TY - JOUR A1 - Mahmood, Nasir A1 - Arshad, Muhammad A1 - Kächele, Harald A1 - Shahzad, Muhammad Faisal A1 - Ullah, Ayat A1 - Mueller, Klaus T1 - Fatalism, Climate Resiliency Training and Farmers’ Adaptation Responses: Implications for Sustainable Rainfed-Wheat Production in Pakistan JF - Sustainability N2 - Climate change is a severe threat to the agricultural sector in general and to rainfed farming in particular. The aim of this study was to investigate the factors that can potentially affect the adaptation process against climate change. This study focused on wheat farmers and farming systems in the rainfed agroecological zone of Pakistan. Farmers’ data related to climate change fatalism, the availability of climate-specific extension services, socioeconomic and institutional variables, and farm characteristics were collected. A logit model to assess farmers’ decisions to adopt an adaptation measure and a multinomial logit model to assess their choice of various adaptation measures were used. The results showed that fatalistic farmers were unlikely to implement climate change adaptation measures. The variables related to the climate-specific extension services, including farmers’ participation in training on climate-resilient crop farming and the availability of mobile communication-based advisory services, had highly significant and positive impacts on farmers’ decisions and their choice of adaptation measures. Input market access and tractor ownership also had positive and significant impacts on farmers’ decisions to adapt and their choice of adaptation measures. This study highlights the need to improve rainfed-wheat farmers’ education levels to change their fatalistic attitudes towards climate change. Furthermore, government action is needed to provide climate-specific extension services to ensure sustainable production levels that will ultimately lead to food and livelihood security under a changing climate. KW - fatalism KW - climate-specific extension service KW - climate-resilient farming KW - rainfed farming KW - adaptation Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-3338 SN - 2071-1050 VL - 12 IS - 4 PB - MDPI ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ullah, Ayat A1 - Arshad, Muhammad A1 - Kächele, Harald A1 - Zeb, Alam A1 - Mahmood, Nasir A1 - Müller, Klaus T1 - Socio-economic analysis of farmers facing asymmetric information in inputs markets: evidence from the rainfed zone of Pakistan JF - Technology in Society N2 - Information asymmetry plays an important role in the non-adoption of modern agricultural inputs like improved seeds, pesticides and fertilizers etc. Therefore, this study investigated the role of farmers’ socio-economic attributes and farm level characteristics in avoiding asymmetry of information in agricultural input markets (i.e. exaggerated prices and low quality). The approach captures the farm level heterogeneity and complexity that may help the authorities in strengthening existing market regulations to control price and quality disparities. We analysed 395 randomly selected farm households using multinomial logit model. We found that farmers with large landholding size are less likely to face quality and more likely to face price information asymmetry. Farmers with higher education, more physical assets and better access to other sources of information are less likely to face both quality and price information asymmetry. Borrowers as compared to purchasers are more likely to face information asymmetry on prices of agricultural inputs. Non-adopters of improved agricultural technologies are more suspicious of information asymmetry than adopters. The paper thus provides evidence that the socio-economic dynamics of information asymmetry can have an important influence on wide spread adoption of technology. Paying more attention to farm level heterogeneity and complexity would help to develop general market management plan and improve the adoption of technology by farmers. Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7235 SN - 1879-3274 VL - 63 IS - 101405 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ullah, Ayat A1 - Arshad, Muhammad A1 - Kächele, Harald A1 - Khan, Ayesha A1 - Mahmood, Nasir A1 - Mülle, Klaus T1 - Information asymmetry, input markets, adoption of innovations and agricultural land use in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan JF - Land Use Policy N2 - This paper presents empirical evidence on the effects of information asymmetry in input markets on the adoption of innovations and agricultural land use in rainfed districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Farmers’ input market integration may contribute to innovation and adoption among farmers, which may in turn positively influence the sustainable use of agricultural land. To examine this hypothesis, we conducted a study of farmers and input providers to assess the potential constraints on quality inputs, prices, and extension information. We used a multistage random sampling technique to collect data from 395 respondents. We then compared differences among adopters and non-adopters using the Mann-Whitney U test and Mood’s median test. Our results indicate that there is a significant difference between the adopters and non-adopters when considering their perceptions of asymmetric market information. Non-adopters are suspicious of exaggerated prices, the non-availability of price lists, adulteration of agricultural inputs, unbalanced input weight and the supply of low-quality alternate commodities (e.g., fertilizers and pesticides) in place of the recommended commodities in the markets. Our results call for the reformulation and implementation of appropriate policies to ensure transparent and equal information sharing among farmers engaged in input markets and for the provision of timely and quality inputs assured by regulatory checks and price checks. Free availability of information on innovations and appropriate oversight over markets appear not only to motivate farmers to adopt agricultural technologies but also to influence more sustainable land use practices. Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7240 SN - 0264-8377 VL - 90 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Khalili, Niloofar A1 - Arshad, Muhammad A1 - Farajzadeh, Zakariya A1 - Kächele, Harald A1 - Müller, Klaus T1 - Effect of drought on smallholder education expenditures in rural Iran: Implications for policy JF - Journal of Environmental Management N2 - Drought is a major global environmental challenge. It affects the livelihoods of many people, mainly in developing countries. Iran is one of the most affected and vulnerable countries in the Middle East to drought. In this paper, we present a microlevel analysis by employing the Tobit multiplicative heteroscedasticity regression to examine the effects of drought on small farm household education expenditures in rural Iran. We collected primary data from a sample of 300 smallholders in Marvdasht County in Fars Province of Iran. The results revealed a negative relationship between the farm income and education expenditures. This means that the farm households in rural Iran that were affected by the drought increased their expenditures on education for their children. The analysis of income elasticity indicated that a one percent decrease in farm income led to a 0.86% increase in education expenditures, which indicated that the education expenditures were necessary. Furthermore, we observed that in drought-affected families, girls were more likely to be pulled out of university education than were boys; however, for school education, there were no significant differences between the boys and girls. Our findings revealed the need to provide improved facilities and further finances for education expenditures, especially for female university students, and to formulate environmental management policies that include the provision of education facilities by the government of Iran in drought-affected villages. Our findings also shed light on the presence of positive externalities and the important role of education in helping rural households better cope with the negative repercussions of drought on their livelihoods. Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7250 SN - 1095-8630 IS - 260 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hossain, Md. Shakhawat A1 - Arshad, Muhammad A1 - Qian, Lu A1 - Kächele, Harald A1 - Khan, Imran A1 - Islam, Md Din Il A1 - Mahboob, M. Golam T1 - Climate change impacts on farmland value in Bangladesh JF - Ecological Indicators N2 - Many studies have examined the effects of climate change on farmland value in developed countries, but our understanding of the impact of climate change on farmland value is still very limited, especially in developing countries. In this study, we aimed to assess the effects of climate change on farmland value in Bangladesh using the Ricardian model. Household-level data collected from seven selected agroecological zones in Bangladesh were used to estimate the relationships among farmland value and long-term climate, farm household, and policy variables. The results showed that the current land values of farmers are sensitive to climate. A new variable called “flooding” was added to the Ricardian model, and the results indicated that floods are responsible for reductions in farmland value, especially in lowland areas. Among the socio-economic variables, the availability of extension services and access to irrigation facilities were positively correlated with farmland value. The estimated marginal impact results suggested that increases in temperature were associated with losses in small farmland value, whereas the precipitation levels in both seasons positively influenced farmland value. Selected global climate models predicted that climate change would have a negative impact on land value depending on the climate model and source of farm income. The empirical findings obtained from this study are expected to contribute to the formulation of sustainable adaptation strategies to maintain farm productivity and farmland value in Bangladesh in the context of climate change. KW - Climate change; Ricardian model; Farmland value; Flooding; Adaptation; Bangladesh Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7278 SN - 1872-7034 IS - 112 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mahmood, Nasir A1 - Arshad, Muhammad A1 - Kächele, Harald A1 - Ullah, Ayat A1 - Müller, Klaus T1 - Economic efficiency of rainfed wheat farmers under changing climate: evidence from Pakistan JF - Environmental Science and Pollution Research N2 - Rainfed wheat farming directly depends upon climatic indicators and is mostly at the mercy of climatic extremes. This study analyzed the relationship between the economic efficiency of rainfed wheat farmers and indicators of climate variability in Pakistan employing a two-stage methodological framework. We used farm household level crop input-output and management data and secondary data on climate. In the first stage, a stochastic production frontier (SPF) approach was used to calculate economic efficiency. Then, in the second stage, the calculated economic efficiency scores were regressed against the temperature threshold, temperature anomaly, and total rainfall, in addition to socioeconomic, institutional, and farm variables, using OLS and quantile regression models. The results showed that temperature anomaly and the number of days when temperatures exceed 30 °C have negative and significant impacts on the economic efficiency of rainfed wheat farmers. Total rainfall showed positive and significant impacts across both OLS and quantile regression models. Further, we modeled a novel and very important variable in the context of rainfed wheat production in Pakistan, that is, farmers’ participation in trainings in climate-resilient crop farming. This variable showed a positive and highly significant impact on economic efficiency of wheat farmers across all regression models. Our findings call for important policy implications, including developing up-to-date climate resilient adaptation strategies that are particularly focused on rainfed wheat farming. Establishing strong linkages between extension departments and rainfed wheat farmers could help sustain and improve the efficiency of rainfed wheat farmers and hence food and livelihood security. KW - Climate variability; Economic efficiency; Rainfed wheat; Stochastic production frontier; Quantile regression; Climate resilient crop farming Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7287 SN - 1614-7499 IS - 27 SP - 34453 EP - 34467 PB - Springer Nature ER -