This thesis consists of two essays that each discuss a major component of the post-harvest management of maize in sub-Saharan Africa: drying and storage. The first essay uses cross-country data about on-farm storage decisions between 2013 and 2015 to assess the severity of storage loss in the absence of improved storage technologies. We find that while losses are low, farmers report on average that they lose more than expected and sell earlier than originally intended at harvest. Additionally, we look for evidence that farmers use adaptation strategies for the purpose of mitigating storage loss and find that storage chemicals are effective at both reducing loss and increasing storage duration. The second essay introduces a third-party moisture testing service to traders in western Kenya to elicit willingness to pay for external quality verification using two moisture detection devices, a low-cost hygrometer and a commercial grade moisture meter. We find that while traders value the moisture meter service more, the hygrometer service is more profitable for potential service providers. Further, when offered a chance to purchase the hygrometer device at/around market price ($2.50), only 15% of traders accepted the offer, suggesting that a service provider model is a viable way to make moisture testing more widely accessible and standard practice in the future.

Dans les territoires irrigués exposés aux crises de gestion quantitative de l’eau, la sévérité des étiages dépend des interactions entre systèmes de culture, situations pédoclimatiques, hydrologie, lâchers d’eau et restriction d’irrigation. Dans de nombreuses situations, l’absence de nouvelles solutions de stockage et les tensions entre gestionnaires et usagers de l’eau rendent nécessaire la planification des étiages. Mes travaux explorent le potentiel de « la gestion spatiale » de l’eau pour mettre en adéquation la dynamique des prélèvements pour l’irrigation avec celle de l’offre en eau disponible (naturelle et stockée). Je propose une méthodologie participative de conception-évaluation d’organisations territoriales des activités agricoles, déployée sur l’aval du bassin versant de l’Aveyron (800 km²), en trois étapes: (1) modéliser le système socio-agro-hydrologique, (2) concevoir des alternatives de distribution spatiale des systèmes de culture, (3) conduire une évaluation intégrée des alternatives face à la variabilité climatique observée. Ces travaux combinent des méthodes, connaissances et outils « hard and soft », et font usage de la plateforme de simulation multi-agent MAELIA. Le processus a permis de formaliser des visions d’acteurs et de poser les bases d’une concertation multi acteur. Cependant la simulation des impacts de ces alternatives a montré leurs limites pour régler le problème de déficit structurel en eau. Cette démarche pourrait être prolongée pour aboutir à des propositions opérationnelles. / In irrigated landscapes exposed to quantitative water management crisis, the intensity of low flows depends on interactions between cropping systems, pedoclimatic situation hydrology, water releases and withdrawal restrictions. In many situations there are no opportunities for more water storage, thus tensions occur between water managers and users, which makes the planning of water demand dynamics necessary. My work explores the potentials in the “spatial management of water” to align the water demand dynamics with natural and stored water availability. I present a 3 step, participatory method to design and assess agricultural landscapes: (1) model the Social-Agro Hydrological system, (2) design alternative spatial distribution of the cropping systems, (3) carry an integrated assessment of those alternatives based on observed climatic variability. This method combines “hard” and “soft” methods, knowledge and tools, and uses the MAELIA multi-agent simulation platform. I tested the method tested in the downstream area of the Aveyron River (800 km² Southwestern France). It allowed to formalize the actors’ visions on alternative distributions of the cropping systems. However they showed to be limited in solving the water deficit issue. The method could be continued to reach operational proposals.

Modern agriculture is causing a wide range of environmental problems. By regulating the agricultural sector, human societies try to find a balance between enabling the production of food and public goods and preventing negative consequences for the environment. In the European Union this is mainly achieved through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Since many of the environmental indicators are still showing negative trends, an ongoing evaluation and adaptation of the policy instruments included in the CAP is asked for. At the same time, the field of policy evaluation is more and more incorporating a behavioral economic perspective on human behavior, one that deviates from the homo oeconomicus model that has long dominated research in this area. This thesis presents a study on “Behavioral Economics of Agri-Environmental Policies” by combining themes from agricultural and environmental economics with methods and perspectives from behavioral and experimental economics. It thereby contributes to the emerging field of behavioral agricultural economics. Specifically, it aims to shed light on the behavioral drivers of pro-environmental decisions of farmers and how these insights can be used to evaluate and adapt the CAP. With a lab-in-the-field experiment with farmers from Lower Saxony in Germany, an influence of the framing of the farmers’ societal role, their self-identity, as well as control aversion and feelings of warm glow on farmers’ behavior was uncovered. From a policy perspective, the results of this thesis provide a case for the continued use of both mandatory and voluntary policy instruments. Furthermore, with a Principal Components and Cluster Analysis, a multi-facetted picture of different farmer self-identities prevalent in the sample population was revealed. Based on a literature review, the thesis also provides an analysis of how behaviorally-informed interventions might increase the environmental performance of the CAP in the future.