Using comprehensive primary dataset collected from 400 respondents from all four major provinces of Pakistan, this study assesses consumers’ knowledge, awareness, and perception regarding the use of functional foods. The empirical findings show that the majority of the consumers do not have information and knowledge about the functional foods in Pakistan. Hence, the frequency of consumption of functional food was low especially in rural areas. The result revealed that consumers with ill health were more eager to consume functional foods compared to healthier people. Besides health, the level of education and gender (female) of the respondent also play significant role in the acceptability and consumption of the functional foods in Pakistan. Geographically the people in the cities were more aware and willing to pay more for the functional foods as compared to people living in the villages. Majority of the consumers think that consumption of functional foods can help them to maintain good health, hence the policy makers’ needs to create more awareness.

Using the primary datasets collected from 700 livestock farmers from all four major provinces of Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan, this paper analyzes the impact of climate-change risk coping strategies on household welfare. A Poisson regression model was used to estimate the determinants of the livestock ownership and multivariate probit model to assess the determinants of the measures taken to manage the climatic-risk challenge for livestock. A propensity score matching approach (PSM) was used to assess the impact of the adopted climate-risk management strategies on livestock farmers. Findings indicated that in Pakistan livestock farmers generally adopt four main types of strategies to cope with climate risk: livestock insurance, selling of livestock, allocation of more land area for fodder and migration. The results show that age, education, wealth, access to extension services, and membership in NGOs, influence the livestock farmers' choice of climate-risk-coping mechanisms. The livestock farmers who adopted risk-coping mechanisms generally fared better. Increasing the land area allocated to fodder seems to increase production of milk and butter, resulting in higher income and lower poverty levels. Those who bought insurance had more milk production and a lower poverty level, while those who sold livestock to cope with climate risk decreased production but increased household income and lowered poverty levels. Migration seems to have a negative impact on production and income. Impact assessments confirm that purchasing livestock insurance and increasing fodder areas are more effective compared to the selling of livestock and migration. Agricultural climate policy should focus on creating awareness as well as increasing access to extension services among livestock farmers on climate risk and risk-coping strategies to mitigate the impact on rural livelihoods.

Using data from the 2007 Timor-Leste Living Standards Survey, this paper examines the determinants of household energy choices in Timor-Leste. The majority of households are dependent on dirty fuels such as fuelwood and kerosene for energy. Only a small fraction of households use clean energy such as electricity. Econometric results show that wealthy households, urban households, and those headed by individuals with higher levels of education are less likely to use and depend on kerosene and more likely to use and depend on electricity. While female-headed households are generally more likely to use and depend on fuelwood, richer female-headed households are more likely to use and depend on electricity. Our findings highlight the importance of ensuring an adequate supply of clean energy for all at affordable prices and of investing in education to raise awareness about the adverse impacts of using dirty fuels.

Using the comprehensive data set collected from 238 rice producers during 2011, this study estimates the impact of direct seeding of rice-sowing technology on rice and wheat crop yields and farmers' earnings in Pakistan. The propensity score-matching approach was employed to correct for potential sample selection bias that may arise due to systematic differences between the adopters and non-adopters of the direct rice-sowing technology. The empirical results indicate that the adopters of the direct rice-sowing technology have higher rice and wheat crop yields as compared to non-adopters. The rice yields are high, in the range of 8–9 maunds per acre, while the wheat yields are higher, in the range of 2–3 maunds per acre, indicating that the direct rice-sowing technology also has a positive impact on the following wheat crop. Results show that the adopter households have a higher income compared to non-adopter households. Most importantly, the new technology is a water-saving technology and on average it requires four times less irrigation than the traditional rice transplanting method. With the direct rice-sowing technology, the demand for skilled labor was less compared to the traditional transplanting method. However, the new technology is associated with a weed control problem, which needs to be addressed in order to maximize the benefits from the new technology.

Despite hybrids being grown on 30–40 percent of the maize area in Pakistan, the retail price of hybrid maize seed is high in Pakistan compared with its neighbors in South Asia and beyond. Hence, this paper analyzes the adoption and impact of hybrid maize on livelihoods using a cross-sectional dataset collected from 822 maize growers in Pakistan. The data were collected from two types of farmers: adopters and nonadopters of hybrid maize, from four major provinces of Pakistan (Punjab, Sindh, KPK, and Balochistan). We use the bivariate probit to analyze the factors influencing the adoption of hybrid maize and the propensity score-matching (PSM) approach to analyze the impact of hybrid maize adoption on livelihood of maize growers, as PSM helps correct sample selection biasedness. The empirical result shows that farm size, farm and household assets, the level of education of farmers, access to market, and social networks positively influence the adoption of hybrid maize in Pakistan. The results from PSM revealed that hybrid maize adopters had higher grain yields in the range of 94–124 kgs per hectare as compared with nonadopters. Similarly household income levels were more in the range of Pakistani rupees 2,176–3,518, while the poverty levels were lower in the range of 2-3 percent for hybrid maize adopters. As hybrid maize adoption has had a positive impact on the livelihood of farmers, policies should aim to scale up the adoption of hybrid maize through enhancing the supply and lowering the seed cost through research and subsidy programs, thereby enabling poor farmers in remote areas to adopt hybrid maize varieties.