This research was made possible with the encouragement,support and assistance of several people. Iam thankful to Art Stoecker, Hong Lee, Su j it Roy,Robert Rouse, and David Upton for their valuable commentsand suggestions, while I worked on my dissertationat Texas Tech University. I am grateful to JoseEmilio G. Araujo and Jose Alberto Torres for grantingme leave from the Interamerican Institute forCooperation on Agriculture (IICA), to complete mystudies at Texas Tech; to Mike Gudger for his encouragementthroughout my work; to Peter Hazell, GustavoArcia and Juan Antonio Aguirre for their comments; toRocio Ramirez, Victor Quiroga and Franklin Ureoa fortheir assistance in processing the data; and to MayraSequeira and Marta Sandino for typing the variousdrafts. Access to the data was guaranteed by theintervention of Virginia Velasquez froro the AgriculturalInsurance Institute and the support ofGeneroso Perez from the Agricultural Development Bankof Panama.