Economic impact of nature-based tourism.

Protected areas (PAs) can help address biodiversity loss by promoting conservation while fostering economic development through sustainable tourism. Nature-based tourism can generate economic benefits for communities in and around PAs; however, its impacts do not lend themselves to conventional impact evaluation tools. We utilize a Monte Carlo simulation approach with econometric estimations using microdata to estimate the full economic impact of nature-based tourism on the economies surrounding three terrestrial and two marine PAs. Simulations suggest that nature-based tourism creates significant economic benefits for communities around PAs, including the poorest households, and many of these benefits are indirect, via income and production spillovers. An additional tourist increases annual real income in communities near the PAs by US$169-$2,400, significantly more than the average tourist's expenditure. Conversely, lost tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic costs of human-wildlife conflict have disproportionately large negative impacts on local incomes.

Evolving agricultural labor markets

Agricultural employment is critical to the lives of hundreds of millions of men and women across the globe as well as to the farms that employ them and the communities in which they live. However, as the agricultural transformation unfolds, workers move off the farm to jobs in an expanding food services sector, in urban areas, and abroad, with far-reaching ramifications for agricultural producers and labor markets. This chapter examines the changing role of agricultural employment in developing and developed economies. It draws from two decades of research using a wide diversity of analytical approaches to document how agricultural labor markets evolve and the impact this evolution has on workers, farmers, and rural economies. We highlight new empirical findings, emerging themes, and policy implications, including the growing concentration of off-farm agri-food employment, migration, changing gender roles, climate change and the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Viewpoint: The future of work in agri-food.

As countries develop, agriculture's role as domestic employer declines. But the broader agri-food system also expands, and the scope for agriculture-related job creation shifts beyond the farm. Historically, technological revolutions have shaped, and have been shaped by, these dynamics. Today, a digital revolution is taking hold. In this process of structural transformation, societies evolve from having a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor, typically met by foreign agricultural wage workers. Yet anti-immigration sentiments are flying high in migrant-destination countries, and agricultural trade may be similarly challenged. Robots in the fields and packing plants offer an alternative to a diminishing labor supply. COVID-19 will reinforce trends of digitization and anti-globalization (including in food trade), while slowing economic growth and structural transformation. In the world's poorest countries, particularly in Africa, labor productivity in agriculture remains at historically low levels. So, what role can the agri-food system play as a source of employment in the future? This viewpoint elaborates on these trends and reviews several policy options, including inclusive value chain development, better immigration policies, social insurance schemes, and ramp up in agricultural education and extension.