Agricultural water governance faces persistent challenges, including fragmented responsibilities, insufficient motivation, and weak long-term maintenance. Environmental regulation (ER) is regarded as an important policy instrument for addressing market failures and the limitations of spontaneous village-level governance, yet whether ER improves agricultural water governance effectiveness (AWGE) remains insufficiently examined. Based on survey data from 1304 farmers in seven provinces of China, this study employs ordinary least squares regression to investigate the relationship between ER and village-level AWGE, both measured using farmers’ perceptions collected through questionnaire surveys. The results show that ER and its sub-dimensions are positively associated with AWGE. Mechanism analysis reveals that policy implementation capacity (PIC) and farmer participation (FP) mediate the relationship between ER and AWGE. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this positive association is more pronounced in central China and in areas where the village-level River Chief System was established earlier. These findings provide empirical evidence for constructing a compound ER mechanism integrating guidance, incentives, and constraints, strengthening the dual pathway of grassroots implementation and FP, and adopting differentiated governance strategies according to regional resource endowments and institutional development stages.

Farmland irrigation systems are essential for global food security and agricultural sustainability but face governance challenges due to their reliance on shared water resources. Following Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development Framework, we posit that institutional rules are instrumental to successful governance as they provide guidelines for the allocation and use of shared resources, establish mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement, and foster collective decision-making among stakeholders. This study draws on panel data from 160 villages across seven Chinese provinces in 2018 and 2023 to investigate the role of institutional rules in enhancing the governance performance of farmland irrigation systems. The analysis shows a clear link between the implemented institutional rules and the governance performance of farmland irrigation systems, with social trust playing a crucial mediating role in the action situation between the two. In addition, the influence of different institutional rules on the governance performance of irrigation systems is not uniform, with implementation and monitoring rules (including position, information, choice, and aggregation rules) exhibiting a more pronounced effect than others. In regions in the south and in food-cropping areas, the impact of institutional rules on the governance performance of farmland irrigation systems is particularly pronounced. The discussion reveals that the interactions among position-information, position-aggregation, and choiceaggregation significantly impact governance performance. This research improves understanding of the governance of farmland irrigation systems and offers valuable insights for policy-making and future studies on shared resource management.

Amid growing global concern over climate change, food security has become a central priority for policymakers and researchers, aligning with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on Climate Action and SDG 2 on Zero Hunger. This research analyzes the effect of green finance, agricultural innovation, ICT, trade openness, and climate change on the multidimensional aspects of food security in 46 Sub-Saharan African countries from 2001 to 2023. Using panel data estimations including fixed effects, Method of Moments Quantile Regression, mediation analysis, Dumitrescu Hurlin causality tests, and system GMM, the study provides evidence on transmission channels. The baseline results indicate that green finance increases food and cereal production, while agricultural innovation emerges as the strongest determinant of agricultural productivity. ICT adoption and trade openness exert positive and significant effects, whereas temperature changes and natural disasters negatively affect food security outcomes. The MMQR results reveal heterogeneous effects, with green finance and innovation generating stronger marginal gains in low production countries. Extending the analysis to food availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability, the findings indicate that green finance improves cereal yield, enhances dietary energy supply adequacy, reduces undernourishment, and strengthens per capita food supply. Mediation analysis confirms that research and development, agricultural credit, farmer education, and foreign direct investment act as key transmission channels, while causality and dynamic results validate the persistence and structural nature of these interconnections. The findings underscore the importance of integrating sustainable finance, technological innovation, digitalization, and climate adaptation to achieve resilient and inclusive food security systems.

Previous studies have extensively documented the yield-enhancing effects of climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs). However, empirical evidence on how CSAPs adoption affects commercialization remains largely unexplored. This study examines the impact of adopting CSAPs on smallholder maize commercialization, as measured by commercialization intensity and income. We also investigate the mechanisms through which CSAPs adoption affects these commercialization outcomes. We utilize survey data from 601 smallholder maize farmers across three major maize-producing districts in Ethiopia. We employ an endogenous switching regression model to correct selection bias from both observed and unobserved heterogeneity, complemented by structural equation modeling to examine mediation pathways. Our empirical results show that the adoption of CSAPs is significantly associated with education level, family size, livestock holding, membership in farmer-based organizations, access to market information, CSAPs-focused trainings, proximity to extension services, and distance to the nearest market. Central to our findings, the analysis demonstrates that CSAPs adoption significantly enhances commercialization intensity by 60.79% and crop income by 19.33% per hectare. Robustness checks using propensity score matching and inverse probability weighted regression adjustment models consistently validate these results. Heterogeneity analysis shows significant variation in the treatment effects across study districts. Mediation analysis indicates that 27.6% of the total effect on commercialization intensity and 46.5% of the effect on maize income operate through the combined pathway of yield improvement and post-harvest loss reduction. Our findings strongly suggest that policies aimed at enhancing smallholder commercialization should prioritize the adoption of CSAPs among smallholder farmers.

PurposeMotivated by China's rapid population aging and intensified concerns about insufficient support for older adults, this study seeks to provide causal evidence on the long-term effects of having more children on parental happiness in old age in rural China, an area that has experienced dramatic declines in fertility rates since the 1970s.Design/methodology/approachChina's family-planning policies since the 1970s provided exogenous shocks to young couples' fertility decisions. The interplay between women's childbearing age and the timing and stringency of local policy implementation was used to construct instrumental variables for families' fertility decisions, enabling identification of the latter's effects.FindingsAnalyzing data on 5,439 rural individuals aged 60 and above from the China Family Panel Studies, our instrumental-variable estimates suggest that having an additional child raises aged parents' happiness level by 0.5 points (out of 10) and life satisfaction by 0.2 points (out of 5). These effects are driven by increased non-economic support (e.g. frequent contact and visits) rather than economic support from children.Originality/valueOur study is among the few that link fertility to aged parents' subjective well-being in developing countries, complementing previous scholarship by depicting a fuller picture of the long-term effects of fertility and population policy.

This study examines how village spatial institutional capacity (knowledge resources, relational resources, and mobilization capacity) and intra-organizational collaboration jointly shape the governance of agricultural irrigation systems. Using survey data from 840 households in six provinces of China's Yellow River Basin, we employ OLS regression, bootstrapped quantile regression and moderation analysis. The empirical results indicate that both village spatial institutional capacity and internal collaboration significantly and positively affect comprehensive irrigation governance performance. Specifically, OLS results reveal that knowledge resources (beta = 0.0029, p < 0.1), relational resources (beta = 0.0711, p < 0.01), and mobilization capacity (beta = 0.0236, p < 0.05) significantly enhance comprehensive performance, and internal collaboration exerts a significant positive moderating effect between institutional capacity and governance performance. Furthermore, quantile regression analysis reveals a non-linear distribution of this effect: the safeguarding role of institutional capacity is more prominent in the early stages of governance, whereas the driving role of internal collaboration shows an increasing trend in the middle and later stages. This study theoretically addresses the limitations of past reliance solely on the concept of "social capital" and provides robust empirical evidence for transitioning irrigation management from traditional top-down administrative dominance to a multi-centered, participatory self-governance model.

Climate change poses a critical threat to global food security, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where most farmers depend on vulnerable rain-fed agricultural systems. Strengthening irrigation system is therefore essential for building sustainable smallholder agri-food systems. However, designing effective interventions requires understanding which specific irrigation system improvement attributes smallholder farmers value most. There remains limited insight into how specific design attributes, including water governance, irrigation seasons, watering frequency, and crop types, shape smallholder preferences and willingness to pay (WTP). This study employed a Discrete Choice Experiment administered to 601 randomly selected farmers in Ethiopia. Using a mixed logit model, we analyzed preferences for irrigation system improvements, examined preference heterogeneity, and quantified marginal WTP. Findings reveal farmers strongly prefer formal water governance over informal user groups, two dry seasons over one, watering four times monthly over two, and cash crops over staples. Although farmers generally prefer lower costs, they demonstrate substantial WTP for prioritized attributes. The analysis also uncovered significant preference heterogeneity. Preference for formal water governance is strongest among farmers with larger landholdings, whereas education and credit access drive the valuation of extended irrigation seasons. Furthermore, although market access encourages a shift to commercial crops, this preference is significantly stronger among male and younger farmers. These findings suggest that policymakers should enhance scheme sustainability and farmer welfare by establishing formal water governance, providing differentiated services, and facilitating market-oriented commercialization.

ABSTRACT Amid growing global concern over climate change, addressing deforestation and promoting forest sustainability has become a major policy and research priority. Despite the ecological and economic importance of forests, deforestation in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) persists, driven by unsustainable land use, weak institutions, and rising climate variability. This study examines the effects of forest fires, institutional quality (IQ), renewable energy adoption, and climate change on forest cover in SSA, a region facing severe environmental and governance challenges. Using balanced panel data for 35 countries from 2000 to 2023, the study applies the method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) and generalized method of moments (GMM) to address distributional and endogeneity issues. Machine learning (ML) algorithms, including random forest (RF), XGBoost (XGB), and gradient boosting (GB), are used to evaluate predictive performance and identify key determinants of forest cover. The results show that forest fires, agricultural policy, and temperature increase have negative and significant effects on forest cover, while renewable energy and precipitation have positive impacts. IQ influences forest cover both directly and indirectly through research and development (R&D), information and communication technology (ICT), and environmental protection (EP). The Dumitrescu Hurlin causality test reveals bidirectional links between forest cover, IQ, forest fires, and temperature. ML results confirm that arable land, forest fires, and rural population predict forest loss, while strong institutions and renewable energy enhance sustainability, with RF and XGB yielding the highest predictive accuracy. Strengthening governance, promoting clean energy, and integrating digital monitoring are essential for sustainable forest resilience in SSA.

Farmers are the backbone of rural societies, increasing their participation in public affairs is crucial for effective rural governance. Leadership is key to the success of community collective actions, with village leaders acting as essential agents in mobilizing residents. Using field survey data from 2023, this study empirically examines how village leadership influences farmers' participation in public affairs and the mechanisms behind it. The results show that: (1) Enhancing village leadership has a positive effect on motivating farmers to participate in village public affairs; (2) Mechanism analysis indicates that village leadership can promote farmers' participation in public affairs by strengthening their group identification and political trust; (3) The positive influence of village leadership is more pronounced in villages with collective industries and incentive systems but is weakened in contexts where strong clan networks or high levels of bureaucratic “administrativization” exist. This study proposes an improved analytical framework for analyzing how village leadership affects farmers’ participation in public affairs, considering community group identity and trust in village leaders as underlying mechanisms. It also enriches the empirical literature on village leadership within the field of rural governance.

Agriculture remains a central driver of economic growth and structural transformation in Africa, as emphasized by the Maputo and Malabo Declarations, which urge member states to allocate at least 10

The promotion of sustainable food productivity through innovative technologies remains a central priority in economic development, attracting increasing attention from scholars, policymakers, and industry stakeholders. With the continuing rise in global food demand, resource-efficient solutions are essential to ensuring long-term agricultural growth and stability in food production. This study examines the impact of green finance, agricultural innovation, digital technology, trade openness, and climate change on food production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using the method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) and the generalised method of moments (GMM), it analyses a balanced panel dataset covering 46 SSA countries from 2001 to 2023. The findings highlight the positive influence of green finance, agricultural innovation, and digital technology in enhancing food production, particularly in lower production sectors, suggesting important bidirectional policy implications. Trade openness is found to promote agricultural growth but exhibits diminishing effects at higher levels of productivity, indicating the relevance of a unidirectional policy focus. In contrast, climate change has a negative effect on food production. The study also identifies key mediation pathways, including green finance stimulating research and development, digital technology improving agricultural credit and farmers' education, and trade openness attracting foreign direct investment. These results emphasise the importance of integrated policy frameworks that combine financial support, technological advancement, and trade openness to promote sustainable agricultural growth and strengthen food security across SSA.

Abstract In many irrigated regions, the failure of top–down management systems to ensure efficient water use and equitable access has spurred interest in participatory management; meanwhile, this management approach is highly subject to the collective action dilemma. While existing research has extensively focused on the extent of farmer involvement and the factors affecting their participation behavior, concrete empirical research on the role of village-level institutions remains insufficient. To fill this gap, based on survey data from 160 villages, our study uses an endogenous switching model to analyze the determinants of participation in irrigation management and a multivariate treatment effect model to examine the impact of participatory irrigation on agricultural performance. The findings indicate that villages led by college-educated village officials (CGOs) exhibit significantly higher levels of participation in irrigation governance. Additionally, village leaders’ age, psychological status, and village topography are significant determinants of the existence of a CGO in a village, which in turn has an impact on participation in irrigation management. Type of village, government investment, and number of illiterate people influence participation in irrigation management across various village contexts. Moreover, village leaders’ gender, number of family farms, distribution justice, and village water policy implementation emerge as influencing factors distinguishing participation in CGOs and non-CGOs. Participation is further found to have a positive impact on crop yield and farm revenue and to reduce irrigation water loss. The study provides empirical evidence for the role of village leaders’ educational capacity in promoting sustainable agriculture water governance and highlights actionable policy levers for enhancing collective irrigation practices in rural China. The paper concludes with policy implications to support more effective and inclusive irrigation governance in China.

Adoptive social welfare, providing essential accommodation and services for vulnerable groups, plays a vital role in fostering social equity and harmony. This study delves into the relationship between air pollution and adoptive social welfare, emphasizing the impact on the social welfare of disadvantaged groups such as disabled individuals, bereaved elderly, and orphans. Despite increasing global concerns about air pollution and its direct threat to human health and social welfare, its implications for adoptive social welfare remain under-explored. This paper extends the existing literature by examining how and to what extent air pollution affects adoptive social welfare, using county-level panel data from China from 2000 to 2021. The results show that higher PM2.5 concentrations significantly reduce the number of adoptive social welfare institutions and available beds. This finding remains robust after addressing endogeneity with thermal inversions, replacing the core explanatory variable, excluding outliers, and applying a double machine learning model. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the negative effect is more pronounced in counties with higher urbanization and welfare levels, while counties with lower educational endowment are more vulnerable due to weaker risk-coping capacity. These findings suggest that air pollution is not only an environmental and health issue, but also a welfare and equity issue, highlighting the need to coordinate environmental governance with social welfare protection.

The transition from subsistence to commercial agriculture is vital for poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa, but is hindered by climate vulnerability and market constraints. Although Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices (CSAPs) are widely documented to enhance productivity, their effects on smallholder commercialization, particularly through the synergistic bundling of multiple practices, remain inadequately understood. This study moves beyond a single-practice focus to examine how CSAPs adoption intensity drives commercialization among 601 maize-growing households in Ethiopia. To address endogeneity, we used a Conditional Mixed Process (CMP) model, with robustness confirmed through the Two-Stage Least Squares estimator. We also employed Structural Equation Modelling to examine impact mechanisms and analyzed heterogeneity through district-specific CMP models and Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression. Our findings show that each additional CSAPs adopted significantly increased commercialization intensity by 2.8

Typically, the effectiveness of mitigation policy is assessed jointly across environmental, economic, and social dimensions. Agriculture is recognized as the most climate-sensitive industry and three-quarters of the global poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Hence, employing net-zero targets for 143 nations as a novel angle, this study designed a multi-period difference-in-differences model to assess this statement, with a particular focus on its agricultural economic impact. Results indicated that mitigation policy is expected to reduce agricultural output value by 7.9% and the magnitude of emission reduction is nearly half that of output reduction. This finding implies that decarbonization is not merely a sacrifice of agricultural output, but may lead to its destruction. Moreover, mitigation policy exhibits a statistically significant negative impact on no poverty. Notably, observed output losses is primarily attributed to stagnant mitigation technology. Fortunately, this study identified that the output-enhancing effect of adaptation policy can largely compensate for these losses. To achieve a sustainable future, global entities must collectively optimize the deployment of climate action across multiple fronts to practically enhance the effectiveness of mitigation policy.

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), smallholder farmers are increasingly adopting organic fertilizers as a sustainable, cost-effective alternative to expensive imported chemical fertilizers. While the micro-level benefits of this shift are well documented, a critical gap remains in understanding its dynamic, economy-wide impacts on regional food production. This study investigates the drivers of organic fertilizer utilization and quantifies its short-and long-run effects on cereal productivity in SSA. Using a 23-year panel dataset (2000–2022), we employ a Random Effects model to identify adoption drivers and a Pooled Mean Group/Autoregressive Distributed Lag estimator to analyze productivity impacts, with robustness checks using a Fixed Effects model. Our findings reveal that organic fertilizer use is primarily driven by livestock holdings, arable land area, rural population size, and total agricultural labor. Conversely, it is significantly discouraged by GDP per capita and agricultural capital stock, indicating a concerning substitution effect where synthetic fertilizers replace organic inputs. Crucially, organic fertilizer exerts a significant positive effect on cereal yields in both the short and long run. Productivity gains stem from intensifying existing arable land rather than expanding cultivation area. A heterogeneity analysis further shows that organic fertilizer use increases with GDP in low-income countries but decreases in middle-income countries. We recommend policies that promote integrated crop-livestock systems and design context-specific fertilizer programs to sustain organic input use during economic transitions. A key limitation of this study is its inability to account for the full economic costs and co-benefits of organic fertilizer use, a vital area for future research.

Food security and improved health outcomes are essential for sustainable economic growth and human development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Despite increasing attention from scholars, policymakers, and governments, empirical research on the role of digital technology in enhancing these outcomes remains limited. This study investigates the long-term impact of digital technology on food security and health outcomes in SSA using the Method of Moments Quantile Regression, the Generalized Method of Moments, and Panel Corrected Standard Errors to address heterogeneity, endogeneity, and cross-sectional dependence in a panel dataset of 46 countries from 2001 to 2023. The findings show that mobile phone usage significantly increases food production and life expectancy at lower quantiles levels, although its effects weaken at higher levels. In contrast, internet access has a stronger impact at higher quantiles, while fixed telephone usage shows limited influence. The interaction between mobile phone usage and income improves outcomes at the lower end of the distribution, whereas internet access and electricity are more beneficial for higher income groups. Robustness checks confirm that digital technology increases cereal production and reduces undernourishment, child malnutrition, infant mortality, and under-five mortality rates across the region. Sub regional analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity, and mechanism analysis indicates that improvements in food security and health operate through enhanced research and development, education, and employment. To better leverage digital technology for sustainable development, policymakers should prioritize investments in digital infrastructure, affordability, and digital literacy, with a strong emphasis on strengthening food security and health systems in SSA.

Mitigation and adaptation constitute two primary strategies for addressing escalating climate change. Mitigation focuses on intergenerational justice, while adaptation prioritizes immediate survival. Although the emission-reducing effect of mitigation policy is widely documented, the output-enhancing effect of adaptation policy remains underexplored empirically. Agriculture is recognized as the most climate-sensitive industry, and three-quarters of the global poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Hence, employing nationally determined contributions as a representative perspective, we designed a multi-period difference-in-differences model to assess the agricultural economic impact of adaptation policy in member nations of OECD and BRICS. Results indicate adaptation policy is expected to increase agricultural output value by 7.5%, with no comparable impact observed in long-term strategies. Regrettably, quantile regression analysis shows this output-enhancing effect of adaptation policy is absent at the 25th and 50th percentiles of agricultural output value distributions, constraining its function of promoting sustainable agriculture. Such effect is also absent in nations with mitigation legislation, providing further evidence for contradictions between mitigation and adaptation. Moreover, mechanism analysis reveals increases in agricultural output value resulting from adaptation policy are not only sustainable in their origin but also in their impact. Drawing on Darwinism principles, we warn that failure to effectively adapt to climate risk will propel humanity into a deeper unknown territory.

The digital economy has gradually become an essential engine for rural modernization, with significant implications for enhancing rural household development resilience and consolidating the achievements in poverty alleviation (Wang et al. in Energy 282:128692, 2023). This paper analyzes the impact mechanism and heterogeneity of digital empowerment on rural household development resilience drawing on the empowerment theory (Perkins and Zimmerman in Am J Commun Psychol 23:569–579, 1995). It utilizes a double machine learning estimation approach (Chernozhukov et al. in Economet J 21(1):C1–C68, 2018) by relying on data from 5174 rural households collected in the Yellow River Basin in 2020 and 2022 in China. The findings reveal that digital empowerment contributes to improving rural household development resilience, and the results remain robust after replacing key variables, re-processing samples, and resetting the double machine learning model. The mechanism analysis indicates that digital empowerment can enhance social capital accumulation, broaden information channels, and promote equal access to public services, thereby enhancing rural household development resilience. Heterogeneity analysis found that digital empowerment is particularly beneficial for enhancing the development resilience of low-income rural households headed by individuals with low education levels and supported by relevant policies. This research provides policy implications for bridging the “digital divide,” shaping “household resilience,” and advancing common prosperity.

This study explores climate change's symmetric and asymmetric impacts on rice production in Sri Lanka, a crucial sector for food security in the country. The analysis utilized Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Non-linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) models. This study analyses annual data from 1952 to 2022 to capture relationships among the study variables. The ARDL findings reveal that temperature and cultivated land area have a significant long-term effect on rice production. The NARDL model reveals that positive and negative changes in climate variables have asymmetrical long-term impacts. Positive changes in temperature and rainfall lead to a notable decline in rice yields in the long term. Negative rainfall changes create a significant beneficial effect on rice production in the long term. Cultivated land area shows a significant positive impact on rice yield in the long term. The results of symmetric and asymmetric climate change impact are essential for formulating agricultural climate adaptation policies, such as promoting climate resilience rice varieties, improving irrigation and water management, developing early warning systems that promote sustainability and enhance climate adaptation strategies, ensuring food security in Sri Lanka.