Kurt Waldman

Low soil fertility is a limiting factor to farm productivity, household nutrition, and economic development in many parts of Africa due to the continuous cultivation of maize over centuries. Diversifying maize monocrop with legumes has been proposed as one solution to declining soil fertility. Adoption of legumes in Africa remains low despite the much needed soil fertility and nutrition benefits provided by the crops. We employ choice experiments to examine farmers’ preferences for groundnut, soybean, and pigeon pea intercropped with maize and explore barriers and drivers to adoption in Central and Southern Malawi. Overall, farmers significantly discount legume yields in favor of maize yields despite the additional benefits provided by legumes. Labor constraints and market access are potentially more important barriers to legume adoption than previously thought. Results identified three types of farmers with varying …

Motivated by recent increases in water pollution in major US agricultural watersheds and by the shortcomings of government programs to control non–point source pollution, this paper examines the prospects for using product certification (ecolabeling) and business-to-business supply chain standards for environmental protection in commodity crop production. We introduce the sources of demand for certification and supply chain standards and the political and economic context in which they have expanded since the 1990s. We explore how various agrifood certification and supply chain standards have been used to achieve changes in production methods and/or in product attributes to meet social goals, and we discuss the prospects for applying these models to commodity crops. We conclude that the nature of corn and soybean production, distribution, and consumption—with numerous sales outlets and invisible …

Perennial crops have numerous ecological and agronomic advantages over their annual counterparts. We estimate discrete choice models to evaluate farmers' preferences for perennial attributes of pigeon pea intercropped with maize in central and southern Malawi. Pigeon pea is a nitrogen-fixing leguminous crop, which has the potential to ameliorate soil fertility problems related to continuous maize cultivation, which are common in Southern Africa. Adoption of annual pigeon pea is relatively low but perennial production of pigeon pea may be more appealing to farmers due to some of the ancillary benefits associated with perenniality. We model perennial production of pigeon pea as a function of the attributes that differ between annual and perennial production: lower labor and seed requirements resulting from a single planting with multiple harvests, enhanced soil fertility and higher levels of biomass production …

Participatory crop improvement raises the prospects for developing seed varieties that meet the needs of subsistence farmers but may face challenges regarding preference elicitation, particularly in complicated policy environments. We integrate binding experimental auctions with participatory variety selection to elicit farmers’ preferences for improved common bean varieties in Rwanda. We find that auctions reveal farmer preferences more accurately than stated nonbinding rankings in this context and that participatory on-farm crop research is essential to understanding how farmers evaluate tradeoffs between multiple crop attributes. We also find that farmers highly value intercrop yield despite government policy that encourages farmers to monocrop.

United States government policy prohibits the sale of cheese made from unpasteurized milk aged less than 60 days despite contested science behind the policy. We use experimental auctions for artisan cheese to estimate the value of pasteurization and age as food safety attributes, which is the rationale for the policy. We also look at consumers’ perception of the tradeoff between safety and quality. A survey was conducted with participants at farmers markets including experimental auctions and sensory analysis of pasteurized and unpasteurized cheese and questions concerning attitudes about food safety. There is no evidence of positive demand for pasteurization and there is no evidence of a tradeoff between safety and quality. On average artisan cheese consumers make purchasing decisions based on taste, not their attitude toward food safety. The results of this study raise questions about the possible …

This paper uses experimental auctions to address two key research questions: are preferences for controversial food products a function of safety information, or personal attitudes and preferences? To what extent are consumers’ preferences for a controversial food product influenced by positive and negative scientific information? Experimental auctions for pasteurized and unpasteurized artisan cheese were conducted on computer tablets with participants at farmers’ markets in Michigan, New York and Vermont using a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction mechanism. Along with the auctions, participants blindly evaluated the sensory characteristics of the cheeses and answered demographic questions and Likert scale questions about their attitudes towards food safety. We find that ideology, taste, and principle drive consumers’ preferences for unpasteurized cheese, as opposed to misinformation or …

Adoption rates of leguminous crops remain low in sub-Saharan Africa despite their potential role in improving nutrition, soil health, and food security. In this study we explored Malawian farmers’ perceptions of various legume attributes and assessed how these perceptions affected allocation of land to legume crops using a logit link model. We found high regional variation in both consumption- and production-related preferences, but relatively consistent preferences across samples. While scientific understanding and farmer perceptions were aligned on some topics and for some legumes, there were discrepancies elsewhere, particularly in terms of soil fertility and nutrition. Understanding why these discrepancies exist and where there were potential biases are critical in explaining the extent of adoption. In many cases perceptions of legume attributes may be influenced by the cultural role of the crop in the …

Despite decades of research and interventions, crop yields for smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa are dramatically lower than in developed countries. Attempts to address low yields of staple crops in Africa since the Green Revolution through policies and investments in advanced seed cultivars have had mixed results. Numerous countries have heartily embraced and promoted hybrid cultivars through government subsidy programs and investments in research and seed multiplication. One possible explanation for why these programs have not resulted in more significant yield improvements is the challenge faced by farmers to select cultivars that are suited to their local environmental conditions. The question of what seeds farmers choose is exceptionally complex as it is often affected by local seed availability, the availability of information on seed performance, and the transfer of that information to …

Changing climatic conditions present new challenges for agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa. Sorghum has proven to be an adaptable and resilient crop despite limited funding for crop development. Recent breeding efforts target hybrid and perennial technologies that may facilitate adaptation to climate change. Advantages of perennial crops over their annual counterparts include improved soil quality and water conservation and reduced inputs and labor requirements. In contrast, hybrid crops are often bred for improved grain yield and earlier maturation to avoid variable conditions. We use discrete choice experiments to model adoption of sorghum as a function of attributes that differ between these technologies and traditional varieties in Mali. Overall, the main perceived advantage of perennial crops is agricultural ecosystem services such as soil improvement, while adoption of hybrid crops is …

Given the varying manifestations of climate change over time and the influence of climate perceptions on adaptation, it is important to understand whether farmer perceptions match patterns of environmental change from observational data. We use a combination of social and environmental data to understand farmer perceptions related to rainy season onset. Household surveys were conducted with 1171 farmers across Zambia at the end of the 2015/16 growing season eliciting their perceptions of historic changes in rainy season onset and their heuristics about when rain onset occurs. We compare farmers’ perceptions with satellite-gauge-derived rainfall data from the Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Station dataset and hyper-resolution soil moisture estimates from the HydroBlocks land surface model. We find evidence of a cognitive bias, where farmers perceive the rains to be arriving later …

Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa are most susceptible to the impacts of climate change, including longer duration dry-spells and more frequent drought. There is a growing literature examining the psychological determinants of various climate adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers but little attention to how psychological factors vary across adaptation decisions and the underlying motivations for these decisions. We assess climate adaptation in terms of five risk management categories outlined by Agrawal (2009). Using a sample of farming households in Kenya (N = 494), we find that while 98% of smallholders believe that various dimensions of climate change pose a significant threat to their livelihood, these beliefs do not necessarily translate into climate actions. Results show that environmental concerns are not salient motivators for or against adaptation strategies, but food insecurity …