Browsing by Author "Gao, Jianfeng"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Agricultural, Off-Farm, Migration, and Social Protection Strategies to Increase Rural Household Resilience to Rainfall Shocks in Sub-Saharan Africa
    Mills, Bradford F.; Kostandini, Gentian; Murray, Anthony G.; Gao, Jianfeng; Koo, Jawoo; Guo, Zhe; Rusike, Joseph; Omamo, Steven (2016-04-07)
    Presented at the Spring Seminar Series at the Global Forum on Urban and Regional Resilience, Blacksburg, VA, 2016-04-07. Presented at the AGRA side session of the12th CAADP Partnership Platform, Accra, Ghana, 2016-04-12.
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    Drought and Rainfall Variability: Costs and Resiliency Pathways for Rural African Households
    Mills, Bradford F.; Gao, Jianfeng; Kostandini, Gentian; Rusike, J.; Murray, Anthony G. (2016-04-12)
    This Research Note presents monetary estimates of the costs that drought, and rainfall variability more generally, impose on rural households in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The Note characterizes rainfall environments faced by rural households in SSA. Crop production variability and the costs that drought and rainfall shortfalls generate for maize, wheat, and sorghum are then simulated using historical data from Ethiopia and Zambia. The analysis also explores the effectiveness of alternative resiliency strategies in reducing household costs from variable rainfall. The Research finds that off-farm employment and public transfers are effective strategies in terms of stabilizing household income and reducing the costs of rainfall induced income variability. But these strategies do not fully protect households. Going forward there is urgent need for robust integrated policies at continental, national, and local levels to assist smallholder farmers in adapting to climatic variability and change.
  • Rainfall Variability, Migration, Off-farm Activities, and Transfers: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia
    Gao, Jianfeng; Mills, Bradford F. (2016)
    This study investigates the impacts of rainfall variability on migration, off-farm activities and transfers in rural Ethiopia. We develop a unitary agricultural household model in which migration, (on-farm, off-farm, and urban) labor supplies and transfers are jointly determined. Hypotheses about the partial effects of rainfall shocks on these household decisions are derived from the theoretical framework and are tested using a multi-wave household survey combined with village-level weather dataset. We find that the share of out-migrated household members and per capita off-farm labor supply decrease with average rainfall in the main growing seasons, and increase with the standard deviation of average rainfall in the main growing seasons in the five years prior to the survey. The level and standard deviation of rainfall are shown to have indeterminate effects on the amount of transfers that households receive from the extended family or informal social safety nets.
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    Sustaining the CAADP Momentum: Strategies and Policies to Support Household Resilience to Drought
    Mills, Bradford F.; Gao, Jianfeng; Kostandini, Gentian; Ruisike, J.; Murray, Anthony G. (2016-04-12)
    Agriculture is the most important sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and will be the hardest hit by climate change. Country agricultural sectors will be impacted by climate change in different ways. But, in most cases, climate change will bring substantial welfare loses, especially to smallholder farmers for whom agriculture is a main source of livelihood. However even without future climate change, current welfare losses from smallholder exposure to drought and rainfall variability are large. Thus, there is an urgent need for the AU and National Governments, through the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) aligned national strategies and Climate Change Adaption Framework, to roll out tangible local, national, and continental policies that ameliorate adverse effects that current climate variability and future climate change have on vulnerable smallholders. This policy brief identifies strategies and policy interventions that can anticipate and mitigate the impacts that drought, low rainfall and other adverse climatic events have on rural households in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Adaptation strategies include growing drought-resident varieties of crops and use of water retention techniques such as drip irrigation, small dams and community water supply boreholes, as well as diversification of income to off-farm sources. The brief calls on regional organizations, national governments, and development partners to define robust integrated policies and actions that support and augment existing household agricultural and non-agricultural adaptation efforts.
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    Three Essays on the Interactions between Agriculture and the Environment
    Gao, Jianfeng (Virginia Tech, 2016-03-15)
    This dissertation consists of three essays studying two aspects of the interactions between agriculture and the environment: agricultural technology adoption and its environmental impacts (in the first essay), and weather shocks and their impacts on rural households in developing countries (in the second and third essays). The first essay proposes a multimarket equilibrium approach to estimating the consumer surplus for environmentally-friendly technologies adopted by farmers. Compared to conventional non-market valuation techniques based on single-market equilibrium, this new method allows for farmers' price feedback effects on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for those technologies. Results from an application indicate that consumers are willing to pay a premium for environmentally-friendly technologies adopted by farmers, and that the multimarket equilibrium WTP is smaller in magnitude than its single-market equilibrium counterpart. In the second essay, I develop a unitary agricultural household model to examine the impacts of rainfall variability on migration, off-farm employment and transfers in rural Ethiopia. Empirical results show that the share of out-migrated household members and per capita off-farm labor supply decrease with average rainfall in the main growing seasons, and increase with the standard deviation of average rainfall in the five main growing seasons prior to the survey. The level and standard deviation of rainfall are found to have indeterminate effects on the amount of transfers that households receive from the extended family or informal social safety nets. The third essay evaluates the effectiveness of different diversification strategies in smoothing consumption. Results suggest that adverse rainfall shock (below average rainfall) and temperature shock (above average extreme heat degree days) both negatively impact consumption. Receiving public transfers is effective in smoothing consumption against adverse rainfall shock, and participating in off-farm employment is effective against adverse temperature shock. Sending migrants to urban areas and receiving transfers from former household members or informal social safety nets are not effective against any weather shock.
  • Weather Shocks, Coping Strategies and Consumption Dynamics in Rural Ethiopia
    Gao, Jianfeng; Mills, Bradford F. (2016)
    Household panel data is used to estimate the impact of weather shocks on consumption in rural Ethiopia, along with the effectiveness of household coping strategies in ameliorating the impact of shocks. Results show that changes in rainfall levels are positively associated with per adult equivalent consumption, while high temperature is associated with lower consumption. In terms of household coping strategies, public transfers mitigate the impact of against adverse rainfall shocks on consumption, and off-farm employment mitigate the impact of high temperature shocks. However, urban migration and transfers from former household members or informal social safety nets do not mitigate adverse weather shock.