputs. Asset ownership and educational attainment also improved modestly. The very small low-CI group in this sample fared as well as, or better than, the other groups. True, their level of educational achievement fell, and fewer of them had off-farm income than in 1991. But their use of credit, irrigation, machinery, and purchased inputs increased more than for other groups. The limited data are not proof of a causal link, but the fact that the goals are being met should at least ensure that adverse conditions are not undermining reform. Farmers that lacked access to productive assets did not respond as well to incentives or take advantage of the opportunities presented by reform and may need assistance, particularly to get access to credit markets. There may be a good argument for decoupling income supports from price supports for farmers, since income payments that are independent of the vagaries of production could provide a more stable signal of creditworthiness than price supports do. Possibly reorienting research and extension services more to the needs of low-CI producers could also improve the efficiency with which the sector adjusts to new incentives. Hypotheses and tentative conclusions from this study will be explored further when more data are collected in 1995. This paper - a product of the International Trade Division, International Economics Department---is part of a larger effort in the department to investigate the effects of international trade policy on individual producers. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Rural Poverty and Agriculture in Mexico: An Analysis of Farm Decisions and Supply Responsiveness (RPO 678-23).

Access To Irrigation --- Agricultural Activities --- Agriculture --- Agriculture and Farming Systems --- Commercial Bank --- Credit Markets --- Crops and Crop Management Systems --- Economic Theory and Research --- Farm Decisions --- Farm Households --- Farm Income --- Farm Work --- Farmer --- Farmers --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Literacy --- Investment and Investment Climate --- Irrigation --- Landholdings --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Markets and Market Access --- Natural Disaster --- Poor Farmer --- Poor Farmers --- Poverty --- Poverty Reduction --- Rural Development --- Rural Development Knowledge and Information Systems --- Rural Financial Markets --- Rural Poverty --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Rural Sector --- Small Farms