This Economic and Sector Work paper, “Enhancing Agricultural Innovation: How to Go Beyond the Strengthening of Research Systems,” was initiated as a result of the international workshop, “Development of Research Systems to Support the Changing Agricultural Sector,” organized by the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank in June 2004 in Washington, DC.
Este libro, originalmente un documento de trabajo económico y sectorial del Banco Mundial, se inició como resultado de un taller internacional,“Desarrollo de sistemas de investigación para el apoyo a un cambiante sector agrícola”, que fue organizado por el Departamento de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural del Banco Mundial en junio de 2004 en Washington, DC.
This report presents a framework for strengthening the effectiveness and efficiency of regulation of forestry and related sectors. It strives to identify and reduce regulatory burdens on private firms active in the forestry sector, while not compromising the objectives of government regulation. Illegal logging and deforestation, especially in developing countries, has significant impact on national and global forestry product markets, leading to increasingly heavy regulation of forestry sectors-including downstream markets and processing industries.
Poverty is prevalent in the small-farm sector of many developing countries. A large literature suggests that contract farming —a preharvest agreement between farmers and buyers— can facilitate smallholder market participation, improve household welfare, and promote rural development. These findings have influenced the development policy debate, but the external validity of the extant evidence is limited. Available studies typically focus on a single contract scheme or on a small geographical area in one country.
It is often assumed that voluntary sustainability standards – such as Fairtrade – could not only improve the socioeconomic wellbeing of smallholder farmers in developing countries but could also help to reduce negative health and environmental impacts of agricultural production. The empirical evidence is thin, as most previous studies on the impact of sustainability standards only focused on economic indicators, such as prices, yields, and incomes.
Written employment contracts may improve the conditions of agricultural workers in developing countries, but farmers as employers often prefer less formal oral arrangements. We evaluate whether farmers’ preferences, which are deeply rooted in traditional norms, can be influenced through a group awareness campaign. In a randomised experiment in Côte d’Ivoire, we show that such a campaign increases farmers’ preferences for written contracts and for contract features involving social benefits for workers.