This paper analyzes determinants of farmers' participation and credit rationing using survey data from Ghana. The Garrett Ranking Technique is used to analyze farmers' reasons for participation or non-participation in credit programs. A probit regression model is also applied to estimate factors influencing farm households' participation in credit programs. Farm households participate in credit programs because of improved loan access for farming purposes and savings mobilization. Fear of loan default and lack of savings are reasons for non-participation in credit programs. Furthermore, membership in farmer based organizations and the household head's formal education are positively associated with farmers' participation in credit programs. The likelihood of farmers being credit rationed (i.e., they were rejected or the amount of credit they applied for was reduced) is less likely among higher income farmers and members of organizations. Policy strategies aiming to improve credit access should educate farmers and strengthen farmer based organizations that could serve as entry points for credit providers. Such market smart strategies have the potential to improve farmers' access to timely credit and to reduce rural poverty.

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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Despite the recent efforts to increase agricultural productivity in Ethiopia, food insecurity remains a major challenge in the country. Improving smallholders´ productivity requires the adoption of suitable agricultural technologies and practices. Previous researches highlighted the importance of socio-economic factors; but widely overlooked the role of social capital in technology adoption and its potential to create collective actions, reduce transaction costs, relax supply side constraints, and disseminate information. Using socio-economic data of 398 farming households, the study assessed social capital as a determinant for soil and water conservation practices (SWC) such as terraces, bunds and agro-forestry as well as adopting productivity enhancing technologies (PET) such as fertilizers and improved high yielding seed varieties applying a probit model. The result showed that members of Iddir (informal funeral group) were more likely to adopt SWC (18.2%). For the case of PET, Iddir members were 12.8% less likely to adopt. Being members of Jarsumma (informal conflict resolution) increased the likelihood of SWC and PET adoption by 12.87% and 17.8%, respectively. Therefore, technology transfer should consider different types of social capital as an alternative policy option to the prevailing top down approaches in order to improve smallholder livelihoods.

Water scarcity is an increasing problem in many parts of the world and the management of water has become an important issue on the political economy agenda in many countries. As water is used in most economic activities and the allocation of water is often a complex problem involving different economic agents and sectors, Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have been proven useful to analyze water allocation problems, although their adaptation to include water is still relatively undeveloped. This paper provides a description of an integrated water-focused CGE model (STAGE_W) that includes multiple types and uses of water, and for the first time, the reclamation of wastewater as well as the provision of brackish groundwater as separate, independent activities with specific cost structures. The insights provided by the model are illustrated with an application to the Israeli water sector assuming that freshwater resources available to the economy are cut by 50%. We analyze how the Israeli economy copes with this shock if it reduces potable water supply compared with further investments in the desalination sector. The results demonstrate that the effects on the economy are slightly negative under both scenarios. Counter intuitively, the provision of additional potable water to the economy through desalination does not substantively reduce the negative outcomes. This is mainly due to the high costs of desalination, which are currently subsidized, with the distribution of the negative welfare effect over household groups dependent on how these subsidies are financed.

Several environmental changes have occurred in the Sudan in the past; several are ongoing; and others are projected to happen in the future. The Sudan has witnessed increases in temperature, floods, rainfall variability, and concurrent droughts. In a country where agriculture, which is mainly rainfed, is a major contributor to gross domestic product, foreign exchange earnings, and livelihoods, these changes are especially important, requiring measurement and analysis of their impact. This study not only analyzes the economy-wide impacts of climate change, but also consults national policy plans, strategies, and environmental assessments to identify interventions which may mitigate the effects.We feed climate forcing, water demand, and macro-socioeconomic trends into a modelling suite that includes models for global hydrology, river basin management, water stress, and crop growth, all connected to the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT). The outcomes of this part of the modeling suite are annual crop yields and global food prices under various climate change scenarios until 2050. The effects of such changes on production, consumption, macroeconomic indicators, and income distribution are assessed using a single country dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for the Sudan. Additionally, we introduce yield variability into the CGE model based on stochastic projections of crop yields until 2050.The results of the model simulations reveal that, while the projected mean climate changes bring some good news for the Sudan, extreme negative variability costs the Sudan cumulatively between 2018 and 2050 US$ 109.5 billion in total absorption and US$ 105.5 billion in GDP relative to a historical mean climate scenario without climate change.

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Rice (Oryza sativa) is an important food staple and a cash crop, which is cultivated in all the ten regions of Ghana under varying agro-ecological conditions. These conditions also reflect the production technologies used and the total farm output. In an attempt to determine the potential sources of production shortfalls on rice farms in Ghana, this paper estimates the production efficiency and the environmental-technology gaps of rice-producing households in the forest-savannah transition and guinea savannah agro-ecological zones of Ghana. The paper adopts the stochastic metafrontier framework, which permits technology-related inefficiency effects to be extricated from managerial inefficiency effects for appropriate policy formulation. In contrast to past studies, the empirical findings reveal that farms in the two agro-ecological zones adopt heterogeneous production technologies due to differences in their production environments. This is indicated by the estimated mean environmental-technology gap ratios of 0.95 and 0.50, and mean metafrontier technical efficiencies of 0.56 and 0.42 for farms in the forest-savannah transition and guinea savannah zones, respectively. These findings call for agricultural policy formulation in Ghana to be targeted at the prevailing environmental conditions of the various agro-ecological zones rather than being all-inclusive in addressing the extant inefficiencies in the rice production systems of Ghana.