We review existing studies on rice harvest loss from the aspects of estimation methods, magnitudes, causes, effects, and interventions. The harvest losses examined occurred from the field reaping to storage processes, including threshing, winnowing, and field transportation. We find that existing studies on rice harvest losses have focused on quantitative losses in Asia and Africa. Lack of knowledge, inadequate harvesting techniques, poor infrastructure, and inefficient harvest management practices are considered critical contributors to the losses. The magnitudes and causes of rice harvest losses are now better understood than interventions, which have simply been presented but lack an assessment of the effects and a cost–benefit analysis. Interestingly, reduction in harvest losses may threaten some farmers’ profits, such as rural women who make their living from post-production manual operations. Considering the current status of the literature, future researchers should examine how to balance social and individual welfare since farmers are key stakeholders in intervention implementation. A good understanding of the existing researches can help clarify future efforts for loss reduction, thereby reducing the burden of increasing agricultural production and promoting sustainable development of resources and the environment.

We analyze the contributing factors (i.e., attribute factors and behavioral factors) that lead to household food waste in Japan by region (i.e., large cities, small cities, and villages) using a nationwide sample and an ordered probit model. As a result of the analysis, it was found that “gender”, “age”, “children in the household”, “occupation”, “safety awareness”, and “time” were related to the occurrence of food waste in terms of consumer attributes, which were common throughout Japan. In terms of consumer behavior, “action”, “checking labels”, and “food management” are related. Among these, only “checking labels” had a positive relationship with the occurrence of food waste. By region, “children in the household”, “time”, “safety awareness”, and “food management” were particularly affected in large cities, while they were less affected in small cities and towns. For those who had “agricultural experience”, the occurrence of food waste was significantly lower in towns and villages.

The purchase of agricultural machinery outsourcing services creates a principal–agent relationship between farmers and service providers, where farmers are principals, and service providers are agents. Inconsistent goals and information asymmetry between two parties may induce moral hazard on the part of the agent. Based on survey data from 1106 rice farmers in China, this study uses Logit models to estimate the effect of agricultural machinery outsourcing services on harvesting operators’ work attitudes. The results are as follows. In general, work attitudes of outsourcing service operators are not as serious as those of farmers. After controlling for other factors, we find that purchasing harvest outsourcing services negatively affects the operators’ work attitudes. The results of the grouping estimation indicate that for large-scale farms, using combine harvesters increases the probability of agents displaying serious work attitudes. Propensity score matching analysis also proves the robustness of service providers’ less serious work attitudes. This study provides empirical evidence that moral hazard exists in agricultural machinery outsourcing services. Policies such as standardization of the outsourcing service market, scale management, and use of combine harvesters should be adopted to mitigate moral hazard.

Livelihood diversification is an important strategy for rural households in developing countries, especially in China, which has the largest rural population in the world. In the current digital age, the existing literature lacks sufficient research on the influence of digital ability on livelihood diversification. Using survey data from 1914 rural households in China, this study evaluates the digital ability of rural households through item response theory. Additionally, the livelihood diversification of rural households is analyzed from two aspects: work type and industry. Finally, IV-Tobit models are set up to test the impact of digital ability on livelihood diversification. The results show that: (1) engaging in both agricultural production and employed work concurrently is the key strategy for rural households to diversify their livelihoods; (2) digital ability significantly promotes livelihood diversification, regarding both work type and industry; (3) digital ability’s capacity to diversify livelihood is particularly notable for low-income households, followed by the medium-income group, then the high-income group. These findings are meaningful for the sustainable improvement of rural households’ livelihoods.

In this chapter, the detailed description of the data used in this study is presented.

This chapter will examine the moral hazard in harvest outsourcing services.