Fakultät Agrarwissenschaften

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Die Fakultät entwickelt in Lehre und Forschung nachhaltige Produktionstechniken der Agrar- und Ernährungswirtschaft. Sie erarbeitet Beiträge für den ländlichen Raum und zum Verbraucher-, Tier- und Umweltschutz.

Homepage: https://agrar.uni-hohenheim.de/

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Assessing the socioeconomic and heterogeneous impacts of noise pollution on food markets in Akure metropolis, Nigeria
(2025) Olutumise, Adewale Isaac; Oparinde, Lawrence Olusola; Oloruntoba, Modupe Mary; Oluwafemi, Soliu Abdulqoyum; Oluwasanmi, Feyisayo Aderogba; Akinrotimi, Abiodun Festus; Oladoyin, Olanrewaju Peter; Ajibefun, Igbekele Amos
As urbanization intensifies across sub-Saharan Africa, noise pollution has emerged as a critical yet underexplored environmental and economic stressor for informal market economies. While prior studies have largely focused on the health impacts of noise, limited empirical research exists on its direct effect on market vendors’ economic performance, particularly in rapidly urbanizing African cities. This study addresses this gap by examining the socioeconomic and heterogeneous impacts of noise pollution on food markets in Akure Metropolis, Nigeria. Using primary data collected from 120 food vendors across four major markets, noise levels were measured with a sonometer, while a well-structured questionnaire captured the marketers’ socioeconomic characteristics and perceptions. Unconditional Quantile Regression (UQR) was employed to analyze the heterogeneous impacts of noise pollution on vendors’ income levels. The results show that noise pollution significantly reduces income at the 50th and 75th quantiles, while noise perception has a significant negative effect at lower income levels. The socioeconomic factors, such as sex, education, shop size, and market experience, were also found to significantly influence income levels. The study highlights the need for market zoning regulations, noise control policies, and targeted trader support programs to mitigate noise pollution’s adverse effects and promote sustainable urban commerce.
Can market fragmentation explain the limited success of political attempts to promote grain legume cultivation in Germany?
(2025) Mittag, Franziska; Hess, Sebastian
Grain legumes, such as field peas, field beans, sweet lupins and soybeans, are known to increase biodiversity within the appropriate crop rotation and are an important source of import-substituting feed protein. National and regional policy schemes have long tried to support the cultivation of grain legumes. Although many regions in Germany offer favourable conditions for grain legumes, previous subsidy schemes have failed to increase the area under cultivation and farmers report a lack of market incentives. Indeed, the available price data exhibit a substantial share of non-random missing values in weeks when grain legumes were not traded. We analyse these non-price periods using cointegration tests and single-hurdle Tobit models. The results indicate that regional price formation for grain legumes in German regions depends not only on a minimum quantity of the respective legume crop in supply but also on a favourable supra-regional soybean price: Regional grain legume markets are not integrated and show evidence of a fragmented market structure. This may explain why local grain legume value chains have failed to emerge in Germany, despite decades of policy attempts to support these crops.
Comparing hops and malt price transmission in the beer value chain: evidence from Germany
(2025) Hess, Sebastian; Bublik, Nikolas
The German beer value chain has received limited attention so far, despite the country’s central role in global beer production. This study investigates the price dynamics of its two key inputs—hops and malt—using monthly price data from 2015 to 2024 based on a unique dataset from a German hops cooperative. While contract farming is common for both raw materials, malt is traded via private firms, whereas hops are marketed almost exclusively through farmer-owned cooperatives. A vector error correction model (VECM) is estimated, incorporating structural break dummies identified through Bai–Perron tests, followed by forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) and impulse response function (IRF) analysis. The results show that hop prices are largely self-driven and adjust more quickly to deviations from equilibrium than malt or beer prices. While malt and beer exhibit stronger interdependencies, the hop sector displays greater price stability. The findings further reveal that the malting sector responded significantly to the recent energy price crisis in Germany, whereas the hop sector did not.
Exploring the impact of digitalization on sustainability challenges in German fruit production from the perspectives of stakeholders
(2025) Gaber, Kirsten; Rösch, Christine; Bieling, Claudia
Unique challenges exist in the fruit cultivation sector and, if not considered in the development and application of technologies, this sector is at risk of being left behind in the ongoing digital transformation of agriculture. While understanding perspectives of stakeholders is critical for technology acceptance, their knowledge and views are underrepresented in analyses on the impact of digitalization on fruit production. This research works to fill this knowledge gap by qualitatively analyzing semi-structured interviews on the impact of digitalization on sustainability challenges in fruit production with 34 stakeholders along the fruit value chain in the case study region of Lake Constance, Germany. Societal acceptance and understanding of fruit cultivation practices, restricted plant protection product use, labour availability, and biodiversity support were the main reported environmental and socio-economic challenges. Nearly all stakeholders (94%) were hopeful that digital technologies could effectively address environmental challenges in fruit production, particularly through increased efficiency, while greater uncertainties were reported for the socio-economic challenges. Perceptions of digitalization’s chances and challenges varied among individuals, fruit production systems, and farm sizes. Authors provide recommendations, including targeted support for small-scale fruit farmers and suggestions for future research activities, and emphasize the importance of factual knowledge dissemination on digitalization in fruit farming to support informed adoption choices for intended users. The results of this study offer critical viewpoints on the current challenges in fruit production and the potential for digitalization to increase sustainability in this sector.
The farming question: Intergenerational linkages, gender and youth aspirations in rural Zambia
(2022) Ogunjimi, Oluwafemi; Daum, Thomas; Kariuki, Juliet
With agriculture considered key to generating jobs for Africa's growing population, several studies have explored youth aspirations toward farming. While many factors explaining aspirations have been well studied, little is known about the actors' shaping aspirations. We developed a novel framework that focuses on the factors and actors shaping the formation and actual aspirations of rural youth and applied a unique “whole‐family” approach based on mixed‐methods data collection from adolescents (boys and girls) and corresponding adults. We applied this approach in rural Zambia, collecting data from 348 adolescents and adults in 87 households. The study finds that parents strongly shape youth aspirations—they are much more influential than siblings, peers, church, and media. Male youth are more likely to envision farming (full or part‐time) than female youth. The male preference for farming reflects their parent's aspirations and is reinforced by the patriarchal system of land inheritance. Parents' farm characteristics, such as degree of mechanization, are also associated with aspirations. We recommend a “whole‐family” approach, which acknowledges the influential role of parents, for policies and programs for rural youth and a stronger focus on gender aspects.
Smallholder agricultural practices in Indonesia: information and communication technologies (ICTs) usage, extension agent performance, and the impact of interventions on technical efficiency
(2025) Dewi, Yovita Anggita; Zeller, Manfred
Indonesia’s agricultural sector—in particular including its smallholder farmers—remains the country’s economic backbone, as evidenced by its contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP). This role was further demonstrated during the Covid-19 crisis, when the sector supported resilience through labor absorption, where many urban laborers and small entrepreneurs lost their job and fled back to their home villages. Smallholder farmers in Indonesia grapple with a range of hurdles including technical limitations, social dynamics, economic pressures, and institutional constraints, which hinder their ability to boost productivity, increase output, and improve their incomes. There are pathways to enhance productivity such as encouraging the adoption of new technologies, improving farmers’ access to information, financial resources, and market insights, expanding the reach and impact of extension and advisory services (EAS), and addressing the gender disparities within agriculture. This dissertation focuses on the role of extension services as far as they seek to improve their effectiveness and their effects on selected challenges regarding agricultural extension of smallholder farmers in Indonesia. Therefore, this work focuses on: (i) leveraging the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) among extension agents and farmers to broaden and improve access to information, enhance knowledge and skill, and foster gender inclusion; (ii) evaluating the effectiveness of extension agents based on their performance in fulfilling their responsibilities; and (iii) empirically assessing the impact of government initiatives on agricultural productivity, with a particular emphasis to access to extension services and the utilization of certified seed. This dissertation employs various econometric techniques to study each topic, such as multiple linear regression models, probit regression models, principal component analysis, stochastic metafrontier analysis, and endogenous switching regression models. Furthermore, this research employs both in-person data collection and online survey. As outlined in chapter three, the online survey method serves as a valuable alternative when direct fieldwork is not feasible. Beyond cross-sectional data, this dissertation also draws upon panel data focusing on rice smallholder farmers to analyze the impacts of agricultural interventions, as elaborated in chapter four. Chapter two explores how ICT is used by extension agents and smallholder farmers, focusing on digital content mismatch and the heterogeneity of ICT use to enhance the extension services. ICT is widely used to provide extension services, founded on the major hope that expanding such services will improve the quality and efficiency of agricultural services while also reducing the gender disparity in access to agricultural services. In this chapter, this dissertation explores the most commonly used ICT tools to provide agricultural extension services, their effectiveness in reaching farmers, and the gender gap in the use of such services in Indonesia. Unique agent-to-farmer matched data are used, gathered through a survey of farmers and extension agents. The data analysis reveals a significant disconnect between the information disseminated by extension agents and what farmers ultimately receive. This trend is reflected in a low level of content match and a general lack of engagement, pointing to potential breakdowns in the information transfer process. Notably, this mismatch is considerably more pronounced among female farmers, with only 22.3% receiving matched content compared to approximately 54.6% of their male counterparts. Land ownership, commodity type and membership of farmer groups play a significant role in content mismatches. In term of heterogeneity in ICT usage, the findings show that telephone calls and WhatsApp are the most prevalent ICT tools used by agents to disseminate digital content to farmers. While there is no significant gender difference in ICT use of among extension agents, female farmers lag behind their male counterparts in using ICT. Organizational support and infrastructure play a key role in determining ICT usage among extension agents. By contrast, farmers’ usage of various ICT types is significantly determined by land ownership, commodity type, individual capacity, individual perception of ICT barriers, membership of farmer groups, and the frequency of meetings with extension agents. These findings underscore that female farmers confront not only face barriers to accessing digital tools but also often have their interests overlooked in contents disseminated by agents, leading to lack of interest and engagement. It is crucial to provide reliable infrastructure, adequate ICT facilities, and capacity-building initiatives within the extension organization environment to improve ICT usage among extension agents. For farmers, targeted assistance and training programs, increased female participation in extension activities, and the delivery of tailored contents that meets their specific needs could significantly improve engagement and involvement. Chapter three analyzes the performance of field extension agents in Indonesia using an aggregate performance indicator comprising timeliness, targeting, and content dimensions while capturing both institutional arrangements and demographic characteristics in explaining the performance. For the methodology, this chapter uses data from an online survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,974 field extension agents randomly selected from the roster of national extension agents. This cost-effective approach enables rapid data collection and measuring performance during unforeseen events such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Its applicability extends to a wide range of contexts and regions. The study employs binary and ordinal probit models to analyze the performance of extension agents and the relevant factors involved. The results show that improved performance of field extension agents is associated with advanced career progression, the availability of external funding, the opportunity to collaborate with various stakeholders including non-governmental organizations, private sectors and financial organizations, involvement in government programs, the implementation of disciplinary measures, and the use of various extension methods. It is suggested that the government should encourage collaboration, secure funding from external sources, and establish a system of rewards and punishment to promote performance, while encouraging innovative extension service methods. Chapter four emphasizes that efforts to increase farm technical efficiency (TE) can take many forms, including government interventions to help smallholder farmers, such as those in Indonesia's rice farming. This chapter explores how such interventions—notably the adoption of certified seeds and the provision of extension services—affect TE. Using a panel dataset of smallholder farmers enables capturing the dynamics of TE over time while accounting for unobserved variability. This chapter employs a stochastic metafrontier production function to demonstrate the TE associated with various farming strategies. The findings show that users of certified seeds had slightly higher TE than non-users, although the lower metafrontier TE among certified seed users emphasizes the need for a more holistic approach to technical advancement. It is essential to strengthen seed supply chains by enhancing the infrastructure and logistics for distributing certified seeds, ensuring that smallholder farmers have easy access to quality seeds. In terms of factors influencing inefficiency, the family head’s education level, row planting technique implementation, regional variances, and the percentage of on-farm income all substantially influence TE. Meanwhile, the extension services intervention not only improves TE but also results in much higher technology gap ratios and metafrontier TE than among non-beneficiaries. This suggests that extension services play a crucial role in improving farmers’ abilities to adopt new technologies and improve their farming techniques. Expanding agricultural extension services is also crucial, with increased funding and resources dedicated to providing tailored advice and support to smallholder farmers. This dissertation delves into the various initiatives to address the challenges encountered by smallholder farmers, with a particular focus on leveraging the potential of extension and advisory services. It also highlights broad challenges related to limited access, poor connectivity, and inadequate extension services, which require several interventions including improving institutional arrangements such as promoting public-private partnerships and enhancing management. Promoting digital inclusion by encouraging digital training programs and providing gender-sensitive content is also crucial. To support extension services, integrating ICT into the daily tasks of extension agents is essential. At the same time, the government should increase investment in infrastructure.
Stakeholder perspectives on the contribution of digital technologies to improve the sustainability of fruit production – a case study on the Lake Constance region in Germany
(2024) Gaber, Kirsten; Bieling, Claudia
Fruit cultivation is facing numerous sustainability challenges including climate change, weather extremes, and societal pressures surrounding the use of agricultural inputs. The value of fruit cultivation extends beyond the production of food, as the places of production are regionally important for ecology, recreation, tourism, and socio-cultural values; thus, sustainability issues threaten not only the future production of fruit, but also the cultural landscape as such. Digitalization in agriculture is progressing at a rapid pace and is frequently heralded as a solution to the current pressures surrounding modern food production. Increased productivity, efficiency gains, and improved transparency along the food value chain, enabled through the implementation of digital technologies, may lead to environmental and socio-economic benefits. Meanwhile, a divide is growing between supporters of digitalization and skeptics who are concerned with the technologies and their short- and long-term impacts. Digital solutions are not always suitable across agricultural sectors and regions due to differences in crop management activities, land-use types (e.g. perennial crop area like orchards versus arable land area for temporary crops), and physical barriers and infrastructure. At the face of these challenges and the rapid development of digitalization, stakeholder perceptions regarding the influence of digitalization on the sustainability of fruit cultivation must be understood in order to enable a sustainable further development of digital technologies. Particular to the case study region of this dissertation, the Lake Constance region in southern Germany, research on stakeholder perspectives at the interface of sustainability in fruit production and digitalization does not exist. There is a large knowledge gap regarding the attitudes and practical understandings of the stakeholders impacted by the digital transformation of fruit cultivation, as well as what measures are required to support a more user-oriented development. Technology development without the consideration of barriers, user abilities, and user expectations may lead to an imbalanced transformation that may favour certain agricultural sectors, farm sizes, or production systems over others, which may consequently create a regional, demographic, and/or sectoral digital divide. To this end, this cumulative doctoral work sought to explore the knowledge and views of stakeholders regarding the contribution of digital technologies to improve the sustainability of fruit production by using an empirical and qualitative case-study approach within the setting of sustainability research. The case-study region was the Lake Constance region in Germany, characterized by organic and integrated production (IP) fruit production on small- to medium-sized family farms. This region is the second-largest fruit growing area in the country and plays a critical role in the regional, national, and international food supply. The research questions that have guided this doctoral thesis are as follows: (1) What is the state of the art on digital technologies in fruit production? (2) How do stakeholders perceive digitalized fruit production, adoption and barriers to adoption of the technologies, and do these perceptions differ based on production system or farm size? (3) Do farmers (and other stakeholders) believe that digital technologies can tackle the environmental and social/societal sustainability challenges of fruit production, in both conventional and organic production, and if yes, how? In order to answer these questions, the author comprehensively reviewed over 200 digital tools that can be used by farms in the context of fruit production and conducted a qualitative analysis of 34 interviews with stakeholders along the fruit value chain. The three research articles that form the basis of this cumulative dissertation synergistically answer these questions through the research findings and surrounding scientific literature-based discussions. Overall, the development of digital tools for this case study region appears to be unsuitable and knowledge on digitalization is uneven. Based on the findings, opportunities for technological development to overcome reported barriers and therefore support a user-oriented transformation include the development of tools that are cost-efficient, such as tools with multifunctionalities or that are hireable services, and that offer technical support in the local language. Marketing of technologies must be improved, as misguided marketing and inadequate information in the fruit sector may hinder implementation. Political frameworks should prioritize supporting the inclusion of small farms and equal efforts for development and implementation across production systems. The reduction of agricultural inputs and lack of societal acceptance of agriculture were the most frequently reported sustainability challenges for regional fruit production. Stakeholders believed both environmental and socio-economic challenges could be mitigated by digitalization in fruit production, particularly through increased efficiency and improved transparency. However, perceptions of digitalization’s chances and challenges varied among individuals, fruit production systems, and farm sizes. Furthermore, the majority of stakeholders believed that digitalization could change the public opinion about fruit production, either through on-farm use of the technologies or through improved transparency along the value chain. Both pathways were reported to potentially create positive or negative impacts; for instance, more transparency can lead to improved trust between farmers and consumers, but could also de-romanticize expectations or contradict the idea of naturalness in agriculture, especially in the case of organic farming. The discourse surrounding the use of digital technologies in fruit farming may be more influential on public opinion than their actual implementation. According to stakeholders in the Lake Constance region, digitalized technologies can be used as tools to mitigate urgent sustainability challenges in fruit cultivation, but are not a cure-all solution. These technologies must be considered with caution, as they also risk worsening sustainability issues, particularly related to power inequalities and the growth paradigm of greater productivity and efficiency. Therefore, a reprioritization of digitalization focusing on mitigating urgent sustainability issues is required. This should include the supported development and implementation of user-driven technological design, hybrid (human-technological) intelligence for fruit cultivation tasks, and tools that prioritize building trust towards farmers and maintaining their autonomy. Future transdisciplinary research approaches are encouraged in order to meet many of the provided recommendations from this dissertation, such as enabling collaborative technology- and research design, improving foundational knowledge of involved groups through capacity-building measures like trainings, and building trust between actor groups. The results of this work will inform policy makers, researchers, and technology developers to support the fruit production sector to overcome current and future sustainability issues and enable fair, informed participation in the digital transformation of agriculture.
Using smartphone app collected data to explore the link between mechanization and intra-household allocation of time in Zambia
(2021) Daum, Thomas; Capezzone, Filippo; Birner, Regina
Digital tools may help to study socioeconomic aspects of agricultural development that are difficult to measure such as the effects of new policies and technologies on the intra-household allocation of time. As farm technologies target different crops and tasks, they can affect the time-use of men, women, boys, and girls differently. Development strategies that overlook such effects can have negative consequences for vulnerable household members. In this paper, the time-use patterns associated with different levels of agricultural mechanization during land preparation in smallholder farming households in Zambia were investigated. A novel data collection method was used: a pictorial smartphone application that allows real-time recording of time-use, which eliminates recall bias. Existing studies analyzing the intra-household allocation of resources often focus on adult males and females. This study paid particular attention to boys and girls as well as adults. The study addressed seasonal variations. Compositional data analysis was used to account for the co-dependence and sum constraint of time-use data. The study suggests a strong gender differentiation for land preparation activities among mechanized households; for households using manual labor, such differentiation was not found. There is some evidence that the surplus time associated with mechanization is used for off-farm and domestic work. The study cannot confirm concerns about negative second-round effects: mechanized land preparation is not associated with a higher workload for women and children during weeding and harvesting/processing. The study provides a proof-of-concept that smartphone applications can be used to collect socioeconomic data that are difficult to measure but of high relevance.

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