Rural Supply Research Articles

Elephants in the farm – changing temporal and seasonal patterns of human-elephant interactions in a forest-agriculture matrix in the Western Ghats, India

Accelerating levels of human-elephant conflicts (HEC) have become a topic of major concern in conservation efforts of endangered Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) throughout their range. Wayanad plateau (WP) is a key summer habitat of Asian elephants in the Brahmagri-Nilgiri Eastern Ghats elephant landscape (Nilgiris), harbouring the largest breeding population in Asia. With the increase in human population density and consequent forest loss, HEC amplified in frequency and intensity in Wayanad. We assessed the drivers of HEC in a temporal and spatial context by integrating questionnaire surveys, compensation claims for crop loss, and individual identification of crop-raiding elephants. The ordinal regression analysis showed that season and proximity to the forest boundary were the major drivers of conflict. The pattern of conflict is spatially heterogeneous, and there is peak crop depredation during the jackfruit and mango season (MayS-September), followed by paddy season (September-December). The conflict has resulted in the removal of jackfruit and mango trees from farmlands and stopped cultivation of several crops that attract elephants. This has impacted rural food supply, economic well-being, local biodiversity, and human-elephant coexistence. We discuss effective and locally appropriate conflict mitigation and management strategies which can apply in human-dominated landscapes.

Methodological Aspects of the Technical and Economic Assessment of Rural Power Supply Systems

The issues of rural power supply and the importance of local systems for providing agricultural production with electricity are considered. A system of indicators for a comprehensive technical and economic assessment of the effectiveness of the use of various power supply options is proposed, taking into account the features of the economic assessment of the use of bioenergy plants in agriculture.

Does Supervision Down to the Countryside Level Benefit Rural Public Goods Supply? Evidence on the Extent of Households’ Satisfaction with Public Goods from 2005 to 2019

This paper mainly studies the effect of village-level power supervision reform on the rural supply of public goods. In this paper, the panel data of 100 villages in five provinces of China from 2005 to 2019 are used to identify and analyze the impact of the supervision policy on the supply of rural public goods. The study adopted PSM-DID as the identification strategy to alleviate the endogenous problem of the model; it found that the supervision policy significantly improved the supply of public goods in villages, and increased the satisfaction of villagers with the village economic base and public social services. There is regional heterogeneity in the improvement effect of policy on public goods supply, which mainly reflects the regions with weak economic development. This policy mainly promotes the optimization of public goods supply by strengthening villagers’ public participation, and promoting the improvement of the current situation of public goods by restraining village cadres’ duty behaviors. It is also found that the coupling of clan power and village formal authority can inhibit the positive effects brought by the policy, and only in areas with strong clan power can the negative effects be mitigated. Moreover, there is an alternative relationship between the assessment pressure of village cadres and the supervision force sent to the countryside, which will form a situation of excessive supervision and inhibit the optimization of village public goods. The conclusion of this paper provides empirical support for the view that “top-down external institutional supervision and bottom-up internal democratic supervision should be effectively integrated” in the theory of village power supervision.

Population density, urbanisation and agricultural mechanisation in modern Ghana

AbstractFarmers' technological choices take place within farming systems that are shaped by population pressure, connectivity to urban markets and agro‐ecological conditions. The relationship between these drivers and agricultural technology use is ambiguous. On the one hand, population growth can increase the supply of labour, driving down wage rates and reducing the incentives for mechanisation. On the other hand, rural–urban movements of people can reduce rural labour supply while simultaneously driving up the demand for food and hence the demand for mechanisation. Past theories of agricultural mechanisation have explained the low adoption of agricultural machinery in land‐abundant cereal production systems of SSA in terms of these drivers. However, recent empirical observations find extensive adoption of mechanised ploughing technology by small, medium and large‐scale farmers in Ghana. Examining the Ghanaian experience can thus shed new light on theories of mechanisation. A large household survey dataset covering eight districts is combined with geo‐spatial data on population, urban proximity and agro‐ecological factors to consider whether the existing theories are able to explain farm‐level adoption decisions in this context. The analysis finds that a farmer's decision to use agricultural machinery is associated with lower population density and proximity to urban centres. In northern Ghana, these drivers of technological change are as important as farm household characteristics in understanding cross‐sectional patterns of machinery adoption.

Structural Factors and Racial/Ethnic Inequities in Travel Times to Acute Care Hospitals in the Rural US South, 2007-2018.

The growing rate of rural hospital closures elicits concerns about declining access to hospital-based care. Our research objectives were as follows: 1) characterize the change in rural hospital supply in the US South between 2007 and 2018, accounting for health system closures, mergers, and conversions; 2) quantify spatial accessibility (in 2018) for populations most at risk for adverse outcomes following hospital closure-Black and Latinx rural communities; and 3) use multilevel modeling to examine relationships between structural factors and disparities in spatial access to care. To calculate spatial access, we estimated the network travel distance and time between the census tract-level population-weighted centroids to the nearest and second nearest operating hospital in the years 2007 and 2018. Thereafter, to describe the demographic and health system characteristics of places in relation to spatial accessibility to hospital-based care in 2018, we estimated three-level (tract, county, state-level) generalized linear models. We found that 72 (10%) rural counties in the South had ≥1 hospital closure between 2007 and 2018, and nearly half of closure counties (33) lost their last remaining hospital to closure. Net of closures, mergers, and conversions meant hospital supply declined from 783 to 653. Overall, 49.1% of rural tracts experienced worsened spatial access to their nearest hospital, whereas smaller proportions experienced improved (32.4%) or unchanged (18.5%) access between 2007 and 2018. Tracts located within closure counties had longer travel times to the nearest acute care hospital compared with tracts in nonclosure counties. Moreover, rural tracts within Southern states with more concentrated commercial health insurance markets had shorter travel times to access the second nearest hospital. Rural places affected by rural hospital closures have greater travel burdens for acute care. Across the rural South, racial/ethnic inequities in spatial access to acute care are most pronounced when travel times to the second nearest open acute care hospital are accounted for.

A brief discussion on the problems and suggestions of post-supply management in China

With the rapid development of China's social economy, the problem of post-supply management of public goods has become increasingly prominent. This paper takes the rural power supply system as an example to make an in-depth study of post-supply management. In recent years, the rapid development of rural areas has put forward higher requirements for the supply and management of rural power grid. Therefore, we must pay more attention to rural power grid transformation, and timely respond to farmers' demand for rural power grid to meet the needs of rural development in the new era. This paper firstly clarifies the concept of post-supply management, then analyzes the formation background and performance of this problem in practice, and finally analyzes the problems existing in the process of rural grid transformation in detail, and puts forward the framework of the feasibility scheme.

Food supply chains and resilience to shocks: Evidence from India's COVID‐19 lockdown

AbstractWe study the disruption of food supply to households and reduced farm‐to‐market arrivals in India's food supply chain during the COVID‐19 lockdown. We focus on the relationship between logistics quality (and performance) and the intensity of disruptions across India's states. We find four policy‐relevant findings: (1) Food consumption expenditure was higher in states with better logistics quality; (2) These states recovered more quickly from farm‐to‐market disruptions with higher agricultural market arrivals in the later phases of the lockdown; (3) Rural food supply chains turned out to be as vulnerable as urban ones; and (4) Expenditure on cereals and pulses faced large reductions.

Exploring the coupling coordination relationship between eco-environment and renewable energy development in rural areas: A case of China

China's rural need an energy transition to achieve the goal of “carbon neutrality”. However, renewable energy development will bring about great changes in rural supply and demand. Therefore, the spatial-temporal coupling coordination relationship between rural renewable energy and the eco-environment needs to be re-examined. Firstly, the study analyzed the coupling mechanism based on the rural renewable energy system. Secondly, the evaluation indicator system of rural renewable energy development and eco-environment was constructed respectively. Finally, a coupling coordination degree (CCD) model was established based on 2-tuple linguistic gray correlation multi-criteria decision-making, prospect theory and coupling theory. The results show that the coupling coordination presented an evolutionary trend from low to high levels from 2005 to 2019. Under the influence of energy policies, it was predicted that the average CCD in China will increase from 0.52 to 0.55 by 2025. In addition, the CCD and external influencing factors of provinces varied widely under different times and spaces. Each province should promote the coordinated development of eco-environment and rural renewable energy with their advantages of resources and economy.

Assessment of Drinking Water Quality Status by Water Quality Index: A Case Study of Jharipani Waterfall, Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India

Water is one of the most valuable and essential natural resources for sustenance of life on earth and for any developmental activity. Water resources, being exploited from time to time, may become short of supply or may not be easily available at any site. Surface water is commonly present with different degrees of availability and distribution of the earth. There has been an increase in surface water management and utilization for agriculture, domestic, industry and rural supply schemes for the development of nations. Increasing consumption of water resources due to anthropogenic influences on urban, industrial and agricultural needs and erratic precipitation due to metrological changes greatly degrade water sources. In this study, Water Quality Index (WQI) of Jharipani waterfall, Mussoorie was analyzed with the ten physicochemical parameters such as alkalinity, calcium, chloride, electrical conductivity, magnesium, nitrate, pH, sulfate, total dissolved solid and total hardness to know the suitability for drinking purpose during pre and post monsoon seasons of the year 2022. The value of calcium and total dissolved solid which exceeded the permissible limit during pre-monsoon seasons but average during post monsoon season. The calculated Water Quality Index values are 83.371 during pre-monsoon season and 74.599 during post monsoon season. This water quality rating study clearly shows that, the status of the water body is not suitable for drinking. According to Standard Rating of Water Quality, it is very poor in pre monsoon season and poor in post monsoon season and not healthy for drinking purpose.

Last Mile Distributors: The Key to Unlocking Efficient Rural Supply Chain

‘Last mile’ means the final phase of a distribution process where in order to gain a competitive advantage, companies work at establishing and refining their final link of supply chain. In many rural areas around the world, the inefficient last mile supply chains is a major obstacle to business development. Last miles are often considered as the most expensive but least efficient aspect of a supply chain. Many national and multinational companies face complex and unique challenges in delivering goods to rural areas, particularly in developing countries where infrastructure is often poor and transportation options are limited. This inadequacy can result in higher costs for consumers, reduced profits for producers, and even wastage due to spoilage.

A Study on Rural Retailer and Consumer Decision Making - A Literature Review

The aim of this study is to explore the role of rural retailers and examine how they influence rural consumer’s purchase behaviour. Also, how as a part of unorganized retailing, the rural retailer represents his unique characteristics was investigated. The parameters of their merchandising, their advantages of social capital, vulnerability and drawbacks of rural retailer’s remoteness was revisited too. This article took a consolidative literature review method where secondary information and data were collected. Numerous journals, research article, publications written on rural retailers were collected, analysed and evaluated. Renowned database and search engines like Google scholar, Elsevier, Emerald, and JSTOR were reviewed for collecting relevant journal articles and research papers. This study later presented a synthesized discussion on how as a vital link of the urban to rural supply chain, rural retailers act as a ‘lifeline’ of daily necessities. The realities that contributes to their success and failures are discussed as well. Subsequently, as the rural retailers have a very important role to play in the developing economy, the unmistakable need of further, in-depth research on them became very evident.

Research on the Realistic Dilemma and Path of Rural Supply Chain Financial Policy Implementation

With the proposal of rural revitalization strategy, rural inclusive finance plays an increasingly important role in the economic development of rural areas. Under the support and guidance of relevant national policies, China has vigorously developed rural supply chain finance in recent years, and issued a series of policies to promote the development of supply chain finance from the state to the provinces and cities at all levels. However, due to the lack of service awareness of financial institutions, insufficient policy publicity and the low level of modernization of agriculture and rural areas, China's supply chain financial policies are difficult to implement. Based on the above practical problems, this paper puts forward the optimization path to promote the implementation of rural supply chain finance policies in China, so as to effectively play the role of supply chain finance in solving the financing difficulties in rural areas and promote the stable and healthy development of rural economy in China.

A Study on Rural Retailer and Consumer Decision Making - A Literature Review

Abstract— The aim of this study is to explore the role of rural retailers and examine how they influence rural consumer’s purchase behaviour. Also, how as a part of unorganized retailing, the rural retailer represents his unique characteristics was investigated. The parameters of their merchandising, their advantages of social capital, vulnerability and drawbacks of rural retailer’s remoteness was revisited too. This article took a consolidative literature review method where secondary information and data were collected. Numerous journals, research article, publications written on rural retailers were collected, analysed and evaluated. Renowned database and search engines like Google scholar, Elsevier, Emerald, and JSTOR were reviewed for collecting relevant journal articles and research papers. This study later presented a synthesized discussion on how as a vital link of the urban to rural supply chain, rural retailers act as a ‘lifeline’ of daily necessities. The realities that contributes to their success and failures are discussed as well. Subsequently, as the rural retailers have a very important role to play in the developing economy, the unmistakable need of further, in-depth research on them became very evident.

Research on the direction and path of rural commercial bank digital transformation under the background of rural revitalization

At present, the digital transformation of commercial banks has become a trend. Compared with large banks, small and medium-sized rural banks are facing huge pressure from both the external environment and internal conditions. Small and medium-sized rural banks should combine the advantages of rural revitalization policy, improve the digital innovation of banking business, and strengthen cooperation with other professional service institutions. Based on the idea of "double chain linkage" proposed by Taihui Zhu and Yutong Zhang, combined with "financial service supply chain, rural industry supply chain and new infrastructure construction chain", digital financial services based on this idea are proposed to achieve collaborative innovation of the three. This paper has certain scientific reference significance for solving the "last mile" problem of rural commercial bank's digital transformation and helping rural revitalization.

The Role of Urban–Rural Connections in Building Food System Resilience

This paper investigates food system resilience—conceptualized through the four dimensions of agency, buffering, connectivity, and diversification—from the perspective of rural–urban relations. We consider three cases that capture distinct actor and policy foci in the wider literature on urban–rural interactions. These are secondary cities and their development potential as central nodes in urban–rural food systems, the role of digital infrastructure in shaping food systems resilience, and finally, street food vendors as a particularly vulnerable yet crucial group of actors linking rural food supply with urban demand. We review existing literature within these themes, with a particular focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food systems in middle- and low-income countries. This allows us to examine the relationship between rural–urban connectivity and food system resilience and to identify possible trade-offs. We formulate recommendations for research and policy around the notions of new localities (i.e., considering the interconnectedness of rural and urban food systems across administrative boundaries), smart development (i.e., context-specific approaches building on local strengths), and network governance (i.e., inclusive decision making engaging with diverse stakeholders across multiple scales).

Is Government Provision Necessary for Rural Credit Gap? Evidence from China

The shortage of rural credit supply is a global practical problem, and also a concern of the world academia. The purpose of this study is to find evidence of the role of government provision in solving rural credit gap, and provide inspiration for countries to solve the shortage of rural credit supply. In the process, this study uses Goldsmith’s financial development theory as the theoretical guidance, and conducts an empirical analysis of the relationship between the financial interrelations ratio (FIR) and government provision in rural China from 2004 to 2019. The findings show that the rural credit gap with market development is not necessarily a credit market failure, and the government provision is not necessarily effective. Because the government provision is costly, wasteful, and less efficient than government intervention on stimulating demand.

Analysis of transportable off-grid solar power generation for rural electricity supply: an application study of Sanliurfa, Turkey

Analysis of transportable off-grid solar power generation for rural electricity supply: an application study of Sanliurfa, Turkey

How to make decisions in rural agri-food supply chains with cold storages: policies on planting, store and sale

How to make decisions in rural agri-food supply chains with cold storages: policies on planting, store and sale

Preference for rural living environment improvement initiatives in China

AbstractThe Chinese government has launched the Rural Living Environment Improvement Initiative (RLEII) to solve the poor living conditions in rural areas. The initiative enhances rural greenery; provides sanitary toilets; and promotes proper disposal of animal manure, sewage, and household waste in rural areas. We collected data using in‐person interviews with 938 rural residents in Xinjiang, China, to elicit their preference, preference intensity, and preference heterogeneity for RLEII. Results indicated that rural residents prefer to see shortcomings of the RLEII addressed. Rural greening construction is identified with the highest preference intensity. We also find significant heterogeneity in rural residents' preferences for each attribute of RLEII. The preference heterogeneity is rooted in the region's economic condition (poor vs. nonpoor region). It is essential to understand rural residents' choice for rural public goods supply and to respect their preference intensity, sequence, and heterogeneity for RLEII to enhance the implementation performance. We discuss the implications of these findings.

Teacher Futures: Global Reaction to Teacher Shortages in Rural Locations

Upcoming changes in the teacher labor supply will have an impact on nations that provide government-based education for their youth. Faced with a significant global shortfall of educators, most countries have taken steps to incentivize teaching as a profession and ensure that qualified teachers are available to students in all locations – particularly in rural environments. To understand these initiatives more thoroughly, a short-term policy analysis focused on incentives for teacher labor through a lens of governmental policy implementation has been completed. This resulted in a review of the efforts three nations (Australia, the United States and Zambia) have undertaken to ensure a viable and consistent teacher workforce in rural areas. While each nation has specific factors that contribute to current and projected shortages, each also provides unique solutions to assist in resolving this ongoing issue. Through the examination of multiple hiring factors and incentives used in each location, a better understanding of the specific challenges and strategies employed to secure a viable teaching workforce has been developed. Outcomes related to this policy analysis showed commonalities in the lack of developed strategies to prepare rural educators to address teacher shortages in more remote regions. In addition, while education leaders in each country continue to publicly call for additional support for rural teachers – very little legislation or policy implementation has been enacted to bolster this subsection of public education in any of the specified nations. Additional discussion about the long-term concerns regarding rural teacher supply and student equity is also developed.