The effect of irrigators' associations on the productivity of rice farming is examined, using data obtained from two irrigation systems in the Philippines, one with an irrigators' association and the other without. The estimation of the production function confirms that the irrigators' association is not effective in reducing inequitable water distribution among the different locations in the system, and fails to demonstrate that it provides any significant advantages over the system with no irrigators' association in terms of productivity. However, we found that the mean level of farmers' technical efficiency is higher and the variation in farmers' technical efficiency is smaller in the system with the irrigators' association than in the system without an irrigators' association, suggesting that the irrigators' association is effective in ensuring the efficient and equitable distribution of water among farmers within each location in the system.

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The purpose of this study is to provide a statistical framework for analyzing the operation of farm-based accommodations (farm-inn). A primary data sample of 386 farm-inn operators located all over Japan was analyzed by an ordered probit model. A variety of sample characteristics, such as the number of years in operation, the number of guestrooms, and the type of accommodation, affected their evaluation of farm-based visitor activities and/or the future prospects of each respondent's own farm-inn business. Operators' attitudes toward better management such as a positive attitude toward host-guest interactions and a greater number of repeat visitors also affected their responses. These results contribute to not only the exploration of a useful tool for tourism research based on a questionnaire survey but also the debate among policy makers' decisions about incorporating the promotion of farm tourism into agro-environmental policy.

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Using detailed household data from two Cambodian villages, this paper explores the cause of increasing landholding inequality in Cambodia. Through the investigation of data on land and credit markets as well are econometric analysis of land purchase and sales, this paper elucidates reasons why land as sold by smaller landholders to larger landholders. First, because the price of land is higher than the net present value of agricultural profit based on interest rate as the discount rate, buying land with loans is unprofitable. Therefore, larger landholders, who are supposed to have a larger amount of their own funds, were the major land buyers. Second, because the interest rate is higher than the rate of return from land, coping with shocks by borrowing money is more costly than selling land. Consequently, small landholders, who are supposed to lack savings to draw on, are more likely than large landholders to sell land to cope with shocks. The high land price and high interest rate are caused by credit market imperfection, which is manifested as the gap between interest rate and the opportunity cost of capital or the rate of return from land.

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In order to reallocate farmland to efficient farmers, improvement in Farmland Rental Transactions (FRT) cooperating with public investment, Paddy-field Consolidation (PC) projects, is one of the most important policy issues in Asian monsoon regions as well as in Japan. Unfortunately, there are few empirical studies on FRT due to a lack of flexible data under regulated markets. This study aims to analyze FRT and to evaluate the effect of PC projects by modeling both supply and demand sides of farmland renting with micro-data from a discrete choice type questionnaire. Empirical results show that (i) effects of PC project appear as a remarkable increase in the rental rate and a moderate increase in the rental agreement level, (ii) there is an economic inefficiency in the Japanese rental market, but such an inefficiency can be reduced by PC project implementation, and (iii) regional differences in project effects are caused by differences in agricultural and social situations.JEL Classification codes: C25, D44, Q12, Q15, Q38, R58

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The sugar market in Brazil is closely related to the ethanol market. Although the Brazilian government has abolished all sugar market intervention measures, it still retains control over the ethanol-gasoline blend ratio. In this study, we investigate the implications of a change in this blend ratio on the world ethanol and sugar markets－particularly in terms of production, consumption, exports and imports－by applying a newly developed World Ethanol-Sugar Market Model. Our simulation suggests moderate impacts on world ethanol and sugar markets.

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This study examines the causality between total factor productivity (TFP) and capital investment in Japanese agriculture for the period 1957-97. We employ the Granger causality test to determine the causality between the two variables. This study also investigates movements in total output, total input and TFP for average farms of four size classes for the same period. We employ the aggregation technique to estimate total output and total input and use a large pooled cross-section and time series data set. It has been found that both TFP and capital investment had a fairly high growth rate from the mid 1950s to the early 1970s, and thereafter it started declining. The result of this study shows that there is a significant and positive bi-directional Granger-causal relationship between TFP and capital investment in Japanese agriculture over the long term.

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Most large-scale millers in the Kumasi area, central Ghana, provide interest-free or low interest loans to farmers under the agreement that the farmers will bring their paddy to the millers. This paper examines the effect of this interlinkage on the efficiency of rice milling. A quadratic short-run cost function was estimated by controlling for self-selection bias using the results of first-stage Probit regression, and capacity utilization was calculated in relation to money lending. The results show that if a miller provides a loan to farmers, the operating rate will increase by 24％ and the total cost will decrease by 17％.

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The paper aims to evaluate rural farming villages through an ethical view point. The method of evaluation is to grasp respondents' changes of attitudes in a CVM survey, where we show them many photos relating to a Japanese rural farming village. These photos are classified by trilateral images of the village and we ask respondents to make pair-wise comparisons in each set of photos. As a result, we can verify that respondents who have much past experience in a rural farming village would have an image of life and their attitudes for CVM judgment are more prone to be vulnerable to visual information (photos). This means that images of rural lifescape might not be reflected in the values calculated through CVM.

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