Publications

Rapidly expanding mobile network coverage in developing countries offers new ways to reach poor farmers in isolated places. This article explores the potential for Information and Communication Technology to provide agricultural information and extension services to smallholder farmers, and links this to empirical insights of an intervention in Uganda, where community knowledge workers rely on mobile devices to deliver context- and ...

This paper analyses the state of the art research on food market integration, classifies it and provides a comprehensive bibliography for researchers with interest in market integration. A thorough review of literature published between 1990 and 2014 on food market integration generated 65 articles for in-depth analysis. Findings show that the majority of research has concentrated relatively more on identifying the degree of linkages among the ...

Improvement of the biosecurity status and decreasing the disease incidence have been associated with improvement of key technical parameters which may produce economic benefits to the farmer. However, a link between the costs of biosecurity implementation and the benefits acquired is lacking. The aim of this study is to estimate the benefits of implementing biosecurity measures after assessment in farrowing-to-finishing pig farms of the ...

How profitable were foreign investments in plantation agriculture in the Netherlands Indies during the late colonial era? We use a new dataset of monthly quoted stock prices and dividends of international companies at the Brussels stock exchange to estimate the returns to investment in tropical agriculture (19191938). We adopt the DimsonMarchStaunton method to compute real geometric annual average rates of return and assess our estimates in an ...

In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) is recognized as one of the most important areas of future technology and is gaining vast attention from many applications. The goal behind IoT is to connect all devices such as cars, appliances, equipments, and empower the capability to self-report in real-time. This improves efficiency in different applications such as - smart homes, healthcare solutions, smart cities, and smart agriculture. For ...

Biochar has received considerable scientific attention in the past decade as a possible method for carbon storage and increasing agricultural yields. Despite this promise, however, economic assessments of biochar are yet to definitively establish the value of the technology, primarily due to discrepancy between observed short-term agronomic benefits and expectations of biochar as a lasting soil improver. This study investigated the economic ...

To explain convenience yield accruing to commodity inventory holders, time to maturity (TTM) and TIME to harvest should interact with current scarcity. Using weekly data for corn, wheat and soyabeans (1986–2009), the interaction (multiplicative)model performs better than traditional versions that, at best, incorporate TTM additively and ignore harvests. Among the competing proxies for scarcity, the combination of spot price and inventory beats ...

The martingale hypothesis for futures prices is investigated using a nonparametric approach where it is assumed that the expected futures returns depend nonparametrically) on a linear combination of predictors. We first collapse the predictors into a single-index variable where the weights are identified up to scale, using the average derivative estimator proposed by Stoker (1986). We then use the Nadaraya-Watson kernel estimator to calculate ...

While the benefits of using futures to manage price risk are widely recognised, only certain groups of farmers have suitable futures at their disposal. This paper discusses an innovative instrument, developed in the Belgian-Dutch pear market, that provides an alternative to futures markets by creating a market for price swaps. Thus, the instrument provides some benefits of market-traded derivatives (like futures) while remaining a relatively ...

This paper focuses on the impact of the geographical indications (GIs) of Koerintji cinnamon on its value chain. The study was performed from September 2017 to November 2017 in Talang Kemuning, Kerinci regency, Indonesia. A village farmers' group was surveyed using a semi-structured questionnaire, roundtable discussions, interviews, and direct observations to understand whether the GIs improve income, source of production, and promote product ...