Objective: Using the Social Determinants of Health as the study's theoretical underpinning, the authors examined the impact of the North Carolina Community Transformation Grant Project farmers' market initiatives on changes in awareness and use of farmers' markets, and fruit and vegetable consumption. Methods: During the farmers' market season, the researchers conducted a random digit-dial telephone survey among residents in 3 rural North Carolina counties to examine changes in farmers' market awareness, shopping, and fruit and vegetable consumption. They examined change over 1 year using t tests, chi-square tests, and propensity score matching. Results: In 1 county there were increases in farmers' market shopping and fruit and vegetable consumption, and in 1 county there were decreases in farmers' market shopping and fruit and vegetable consumption. Conclusions and Implications: The impact of farmers' market initiatives may be affected by county-specific socioeconomic contexts.

Objective Because farmers' markets include a variety of fruits and vegetables, shopping at farmers' markets would likely improve diet quality among low-income consumers, as well as promote sustainable direct farm-to-consumer business models. However, not much is known about how to promote farmers' market shopping among low-income consumers. Therefore, the purpose of the present paper was to examine barriers to and facilitators of shopping at farmers' markets and associations between shopping at farmers' markets and self-reported dietary behaviours (fruit and vegetable, sugar-sweetened beverage and fast-food consumption) and BMI. Design Cross-sectional analyses of associations between farmers' market shopping frequency, awareness of markets, access to markets, dietary behaviours and BMI. Setting Department of Social Services, Pitt County, eastern North Carolina, USA. Subjects Between April and July 2013, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants (n 205) completed a quantitative survey. Results Barriers to shopping at farmers' markets included does not accept SNAP/electronic benefit transfer, out of the way and lack of transportation. Farmers' market shopping was associated with awareness of farmers' markets (estimate =0·18 (se 0·04), P<0·001). Fruit and vegetable consumption was positively associated with farmers' market shopping (estimate =1·06 (se 0·32), P=0·001). Conclusions Our study is one of the first to examine SNAP participants' farmers' market shopping, distance to farmers' markets and dietary behaviours. Barriers to shopping at farmers' markets and increasing awareness of existing markets should be addressed in future interventions to increase SNAP participants' use of farmers' markets, ultimately improving diet quality in this high-risk group.

Objective: To examine the influence of farmers' market pricing and accessibility on willingness to shop at farmers' markets, among low-income women. Design: Qualitative interviews using scenarios with quantitative assessment of willingness to shop at farmers' markets given certain pricing and accessibility scenarios. Setting: Eastern North Carolina. Participants: A total of 37 low-income women of childbearing age (18-44 years) receiving family planning services at the health department. Phenomenon of Interest: Willingness to shop at a farmers' market. Analysis: Fisher's exact test was used to examine associations between willingness to shop at farmers' markets by urban/rural residence, race, and employment status. Direct quotations relevant to participants' use of farmers' markets were extracted based on a positive deviance framework. Results: Participants were increasingly willing to shop at the farmers' market when price savings increased and when the market was incrementally closer to their residence. Willingness was highest when there was at least a 20% price savings. Participants seemed to be influenced more by a visual representation of a greater quantity of produce received with the price savings rather than a quantitative representation of the money saved by the reduced price. Conclusions and Implications: Future farmers' market interventions should take into account these consumer level preferences.

About seventy-seven percent of Zambia’s citizens who are engaged in primary activity in the agriculture sector are poor (Economies, 2017). One of the ways in which the poverty levels can be reduced is by lessening constraints of access to finance in agriculture sector. The implications of the low access to credit in the agriculture sector is reduced productivity, high food insecurity and perpetual poverty particularly in Zambia’s rural areas. Most of the studies conducted focused on identifying factors which limit participation in agriculture finance from the bank’s perspective and not farmers. Therefore, this study sought to fill the gap and assess variables directly related to smallholder farmers access to finance. It further examines the dynamism of access to finance depending on location, gender and transport infrastructure. The data employed in the study was obtained from a survey conducted in 2013 by IAPRI and UNZA with a sample size of 1,231 households in six districts of Zambia. Agricultural credit for small holder farmers (SHFs) in rural areas is mostly provided in the form of cash or in kind through supply of inputs to these SHFs. This data was modeled based on the logistic regression. The results showed that 14.1% of the SHFs had access to finance. Among these farmers only 13% were female. In addition, secondary education, access to finance information, farm size, access to collateral and distance between the location of the farmer and the financial services, were significant factors in determining access to credit. A recommendation proposed to policy makers based on results presented include sensitization on various finance facilities available to rural farmers so that they are aware and can make necessary efforts to access the finance. Rural education is directly related to access to finance, therefore government should promote education for its citizens. Lack of collateral has been identified as a factor that gravely hinders access levels by most. Government should implement standardized policies that ensure availability of credit to farmers with little or no collateral. In conclusion, improved credit permeation in agriculture sector promotes sustainable and inclusive growth in Zambia and will eventually eradicate absolute poverty.

Agriculture is the single most important sector in Malawi due to its contribution to the economy ranging from employment creation, contribution to GDP growth to source of foreign exchange earnings. These significant contributions have necessitated the Government of Malawi to develop strategies and policies such as the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP), whose main aim is to increase household incomes and reduce food insecurity and ultimately reduce poverty. It is nine years since the introduction of FISP but its results remain mixed. Using the 2009/10 Integrated Household Survey Phase 3 (IHS3) dataset, a logistic regression in a multivariate data analysis approach was used to investigate the impact of FISP on income levels and food security of rural smallholder farmers in Malawi. The analysis showed that about 82 percent of smallholder farmers live in rural areas, about 75 percent of them were males, 71 percent were married, 70 percent did not go to school and 69 percent benefited from FISP. In farming, 68 percent of these smallholder farmers had less than 1 hectare of farms, 70 percent of them had labour force of less than 5 people, 51 percent of them harvest less than 5 bags of 50kgs of maize of which 92 percent sell most of their harvested maize and 89 percent of them receive less than MK5, 000 from sales. In addition, about 99 percent of these smallholder farmers were food insecure as they save less than 1 bag of 50kgs after harvest. Only 1 percent of these smallholder farmers receive remittances and 21 percent had other income generating activities (IGAs). Demographic and socio-economic factors have no impact on these farmers capability to increase income levels and enhance their food security. There is also no statistically significant difference between FISP beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in terms of capabilities of increasing incomes and enhancing food security. It is, therefore, concluded that FISP had no significant impact on the abilities of these smallholder farmers to increase their incomes and enhancing their food security. Hence, FISP did not prove to be the best food security and poverty alleviation tool in Malawi.

Farmer support programmes are aimed at assisting in unlocking barriers faced by smallholder farmers. These programmes were implemented many years ago by the public and private sector. However, research continues to show that the increase in the number of these initiatives and in budgets/expenditures have not equally translated into an increase in the number of smallholder farmers advancing to commercial status. Therefore, this evaluation research is focused on assessing the implementation progress of a farmer support programme being implemented in Jozini, KwaZulu-Natal. The aim is to assess whether or not the programme is implemented according to the theory of change and to assess the likelihood of the programme achieving its intended outcomes. Both the quantitative and qualitative approaches were applied to collect and analyse data. Quantitative data was made up of project data and qualitative data was obtained through conducting in-depth interviews with farmers currently participating in the programme. Findings from this paper are expected to add to the existing body of knowledge in terms of strengthening and improving the design of farmer support programmes; to emphasise the importance of conducting implementation evaluations to assess programme performance early in implementation; to better understand what is working or not during implementation; and to understand why this is so.

Farmers play a pivotal role in food production. To be economically successful, farmers must make many decisions during the course of a growing season about the allocation of inputs to production. For farmers in arid regions, one of these decisions is whether to irrigate. This research is the first of its kind to investigate the reasons that drive a farmer to make irrigation decisions and use those reasons/factors to forecast future irrigation decisions. This study can help water managers and canal operators to estimate short-term irrigation demands, thereby gaining information that might be useful in management of irrigation supply systems. This work presents three approaches to study farmer irrigation behavior: Bayesian belief networks (BBNs), decision trees, and hidden Markov models (HMMs). All three models are in the class of evolutionary algorithms, which are often used to analyze problems in dynamic and uncertain environments. These algorithms learn the connections between observed input and output data and can make predictions about future events. The models were used to study behavior of farmers in the Canal B command area, located in the Lower Sevier River Basin, Delta, Utah. Alfalfa, barley, and corn are the major crops in this area. Biophysical variables that are measured during the growing reasons were used as inputs to build the models. Information about crop phenology, soil moisture, and weather variables were compiled. Information about timing of irrigation events was available from soil moisture probes installed on some agricultural fields at the site. The models were capable of identifying the variables that are important in forecasting an irrigation decision, classes of farmers, and decisions with single and multi-factor effect regarding farmer behavior. The models did this across years and crops. The advantage of using these models to study a complex problem like behavior is that they do not require exact information, which can never be completely obtained, given the complexity of the problem. This study uses biophysical inputs to forecast decisions about water use. Such forecasts cannot be done satisfactorily using survey methodologies. The study reveals irrigation behavior characteristics. These conform to previous beliefs that a farmer might look at crop conditions, consult a neighbor, or irrigate on a weekend if he has a job during the week. When presented with new data, these models gave good estimates for probable days of irrigation, given the past behavior. All three models can be adequately used to explore farmers' irrigation behavior for a given site. They are capable of answering questions related to the driving forces of irrigation decisions and the classes of subjects involved in a complex process.

This dissertation analyzed consumer primary motivations for attending farmers' markets, preferences for product features, and differentiated produce. We used consumer survey data collected at farmers' markets in Nevada and Utah during summers of 2008 and 2011, respectively. This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay employed binary and multinomial logistic models to assess primary consumer motivations for attending farmers' markets. Results indicate that many consumers attend farmers' markets primarily to purchase fresh produce. Other motives such as social interaction, purchasing ready-to-eat food, and buying packaged foods, arts, and crafts were also analyzed. In this first essay, consumers who attended farmers' markets were clustered into three groups based on their similar characteristics. Results from this essay are useful to vendors at farmers' markets for they indicate primary motivations to attend. It also provides guidelines to farmers' markets managers in their efforts to meet attendees' expectations. The second essay used an ordered logistic model to analyze consumer preferences for eight fresh produce features. These features are product variety, quality, appearance, pricing, local, organic, freshness, and knowledge of local growers. Findings show that consumer preferences are strong for product quality, freshness, local and organic production. Policy makers can use results from this essay to provide necessary assistance to farmers to feature their products based on consumers' preferences. Health-related policy makers can use the results to implement programs aimed at increasing fresh produce consumption. The last essay used a multinomial logistic, conditional and ordinary least squares models to respectively investigate consumer preferences for differentiated fresh produce, willingness to pay, and stated demands for green peppers, cucumbers, and yellow squash. Comparison between preferences before and those after information about production and place of production was also done. Results demonstrate that consumer willingness to pay and the probability of purchasing each of the three products grown conventionally in Utah overweight those for either organically or conventionally grown of unknown origin. This essay provides information pertaining to produce differentiation through labels. The information has significant impact on preferences for conventionally grown local produce and negative effect on conventionally grown fresh produce of unknown origin. Green peppers, cucumbers, and yellow squash are ordinary goods with inelastic stated demands. Produce growers can use results from this essay to adopt production practices to meet consumer preferences. Results are useful to policy makers in enforcing local and organic certification regulations. They can also be used for pricing and marketing strategies.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・論文博士 / 博士(地域研究) / 乙第12941号 / 論地博第19号 / 新制||地||62(附属図書館) / 32151 / (主査)教授 荒木 茂, 准教授 伊谷 樹一, 准教授 大山 修一 / 学位規則第4条第2項該当 / Doctor of Area Studies / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第19045号 / 農博第2123号 / 新制||農||1032(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H27||N4927(農学部図書室) / 31996 / 京都大学大学院農学研究科地域環境科学専攻 / (主査)教授 縄田 栄治, 教授 舟川 晋也, 准教授 赤松 美紀 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DFAM