Regina Birner’s research while affiliated with University of Hohenheim and other places

Introduction There is no denying the fact that the world continues to depend on and survives due to agricultural produce as the basic food supply for human beings and livestock. India's agricultural scenario, as reported by several studies, is abysmally tragic and draws serious attention due to its ever-decreasing productivity levels. Investment on land-based activities is increasingly being considered to be risky and not the first priority, even by the hard-core agricultural communities across the states of India. Rural India is replete with several problems, but most of them have to do with its agricultural performance. This is because two major aspects of people's lives in rural areas-food requirement and sustained employment-come from agriculture. A range of push and pull factors are in operation, since several successive decades, in affecting the economy of rural areas that once depended primarily upon land based economic activities. These were supported by a range of non-farm activities, which were directly or indirectly associated with agriculture, including livestock rearing. Declining attraction of or dependence upon agriculture as the major income-earning economic activity for the households in rural areas is caused by the declining returns from the same. This is caused by a multitude of factors. One such is the 'push' factor impacting dependent households (mainly from marginal and small land-size categories) to look for better options, either locally or outside the village. Parallel to this is the 'pull' factor inherent in increasing urbanization and industrialization, thus converting the rural areas as 'labour stock zones'. Migration of many types and forms is the result where the household divides itself on its members and distributes different roles to accomplish and earn a livelihood in the changed economic scenario. Both distress migration and migration for better socioeconomic mobility are the results of the process.

Civil servants are often seen as key actors responsible for systemic corruption in developing countries. Yet, there is a dearth of empirical studies on what public officials think of bribery and corruption. Owing to the limitations of enrolling in‐service bureaucrats into research on the sensitive topic of bribery, the study tries to understand the perceptions of future bureaucrats. The study is a novel attempt to analyse how the select candidates aspiring to join the highly competitive elite civil services in India respond to experimental bribery situations. What deters potential bribe‐takers from accepting bribes, and what do they think about corruption in public life? The study employs mixed‐methods research to answer these questions. Bribery experimental games were administered to examine the impact of varying degrees of “punishment,” “monitoring,” and “public loss” and their relation to the varying “bribery amount.” In addition, focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with these participants to explore the dynamics of corruption. The findings suggest that high public loss and high severity of punishment were able to deter bribery even when the amount of the bribe was high. On the other hand, the impact of a high level of monitoring was only effective in cases where the bribe amount was low. FGDs revealed that social acceptance of corruption, and the low rate of convictions in corruption cases, are the main reasons for continuing corruption in the public sphere. The study suggests that in India and other countries in which corruption is systemic and socially accepted, it is imperative to move anti‐corruption policies away from their present fixation with strict monitoring to strict punishment. Monitoring alone without severe punishment is not sufficient. Corruption cases ought to have swift trials and better rate of conviction. It is equally important to inculcate the values of social good and integrity in public life

Recently, many developing countries have implemented several bioeconomy plans to transform their rural economies and improve food security at local, national, and regional levels. Yet, there are limited success stories and examples of a competitive bioeconomy in Africa while levels of poor and food in-secured population remain high. Drawing on the novel concepts of biomass value-web, national innovation system and Porter's Diamond model, this paper analyses the emerging biomass opportunities and institutional challenges limiting sustainable bioeconomy growth in Africa. Using the Nigerian maize sector as a case study, qualitative data obtained from 54 stakeholders through 14 interviews, six focus group discussions, and six Net-maps served as a foundation for our network and content analyses. Results revealed numerous opportunities to further upgrade the current maize biomass value-web. However, the challenge of low farm productivity, inadequate infrastructure, low biomass demand and utilization by industrial firms at the mid-stream, deficient innovation and support system and inconsistent government plan pivoted on several institutional challenges such as weak and uncoordinated institutional arrangement and unfavorable institutional environment to limit competitive bioeconomy growth in the sector. The study concludes that important institutions in various innovation subsystems would need to actively perform harmonizing activities within a favorable institutional environment before competitive bioeconomy growth can be attained in Africa.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to empirically estimate the impact of a government microcredit program on the handloom weavers to promote small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from 311 handloom weavers from the Sirajganj District of Bangladesh from July to December 2015 using a multistage sampling technique. The analysis was conducted using a two-stage least squares regression model incorporating instrumental variables to control for the probable endogeneity problem associated with the study. Findings This study finds that government microcredit had no significant impact on borrowers' investment in their business, whereas credit received from multiple sources other than government credit had a significant negative impact. Additionally, literacy level, household assets and the number of operational handloom units positively affected investment, while the number of non-operational handloom units and distance negatively affected the investment. Research limitations/implications This study's findings are more specific for the selected case and may not be generalizable to all kinds of SMEs. Practical implications The policy implications are targeted at increasing loan size based on the number of operational handloom units to improve the performance of government and other microcredit programs to facilitate the growth of SMEs in Bangladesh. Originality/value This study specifically focuses on estimating the financial performance of government microcredit programs for SME development within the handloom industry, which has not been sufficiently explored in the literature.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the governance challenges confronted by a government microcredit program in Bangladesh following a case study approach. Design/methodology/approach A novel qualitative research tool called process net-map (PNM) was applied to develop a framework for visual understanding of the exact credit implementation process and to identify the actors responsible for creating governance challenges. Key informant interviews were also conducted to identify and distinguish the challenges faced by both the supply-side and demand-side stakeholders. Findings The findings reveal that the studied case faced problems in allocating adequate resources to human and physical capacity development. It was combined with the shortage of funds that made it impossible to meet the clients’ expectations. The lack of legal and regulatory framework disabled the organization from controlling political influence and corruption in the system. Moreover, the policy of lending only to groups proved counterproductive as it led to the exclusion of potentially viable borrowers. Practical implications The key recommendation of the study is on increasing the microcredit fund and a reform of the group lending policy along with several other recommendations. Originality/value The PNM is a newly developed participatory mapping technique that has not been applied in the field of microfinance. Therefore, the use of this method may add new knowledge of conducting an in-depth analysis of why such challenges are associated with mostly public microfinance programs and how they are linked to the implementation process. The challenges encountered are relevant for the implementation of developmental programs that are dependent on the allocation of public funds.

In recent years, women empowerment has been a topical issue on the global development agenda, and evidence suggests that ownership of productive assets leads to intra-household empowerment. In smallholder rural households, ownership of productive assets such as cattle is considered a valuable asset as it provides multiple benefits. Despite the importance of owning cattle, gender differences are more pronounced in cattle ownership compared to small livestock in Sub-Saharan African countries. Therefore, this study examines in detail why the cattle gender gap continues to persist. Addressing this knowledge gap requires identifying how female household members acquire cattle and understand what cattle ownership means from a gendered lens. It is also essential to determine the factors associated with the proportion of cattle owned by female household members and determining if the share of cattle owned by female household members is correlated with cattle herd productivity and women empowerment. We used a mixed-methods approach to address the study objectives. Our qualitative findings suggest that though women can acquire cattle through various means, they often do not have full ownership based on the bundles of rights. The quantitative estimations show that even though women are likely to own cattle, the likelihood to increase the share of cattle they own is less due to the perceived intrahousehold conflicts that are likely to ensue. This suggests that the cattle ownership gender gap is likely to continue to persist. We also find insignificant negative correlation between the share of cattle owned by female household members and cattle herd productivity. However, we find that female household headship, education, cattle mortality, and birth rates are the key drivers of cattle herd productivity. Conversely, women empowerment is positively correlated with the share of cattle owned by female household members. Finally, we discuss how these findings could help the development programs that focus on women.

Die Bioökonomie soll zu nachhaltiger Entwicklung beitragen, zugleich werden Definitionen und Visionen von Anbeginn sehr kontrovers diskutiert. Eine nachhaltige Bioökonomie erfordert einen grundlegenden Wandel in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, dem die Konkurrenz zweier scheinbar unvereinbarer Paradigmen, einem technologisch-ökonomischen und einem sozial-ökologischen, entgegenstehen. Der Beitrag plädiert dafür, das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen beiden Paradigmen produktiv für eine gesellschaftliche Transformation zu nutzen. Gefordert ist insbesondere die Politik als zentrale wie moderierende Instanz der Governance.

Private agricultural research and development can foster the growth of agricultural productivity in the diverse farming systems of the developing world comparable to the public sector. We examine the extent to which technologies developed by private entities reach smallholder and resource-poor farmers, and the impact they have on poverty reduction. We critically review cases of successfully deployed improved agricultural technologies delivered by the private sector in both large and small developing countries for instructive lessons for policy makers around the world.

How we eat has a major impact on our individual health status, our quality of life and our wellbeing. Many of the foods we eat have a major social, environmental, climate and animal welfare footprint. This expertise defines policies to promote sustainability in food consumption as policies that integrate all four target dimensions: human health, social aspects, the natural environment (including climate) and animal welfare (Fig. ES-1). Achieving greater sustainability in food consumption poses great challenges. The necessary progress can only be achieved with a comprehensive transformation of today’s food system.

The study contributes to the emerging literature on livestock composition and resilience by applying two waves of a panel dataset of 360 rural households in Kenya. The paper investigates the role of livestock diversification in managing risks and improving household well-being outcomes in the context of climate risks and multiple shocks. One major result is that climatic shocks do not affect small ruminant and non-ruminant animals because they are more resilient to climate variability than cattle. Subsequently, households rely on diversified livestock portfolios and borrow from social groups to smooth their consumption level and foster resilience. The latter coping strategy is predominantly preferred by female-headed and asset-poor households to protect their already low asset base. Small ruminants, poultry and cattle contribute significantly to household’s income and food consumption across different quintiles. Small ruminants improve income and consumption for households in the bottom of quintiles. The policy implication of these findings is that diversification of livestock portfolios is germane in fostering resilience to climate risks and thus improve the well-being outcomes of livestock farmers.