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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2014‒12‒08
115 papers chosen by |
| By: | Guerrero, Santiago; Juárez, Miriam; López, Jesús |
| Keywords: | Climate Change, Corn Production, Corn Prices, Corn Cultivated Area, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170694&r=agr |
| By: | Wineman, Ayala; Crawford, Eric W. |
| Abstract: | While climate change is widely regarded as a threat to food security in southern Africa, few studies attempt to link the science of climate change impacts on agriculture with the specificities of smallholder livelihoods. In this paper, we build a series of linear programming (LP) farm-household models in Zambia in order to assess the impact of climate change on rural households and likely changes in land use and crop management. The LP models represent three household types (smallholders, emergent farmers, and female-headed households) in three agro-ecological zones with divergent cropping patterns and climate trends. Model parameters are drawn from several nationally representative rural household surveys, local meteorological records, and downscaled climate predictions of the Hadley (HadCM3) and CCSM models for the year 2050. The calorie-maximizing LP models are calibrated to best reflect baseline crop distributions at each site. Statistical analyses of crop yields over nine years reveal that crops in Zambia exhibit varying levels of sensitivity to climate shocks, and under climate change scenarios, the LP models indicate that farmers will shift their choices of technologies and crops. Among smallholder farms, calorie production from field crops changes by -13.56 to +5.13% under the Hadley predictions and -10.61 to +9.79% under the CCSM predictions. Although farm-households are expected to meet their consumption requirements even under climate change scenarios, the probability of falling below a minimum threshold of calorie production increases in two of our three study sites, and this is particularly true for smallholder farmers who face binding land constraints. Given the current choice set, autonomous on-farm adaptation generally will not be enough to offset the negative yield effects of climate change. Zambia therefore needs larger-scale institutional developments and agricultural research to provide farmers with additional adaptation options. |
| Keywords: | climate change, mathematical programming, farm-households, Zambia, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, C61, O13, Q12, Q54, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170646&r=agr |
| By: | Ziolkowska, Jadwiga (Jad) |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Production Economics, |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169458&r=agr |
| By: | Keeney, Roman; Josephson, Anna; Marshall, Maria |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:inpuer:189101&r=agr |
| By: | Murray, Anthony G; Mills, Bradford F |
| Abstract: | Aggregate African agricultural production is expected to fall due to changes in temperature and rainfall under current economic models, but 65 percent of the African labor force is employed in agriculture activity. Therefore, climatic changes have the potential to significantly impact all African citizens, especially farmers. Agricultural producers must adapt to these climatic changes and the risk filled environment that rural households operate, especially small-holder farmers, which makes them particularly vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity without successful adaptation. The limited success of improving agricultural technology in Zambia makes it important to understand the determinants of changes in farm yield for major staple crops, including maize, groundnuts, sweet potatoes, and cassava. This paper generates an empirical model of the determinants of changes in farm yields using a three wave panel dataset for three agricultural seasons. Results indicate that over households have made minimal changes in crop choice and little impact has been observed due to changes in climate for Zambian farmers. Increases in yearly average rainfall and temperature positively affect maize yields. As temperatures continue to rise in the future, this relationship may not hold as the climate becomes unsuitable for large scale maize production. Changes in rainfall negatively affect household groundnut and sweet potato production which might result from switching between crops as weather changes. Finally, increased temperatures negatively affect cassava production. |
| Keywords: | Resiliency, Zambia, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Development, O13, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170234&r=agr |
| By: | Larson, Andrew M. |
| Abstract: | The bifurcation of Zambia's agricultural land markets prevents smallholder farmers from participating in modern food marketing channels. High transaction costs in terms of time and financial resources make conversion of customary land into commercial land title prohibitively expensive for smallholder farmers. The simulated conversion of land title, without changing ownership, instigates a reallocation of capital and labor resources in the modeled economy that benefits smallholders in their roles as producers and household owners of factors of production. With the increase in commercial land area, labor becomes scarce and farm production becomes more capital intensive, thus increasing labor productivity and smallholder household income. This analysis highlights the importance of integrating land markets and giving smallholders an effective increase in the range of their resource allocation decisions. |
| Keywords: | Land Markets, Smallholder Farming, Economic Growth, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Marketing, Political Economy, Q13, O13, F43, |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170488&r=agr |
| By: | Chonabayashi, Shun |
| Keywords: | Climate Change, Adaptation, Agriculture, Land Use, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170710&r=agr |
| By: | Snapp, Sieg; Jayne, T.S.; Mhango, Wezi; Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Sustainable intensification in crop and livestock production is the foundation for smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa to adapt to a changing world, to respond to new economic opportunities, and to address poverty reduction and food security. For crop farmers, substantial gains in potential productivity have been made through crop genetics, but these do not translate into production without complementary investments in soil, water, and pest management. Nitrogen is the key driver for cereal crop performance across most environments, both in terms of yield and stability of yield (Vanlauwe et al. 2013). Understanding nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) – here defined as the amount of additional grain harvested per kilogram of nitrogen applied to the grain crop – thus becomes an urgent project that underlies success in agricultural development in the region. Indeed, nitrogen has been identified as one of the grand challenges of the 21st Century given its pivotal role in food production, and nowhere is this more important than in sub-Saharan Africa where fertilizer manufacture infrastructure is non-existent and landlocked countries face fertilizer costs five to ten-fold higher than in the Global North. |
| Keywords: | Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:midcwp:188570&r=agr |
| By: | Howard, Peter; Sterner, Thomas |
| Abstract: | Climate change will directly affect food availability and security. Because food production is fundamentally a biological process that is a function, in part, of temperature and moisture, the agricultural sector’s potential vulnerability is particularly large. While there is ongoing scientific debate over the magnitude of the effect of climate change on overall agricultural production, the welfare effects of increased food insecurity could be substantial. This is because food is a necessary good, such that climate change driven food shortages could significantly raise food costs relative to traditionally manufactured goods. However, U.S. policymakers rely on climate change models that do not reflect these fundamental differences between agriculture and other economic sectors. This paper modifies DICE-2010, an integrative assessment model, by disaggregating agricultural goods from the aggregate consumption good and updating the agricultural damage function. By more accurately measuring the cost of potential food shortages due to climate change and similar shortages in non-market goods, we find that the social cost of carbon increases by a magnitude of approximately one-third In preliminary results. |
| Keywords: | Integrated assessment model, climate change, social cost of carbon, agriculture, food security, DICE, relative prices, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Security and Poverty, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170648&r=agr |
| By: | Debnath, Deepayan; Thompson, Wyatt; Helmar, Michael; Julian, Binfield |
| Abstract: | Developing countries now buy a larger share of U.S. agricultural exports than developed countries, and this new pattern of agricultural trade can have implications for the elasticity of U.S. export demand. This research estimates whether the U.S. export demand is becoming more price elastic or inelastic. A multi-market, multi-region partial equilibrium model is used to estimate the U.S. export demand for corn and wheat for the current crop year 2014/15 and projected year 2022/23. U.S. export demand for wheat is more elastic as compared to corn in the base period, suggesting that with the growing role of more price sensitive consumers in developing countries as well as the large share of the U.S. in corn markets. Export demands are found to become less elastic, or even inelastic, over a ten-year projection period if income growth is steady. Results support non-constant elasticities in medium- or long-run analysis, such as might be required for climate or food security research. |
| Keywords: | agricultural trade, elasticities, export demand, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade, Q17, Q18, |
| Date: | 2014–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170490&r=agr |
| By: | Kirwan, Barrett E. |
| Abstract: | The Federal Crop Insurance program has expanded dramatically over the past two decades---from $140 million in subsidies and 84 million acres covered to nearly $10 billion in subsidies and 260 million acres covered. The effect this has had on farmers' overall risk exposure and profitability is unclear. Self-selection and market dynamics have masked the direct effect of crop insurance. This paper uses numerous changes to the crop insurance program to isolate crop insurance's direct effect on risk exposure and, ultimately, profitability. I find that crop insurance increases debt holdings and acres cash rented and decreases the use of marketing contracts. Crop insurance has no effect on farm profitability. Taken together, crop insurance crowds out other risk-management strategies without improving farm profitability. |
| Keywords: | crop insurance, social insurance, crowd out, risk, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Risk and Uncertainty, H23, Q18, Q14, Q12, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170881&r=agr |
| By: | Zongo, Jean-baptiste Wendkouni; Lee, Huey-Lin; Hsu, Shih-Hsun; Chang, Ching-Cheng |
| Abstract: | International prices of most staple food commodities in 2008 reached a remarkable level that had not been seen since late 1970’s. Food commodity prices are projected to remain on higher levels over the next decade, supported by firm demand, unfavorable weather conditions, slowing growth in global production, expected high price of crude oil. This perspective poses not only challenges to global food insecurity but also offers opportunities for food and agricultural producers arising from the higher average prices projected for the coming decade. This paper attempted to investigate the impact of future global food price increase on 28 Africa least developed countries (LDCs) and to propose some policy instruments for tackling the impact of high food prices. Unlike most conventional studies on agricultural impact of trade, we chose in this study the Common Agricultural Policy Regionalized Impact (CAPRI in abbreviation, see Britz & Witzke, 2012) modeling system as the analytical tool. The market module of CAPRI is a multi-regional partial equilibrium model for agricultural products that covers 47 primary and secondary agricultural products produced in 77 countries of 40 trade blocks in the world, among which 28 individual African countries are accounted for, and the remaining African countries being aggregated into four trade blocks—namely, Africa-Rest, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. This study is, to our knowledge, thus far the very first application of the CAPRI modeling system to assess price surge and policy impact on African LDCs. Based on the parameters as estimated by Haniotis and Baffes (2010), we translated the projected oil price increase in the medium run (5 to 10 years) into agricultural commodity price changes in the global market. Oil price rise affects agricultural product prices in both production and demand sides. Energy is needed for fertilizer production and thus higher energy prices would push up fertilizer production costs. This would in turn lead to increases in agricultural production costs. On the demand side, as the price of crude oil increases, some crops are used as inputs for producing biofuel so as to substitute for crude oil, and thus push up the demand for grains (Mueller, Anderson and Wallington, 2011). Our simulation results indicate that African LDCs are adversely affected in terms of overall welfare when prices of maize, rice and wheat increase. The reduction in consumer surplus, agricultural income and tariff revenues are the key factors for the reduced overall welfare. The sectoral impact analysis reveals that total demand for wheat and rice, including both human consumption and imports, would drop as a result of substitution effect, yet maize demand could increases. In addition, African LDCs are projected to be more negatively affected than the other trade blocks such as Africa-Rest, Nigeria, South-Africa and Ethiopia. Important policy implications follow our findings. Regarding the adverse effects that international food price spike may have on the welfare of African LDCs, governments could invest to develop the wheat, rice and maize sectors in order to reduce the countries’ vulnerability to international shocks. Bilateral cooperation between African and Western countries should be more oriented toward transfer of technology, knowledge and managerial skills. Poor transportation could magnify import prices, and also impede the distribution of products between production zones and consumption areas within and out of the country. Improving transportation logistics and infrastructure would be helpful in reducing costs of food transportation to African LDC consumers. In addition, policies that promote for more diversified agricultural income sources, such as earnings from livestock and fishing, can help farmers withstand the unfavorable impact of agricultural price fluctuations on African LDCs. |
| Keywords: | CAPRI, African LDCs, global food price, food security, welfare analysis, Food Security and Poverty, International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:171626&r=agr |
| By: | Marino, Davide; Mastronardi, Luigi; Franco, Silvio; De Gregorio, Daniela; Cicatiello, Clara; Pancino, Barbara |
| Abstract: | This paper provides insights of the Italian farmers' markets (FMs) experience. These short food chains can be conceptualized among the so-called "alternative agro-food networks", which reject the traditional food chains features - productivity, products standardization and industrial organization - to focus on other issues such as quality, local production and "naturality" of agro-food production. The main objective of the paper is to evaluate the sustainability of FMs, through the analysis of the demand and the supply side. The analysis is based on a survey administered in 13 Italian FMs, involving 158 farmers and 458 consumers. Data are used to evaluate consumers' demand for sustainability within FMs and sustainability indicators at the farm level. These indicators support a classification of the farms, aimed at analysing their motivation to participate in the markets and the extent to which they are able to meet consumers' demand. Results show that FMs might be able to favour the spreading of a more sustainable economy. However, farms should improve their business strategies in order to meet consumers' demand for sustainability. In this respect, agricultural policies at the European and local level can play a role, in order to enhance sustainable practices within the farms. |
| Keywords: | Farmers’ markets, Sustainability, Producers, Consumers, Italy., Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iefi13:164751&r=agr |
| By: | Janzen, Joseph P. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, International Development, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170559&r=agr |
| By: | Popp, Jozsef; Jambor, Attila |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2014–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa142:169087&r=agr |
| By: | Kibonge Naik, Aziza |
| Keywords: | Productivity, precipitation, climate change, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development, Productivity Analysis, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:172348&r=agr |
| By: | McFadden, Jonathan; Miranowski, John |
| Abstract: | How does current weather and climate change impact cropland use and allocation? Using 2010 ARMS data on several thousand central US farms, we estimate a two-step model that controls for expected relative prices, local soil characteristics, and self-selection into primary crop. We find that: (i). early-season and late-season temperatures and rainfall are most significant for selection into corn, while mid-season weather impacts soybean selection; (ii). sensitivity to nonlinear weather effects varies substantially within season and across crops; (iii). soil characteristics are important and should be accounted for in climate studies; and (iv). crop switching may occur under mild climate change. |
| Keywords: | Cropland use, climate change, selection, ARMS, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Q54, Q15, Q12, |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170512&r=agr |
| By: | Sidlovits, Diana; Brazsil, David; Kator, Zoltan |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa142:170793&r=agr |
| By: | Ogundari, Kolawole |
| Abstract: | The study investigates whether African agricultural efficiency levels has been improving or not and what drives its over the years based on 442 frontier studies using meta-regression analysis. The results show that mean efficiency estimates from studies decrease significantly as year of survey in the primary study increases. Also studies published in Journals, with parametric specification and with panel data produced significantly higher efficiency estimates, while those with a focus on grain crops reported significantly lower efficiency estimates. Other results show that education, followed by experience; extension and credit are the major drivers of agricultural efficiency levels in Africa. |
| Keywords: | Agriculture, efficiency, meta-analysis, food security, fractional regression, Africa, Food Security and Poverty, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, C13, Q12, Q18, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:165911&r=agr |
| By: | Zhen, Chen |
| Keywords: | Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170511&r=agr |
| By: | Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O.; Adjognon, Serge; Kuku-Shittu, Oluyemisi |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Productivity Analysis, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170521&r=agr |
| By: | Sunitha Raju (Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, India) |
| Abstract: | The increased trade in agricultural value added products has internationalized production and marketing systems. As such, a variety of forms of value chain relationships have emerged (outgrower schemes, contract farming, marketing contracts etc.) that have replaced the arms length market relationships between buyers and suppliers. The application of the Global Value Chain framework as also Production Networks to agriculture has gained significance particularly considering the importance of promoting agricultural exports from developing countries. As agriculture in most of the developing countries, as also in India, is dominated by small and medium farms, poverty reduction through exports would require production shifts and access to the global agribusiness. In recent years, the market requirements of agribusiness products have become challenging for three reasons. First, the importance of standards is increasing in global agricultural trade. Meeting the requirements of stringent food safety conditions has become complex as monitoring is required the way products are grown, harvested, processed and transported. Second, the demands of global buyers in terms of large-volume supply, speed and reliability of delivery, customization through processing and packaging and product safety guarantees have emerged as challenges for small producers. And, third, strategies for product differentiation particularly for traditional exports involved certification and/or closer links between producers, traders, processors and retailers. In meeting these challenges, organizing agribusiness value chains or integrated supply chains is necessary for global competitiveness. The Indian agri business is largely unorganized at the production, trading and consumer levels and with trade and retailing gaining importance, structural shifts in agribusiness are taking place. With exports increasing, many food chains and companies are sourcing agricultural products from India to feed their outlets in different parts of the world. Similarly, under organized retailing, several channels of procurement have developed to ensure efficiency in the value chain. Under these evolving conditions, the paper addresses the following contextual issues: Value chain linkages and coordination costs of buyer-seller relationships Information codification and transmission along value chain and supplier competence Channels of procurement of different products by food retailers Public private partnership in developing market, transportation and logistic infrastructure Building supplier competencies of the producer particularly small farmers The application of the GVC has underlined three important issues. First, with globalization and expansion of agricultural trade, India is still an insignificant part of the global production network. Though India has a comparative advantage in the production of many agricultural products, this is being undermined by the high transaction costs arising out of inefficiencies in distribution and logistics. But, considering that the market, transportation and logistics infrastructure is less developed in India and the public investments in the same being low, the policy approach should be to encourage investments by the transnationals in setting up the value chain and strengthening the support institutions like inspecting and testing facilities, certification companies, local consultancy etc. Overall, the effort should be to ensure a conducive economic environment for integrating India into global agricultural production networks. The second important issue emerging out of the GVC analysis is the development of domestic retailing in building the capacities of the local firms for forging international operations. The development of organized retailing, particularly in the urban areas, provides the ‘threshold expertise’ to organize and coordinate supply activities for greater efficiencies. Leveraging the domestic operations for entering into global markets requires development of infrastructure and support institutions. And, lastly, the third important issue arising out of the GVC analysis is the effect of trade in building the supply competencies of the producer, particularly the small farmers. The costs of compliance being high, the role of state in providing the Standards infrastructure becomes crucial. Adopting new technologies and production processes by the farmers is not scale neutral and therefore, can have the tendency of excluding the small farmers. In providing this technical assistance, NGOs, international development organizations and public organizations can cooperate and extend necessary support. |
| Keywords: | Global Value Chains, Indian Food Sector, International Trade. |
| JEL: | Q |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ift:wpaper:1023&r=agr |
| By: | Oh, Miyoung; Jensen, Helen H.; Rahkovsky, Ilya |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between WIC program participation and purchases of WIC related food. Nielsen Homescan data 2008 to 2010 provide unique information with food expenditures including details on household’s demographics and reported WIC participation status. Using scanner data, we assess how participation in the WIC program relates to food expenditures by WIC eligible (but not participating) and by WIC participating households. The research includes a comparison of select food purchases between eligible WIC reporting and eligible WIC not-reporting households during the period of introduction of changes in the WIC food package. Specific foods and food groups of interest for the analysis include whole grain products. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169778&r=agr |
| By: | Dyck, John; Arita, Shawn |
| Abstract: | Japan’s agriculture has been inward oriented, protected by trade barriers from foreign competition. Even though the share of Japan’s food consumption provided by Japanese production has gradually fallen, Japan’s farm sector remains the second-largest among the countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Japan’s food industry is increasingly integrated with TPP economies, although the TPP share of Japan’s agricultural imports has fallen over time. The proposed TPP agreement would lead to more agricultural exports to Japan from TPP partners, likely dominating the total agricultural trade impact of such an agreement. Despite potentially large import increases, especially in the rice, beef, and dairy sectors, the proposed agreement would only marginally reduce Japan’s output. Intrinsic strengths of Japanese agricultural production and constraints to the growth of supply in the rest of the TPP countries may limit the impact of the agreement on Japan’s agriculture. Nevertheless, U.S. exports would be well positioned to meet Japan’s new import demand. |
| Keywords: | Japan, trade, trade agreement, trade liberalization, Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, Pacific Rim, Japanese agriculture, Japanese agri-food sector, product differentiation, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uersib:188127&r=agr |
| By: | Xiong, Bo; Sumner, Daniel; Matthews, William |
| Keywords: | olive oil, countervail, Africa, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Development, International Relations/Trade, Q11, Q17, F14, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170619&r=agr |
| By: | Bobenrieth, Eugenio; Wright, Brian; Zeng, Di |
| Abstract: | We empirically address the implications of biofuel policy regarding major grains, to the subsequent evolution of the markets for calories from the three major grains, maize, wheat and rice. The implied market variables, namely, market price, consumption, and stocks, using a structurally estimated model combined with data on current and projected demand shifts, replicate the levels and dynamics of actual market behaviors, including the price rise before and during the 2007-2008 world food price crisis and the price dip at the breakout of the latest financial crisis. Counterfactual market variables constructed by removing mandates and their effects on production suggest that the biofuel mandate is the main driving force of the increase in price levels. |
| Keywords: | commodity price, biofuels, dynamic programing, food security, mandates, numerical simulation, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Security and Poverty, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170709&r=agr |
| By: | Mekonnen, Dawit; Channa, Hira; Ringler, Claudia |
| Abstract: | The government of Pakistan has been involved in the transfer of irrigation management to farmers' organizations at different levels of irrigation networks. Khal Panchayats or water users' associations are mandated to mediate water distribution conflicts, maintain watercourses, report on tampering of outlets and shortage of water supply in the outlet to minor or distributary-level farmer organizations, collect water charges, and provide timely information about rotational running of channels to the farmers. As such, irrigators on watercourses with Khal Panchayats can potentially perform better than those without such institutions. This study explores whether or not the presence of Khal Panchayats on a watercourse and farmer organizations on the canal improves farmers' productivity and the returns to land as was envisioned during the Irrigation Management Transfer.The study utilizes the Pakistan Rural Household Panel Survey (Round 1.5) that has detailed plot level information with highly disaggregated data on irrigation type, methods, and institutions. We used the Hausman-Taylor model to regress the value of output per acre on agricultural inputs, soil and water conservation practices, plot characteristics, household demographics, and the presence of institutions such as Khal Panchayats and farmer organizations. We find that households whose plots are located on watercourses with Khal Panchayats are likely to earn 27 percent more value per acre as compared to farmers on watercourses without such institutions. The effect of the presence of Khal Panchayats is more pronounced in Kharif (the main rainy season) than in the Rabi season. Khal Panchayats lead to improved water management mainly through reducing water theft and conflicts around water, as well as improving maintenance of the watercourse and timing of water arrival. This suggests that while the Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) progress has been slow in Punjab province, largely due to resistance to change by the vested interests embedded in the Punjab Irrigation Department, even the limited implementation of the IMT has already yielded substantial benefits. The presence of farmers' organization (FO) on the minor or distributary as well as the interaction of the presence of a KP and an FO, are statistically insignificant, though they have the the expected positive signs. |
| Keywords: | Farmers' organizations, Khal Panchayats, irrigation management transfer, productivity, Pakistan, water users' association, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Development, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170482&r=agr |
| By: | Oh, Miyoung; Hennessy, David A. |
| Abstract: | Domestic water consumers in many developing countries boil water before use, presumably concerned about quality control on the part of upstream water authorities. In this paper we investigate strategic incentives for food safety efforts by upstream food processors and downstream consumers. The strategic setting is where food processors move first and consumers react to perceptions about processor behavior. We consider two technological environments in which food safety is assured: i) weakest-link where both processor and consumer behavior must succeed; ii) best-shot where it suffices for efforts by either party to succeed. We study privately optimal behavior under negligence and strict liability rules, and also investigate the role of consumer risk aversion. |
| Keywords: | first mover, liability rules, strategic complementarity, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Risk and Uncertainty, D1, D2, I1, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:174105&r=agr |
| By: | Birur, Dileep K.; Beach, Robert H. |
| Abstract: | Until recently, India followed a welfare based approach of distributing food grains to its low income group at an issue price, much lower than its market price or procurement price. In September 2013, the Government of India passed the National Food Security Act 2013 (NFSA, also called the Right to Food Act due to its rights based approach). The NFSA entails providing subsidized food grains to nearly 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population. The NFSA entitlement is 5 kg of food grains per person per month at issue prices of: 4.8¢ per kg of rice, 3.2¢ per kg of wheat, and 1.6¢ per kg of coarse grains (millets). This policy is regarded as the biggest experiment in the world to achieve food and nutritional security, thought it costs about $22 billion and requires 61.2 million tons of food grains in 2013-14. Though there are NFSA has some direct benefits it also has adverse economy wide implications. In addition to food security, India is also strengthening its energy security, with its National Policy on Biofuels which targets 20% blending of biofuels by 2017. In this study, we examine the economy wide implications of India’s NFSA within the context of global food vs. fuel security challenges, in a recursive dynamic general equilibrium framework. |
| Keywords: | Food and Agricultural Policy Analysis, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, International Relations/Trade, Food Security, Biofuels, Computable General Equilibrium, Recursive Dynamic, GTAP., |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170715&r=agr |
| By: | Wineman, Ayala |
| Abstract: | Food security is recognized as a multifaceted condition of complex causality that is related to, yet distinct from, poverty and hunger. Given its broad definition, it is no surprise that food security eludes precise measurement. This study considers there to be three components of household food security (quantity, quality, and stability), and attempts to address the "concept-to-measurement" gap in food security by building an index that spans these three dimensions. A panel data set is used for descriptive analysis of food security indicators in rural Zambia in 2000/01, 2003/04, and 2007/08 for different types of households, including female-headed households. A multidimensional index of food security for rural Zambia is then developed using principal component analysis. This composite index is used to explore the spatial patterns of food security in Zambia over time, to assess correlates of food insecurity, and to measure the impacts of climate shocks on food security. Results indicate that both seasonal rainfall and temperature have a significant impact on a household's food security score, although not for all individual components of the food security index. The paper concludes with a consideration of the merits and shortcomings of developing a composite food security index. |
| Keywords: | climate, food security measurement, principal component analysis, Zambia, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, C38, Q12, Q54, I32, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169819&r=agr |
| By: | Fleming, Patrick |
| Keywords: | Multiple Simultaneous Equation Models, Switching Regression Models, Water Quality, Land Use, Abatement, Environmental Subsidies, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, C31, C34, Q53, Q58, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170373&r=agr |
| By: | Cuffey, Joel; Beatty, Timothy K.M.; Harnack, Lisa |
| Abstract: | The marginal propensity to spend on food out of food stamps (MPSFS) is a key indicator of the fungibility of food stamp income. This fungibility has important implications for food stamp policy. Studies estimating the MPSFS use very different methods and come to very different conclusions regarding how households use food stamps. We use meta-analytic methods to investigate sources of heterogeneity in the previous MPSFS estimates. Our analysis describes the previous literature, and highlights the impact that study design characteristics have on the size of the MPSFS and therefore conclusions regarding household use of food stamp income. |
| Keywords: | food stamps, SNAP, fungibility, meta-analysis, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170169&r=agr |
| By: | Li, Xiaogu; Jensen, Kimberly L.; Clark, Christopher D.; Lambert, Dayton M. |
| Abstract: | Cattle production contributes about 2.2% of US greenhouse gas emissions. The adoption of prescribed grazing (PG) could reduce these emissions. Grass-fed beef products command price premiums; whether beef produced with PG programs would do likewise is not known. This research estimates consumer willingness-to-pay for beef grown using the PG technology. |
| Keywords: | Beef Production, Prescribed Grazing, Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change, Contingent Valuation, Sample Selection, Willingness to Pay, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q18, Q51, Q52, Q56, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:167716&r=agr |
| By: | Weber, Ron; Mußhoff, Oliver; petrick, Martin |
| Abstract: | Using a unique dataset of a commercial microfinance institution in Madagascar, this paper investigates how the provision of microfinance loans with (in)flexible repayment schedules affects loan delinquencies of agricultural borrowers. Flexible repayment schedules allow a redistribution of principal payments during periods with low agricultural returns to periods when agricultural returns are high. We develop a theoretical framework and apply and estimate an econometric model for the loan repayment behavior of agricultural micro-borrowers with seasonal and non-seasonal production types. Our results reveal that delinquencies of non-seasonal farmers and seasonal farmers with inflexible repayment schedules are not significantly different from those of non-farmers. Furthermore, we find that seasonal farmers with flexible repayment schedules show significantly higher delinquencies than non-farmers in low delinquency categories, but we also find that this effect disappears in the highest delinquency category. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Credit, Borrowing, Financial Risk, Loan Repayment, Microfinance, Seasonality, Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance, |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gewi14:187434&r=agr |
| By: | Currie, Phillippa; Smith, Trenton G.; Stillman, Steven |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170720&r=agr |
| By: | Guizar-Mateos, Isai; Dadzie, Nicholas |
| Abstract: | The adoption of improved varieties and technologies by rural agricultural households remains a major goal in development efforts. This is because researchers and development practitioners recognize it as a potential source of income growth for the poor. However, while studies on adoption of improved technologies abound, little evidence exist on the continued use of improved technologies. This study addresses this gap by focusing on divisible technologies which do not require significantly high investments or capital. A dynamic stochastic model is formulated which analyzes the mechanics of adoption and abandonment of improved technology among poor households. The model is solved using numerical approximation methods for different regimes of financial intermediation. The results show that increasing credit limits helps in sustained adoption and prevents abandonment of high-income crop. Using discrete choice panel data models, we test the implications of our theoretical results with data from rural Ethiopia. The estimation results confirm that for households already engaged in high income crops like maize, access to credit prevents abandonment of the maize crop. |
| Keywords: | financial services, credit, abandonment, rural Ethiopia, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:171765&r=agr |
| By: | Xie, Yang; Zilberman, David |
| Abstract: | This paper builds a model determining optimal capacities of diversion dams or water transfer projects. The model incorporates stochastic inflows to the dams and the role of the dam capacity in reducing overflows, and gives a closed-form expression of the marginal benefit of capacities. Comparative static analysis suggests that larger water projects could be required by 1) improvements in water management efficiency, 2) upward shifts in the marginal overflow-caused loss, or 3) more abundant inflows. The result provides important policy implications about the impact of integrated water reforms, rising concern about food security, and climate change on optimal water project capacities. The model is also applied to analyze the relation between water project capacities and conservation technologies, showing 1) that too large or too small water projects could discourage adopting conservation technologies, 2) that the impact of conservation technologies on optimal capacities is ambiguous, and 3) that if designers of water projects take water users' potential adoption of conservation technologies into account, the first-order condition of the capacity determination model could have multiple solutions. |
| Keywords: | dam capacity, technology adoption, water management efficiency, food security, climate change, water reform, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Public Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q25, Q15, Q54, Q28, Q01, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169820&r=agr |
| By: | Waldman, Kurt |
| Abstract: | This paper combines hedonic analysis of retail prices of artisan cheese with analysis of experimental auction data to answer two key research questions: how do artisan cheese consumers perceive tradeoffs between safety and quality? To what extent do they perceive pasteurization and aging to be food safety attributes? Experimental auctions using a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction mechanism were conducted on computer tablets with consumers at farmers markets in Michigan, New York, and Vermont. Along with the auctions, participants were asked to evaluate the sensory characteristics of multiple varieties of cheese and respond to pre-auction questions about demographics and post-auction questions about risk preferences and food safety attitudes. Retail data was also used to examine the marginal value of pasteurization and age as it is currently distinguished in the marketplace. We find that pasteurization is a food safety attribute to only a small portion of consumers and age is not a safety attribute. There does appear to be a tradeoff between safety and quality and this tradeoff is driven largely by ideological differences among consumers. There is also evidence that artisan cheese consumers appear to engage in selective exposure to information about pasteurization. |
| Keywords: | Artisan cheese, food safety, consumer demand, hedonic price analysis, experimental auctions, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:171751&r=agr |
| By: | Cash, Sean B.; McAlister, Anna R.; Lou, Chen |
| Keywords: | choice experiments, price presentation, unit pricing, snack food choice., Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170677&r=agr |
| By: | Mujahid, Irfan; Kalkuhl, Matthias |
| Abstract: | In addition to multilateral trade agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the world has seen a remarkable proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) in the last two decades. This study investigates the impacts of these multilateral and regional trade institutions on food trade. The Gravity model of international trade is used for the empirical analysis. The model is developed in a large panel data setting and attempted to address some potential problems in the estimation including multilateral trade resistances, zero trade values and endogeneity. The results suggest that both the WTO and RTAs have delivered significant positive effects on trade, but only RTAs are found to have succeeded in increasing food trade among the members. However, although on average the WTO has negative implications on food trade, it has facilitated the developing countries more than the developed countries. |
| Keywords: | food trade, food security, WTO, regional trade agreement, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, International Relations/Trade, F13, F14, O13, Q17, Q18, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170159&r=agr |
| By: | Wood, Dallas |
| Abstract: | The emergence of glyphosate-resistant weed populations threatens the economic viability of genetically modified, glyphosate-resistant crop varieties. This could not only have serious consequences for the welfare of U.S. farmers, but also for environmental quality as farmers turn to more toxic herbicides. The purpose of this paper is to better understand what economic factors have contributed to the rise of resistant weeds. Specifically, I investigate whether externalities associated with weed mobility have led farmers to apply more glyphosate than they would otherwise. To do this I develop a game theoretic model of how farmers choose the amount of glyphosate they apply to their fields and use this model to derive testable hypotheses for how these choices might change when spatial externalities are present. Next, I use state-level data to test these hypotheses. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Production Economics, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170716&r=agr |
| By: | Brooks, Kathleen; Ellison, Brenna |
| Abstract: | Consumers are becoming increasingly interested in how their food is produced. Many studies have focused on consumers’ preferences and willingness-to-pay for specific production method claims; however, few studies have asked consumers to prioritize (rank) the importance of different production method claims. In this study, we use a best-worst scaling approach to have consumers rank the importance of seven common production method claims across four product types: beef, milk, chicken, and eggs. Results of the study show that consumers often prefer specific individual claims (e.g., animals were not treated with growth hormones, no GMOs used in production) as opposed to broader, more encompassing claims (such as product is certified organic). Additionally, the majority of preference shares were captured by the top three claims, so livestock producers could utilize this information to optimize their current labeling schemes. |
| Keywords: | production method claims, best-worst scaling, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Marketing, Q13, Q18, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:173517&r=agr |
| By: | Ayinde, O.E.; Bessler, D. A.; Oni, F. E. |
| Abstract: | Rice, which is one of the major sources of energy, vital nutrients and a staple food, is in short supply in many Nigerian households. Nigeria is among many African countries that have engaged in agricultural liberalization since 1986 in the hope that reforms emphasizing price incentives will encourage producers to respond. Hitherto, the reforms seem to have introduced greater uncertainty into the market given increasing rates of price volatility (Ajetomobi 2010). This study therefore models supply responses in Nigerian Rice production that include the standard arguments as well as price risk. Statistical information on domestic and imported quantities of rice was obtained for 41 years (1970 to 2011) from the AGROSTAT system of the statistical division of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Federal Ministry of Agriculture statistical bulletins, Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletins and National Bureau of Statistic. (NBS). The data are analyzed using descriptive, equilibrium output supply function and co-integration models and vector autoregressive distributed lag. Producer price of rice was positive and statistically significant with coefficient 0.6334. The output response of rice to hectarage was statistically significant but was negative with the coefficient 1.5135. Rice importation showed a negative sign and was statistically significant in Nigeria at 0.05, with Changes in output also responsive to changes in price. There is the tendency for the price of agricultural products to drop, which may consequently reduce the level of domestic production and thus discourage commercial production. The results indicate that producers are more responsive not only to price and non-price factor but to price risk and exchange rate. It is therefore imperative to reduce price risk as to increase the response of producer to supply by bridging the gap in production. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:174861&r=agr |
| By: | Li, Xin; Paulson, Nicholas |
| Abstract: | Farm management skills can affect farm managers' performance. In this article, farm management performance is analyzed based on yearly Illinois Farm Business Farm Management (FBFM) panel data across 6,760 farms from 1996 through 2011. Two out-of-sample measures of skill are used to analyze the ability of farm managers that consistently perform well over yearly and longer time horizons. Persistence tests show management skills are consistent and predictable. Results also suggest that the most skilled managers often generate better financial results. |
| Keywords: | skill, persistence, farm management, performance, Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, Financial Economics, Production Economics, Q12, Q13, M11, |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170170&r=agr |
| By: | Pawłowska-Tyszko, Joanna; Podstawka, Marian; Lelong, Pierre-Yves; Filipek-Kaźmierczak, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | The idea of social insurance – theoretical aspects. Social insurance in agriculture. The organisation and functioning of the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS). The assessment of the agricultural social insurance system. |
| Keywords: | agriculture, social insurance, public finances, farmer, France, Poland, Labor and Human Capital, Public Economics, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iafepr:164840&r=agr |
| By: | Hamulczuk, Mariusz; Grudkowska, Sylwia; Gędek, Stanisław; Klimkowski, Cezary; Stańko, Stanisław |
| Abstract: | Factors determining agricultural commodity prices. Time series forecasting. X-12-ARIMA and TRAMO/SEATS procedures. Causal forecasting methods. Partial equilibrium models of the agricultural sector. |
| Keywords: | agricultural sector, forecasting methods, agricultural commodity, price, econometrics, global conditions, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iafepr:164834&r=agr |
| By: | Guenther-Lübbers, Welf; Arens, Ludwig; Theuvsen, Ludwig |
| Abstract: | Due to global climate change and its impact on local weather conditions, decision support systems are becoming more important in agriculture. Such systems allow farmers to adapt more effectively to the complex changes affecting their farms. Marginal production sites must apply new tillage strategies adapted to new climatic conditions. Information about proper strategy adjustments is often disseminated through agricultural extension services and journals. A new internet information platform, KlimaBob, which focuses on climate-flexible tillage, was established under the auspices of the Innovation Network of Climate Change Adaptation Brandenburg Berlin. Successful and permanent introduction of such a system requires analysis and verification of its acceptance among individual farmers. This study addresses this need by applying the established task-technology fit approach. A survey was conducted among farmers in the Brandenburg region. The resulting data provided the basis for a structural equation model that explains and evaluates the task-technology fit of the KlimaBob platform. The results indicate that the performance spectrum of the system exerts a strong influence on the task-technology fit when assessed by both the name characteristics of KlimaBob and the individual characteristics of users (for example, time management, technology affinity and risk attitude). |
| Keywords: | Decision support systems, task-technology fit, climate change, arable farming, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Production Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iefi13:164769&r=agr |
| By: | Murray, Anthony G; Farrin, Katie |
| Abstract: | A significant volume of research has investigated input subsidy programs in Africa, where government expenditures on such programs are non-trivial. This paper uses panel data from a sample of farm households in Zambia to compare how fertilizer use decisions change in the presence of a formal insurance market. If returns to fertilizer improve under an insurance regime, the use of index insurance can be an alternative to or complement of existing input subsidy programs in the country. After estimating the cost of a simple zero-one, actuarially fair index insurance product that is mandatory for farmers who purchase fertilizer, we run simulations to explore the effect of insurance on household investment in fertilizer. Results show that index insurance, by reducing the disposable wealth of households in years where no payouts occur, can dampen demand for fertilizer at the farm level. |
| Keywords: | weather insurance, technology adoption, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, D14, G22, Q12, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170240&r=agr |
| By: | Suh, Dong Hee |
| Keywords: | Demand and Price Analysis, Food Security and Poverty, International Relations/Trade, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169829&r=agr |
| By: | Yin, Yiyang |
| Abstract: | USDA conducts mandatory census survey every 5 year. According to the report the total amount of farms drops to 1,717,898 in 2012, which is 23.34% less then that in 1982. The number of farm exits varies from 906,100 to 652,597 during the 30 years. What are the factors influencing farm exit rates will be studied with logistic regression. |
| Keywords: | US Farm Exit Rate, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Industrial Organization, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170414&r=agr |
| By: | Huang, Jikun; Wang, Yangjie; Wang, Jinxia |
| Keywords: | adaptation, rice, China, extreme weather, yield, risk exposure, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:177177&r=agr |
| By: | Heerman, Kari E.R. |
| Abstract: | I introduce a novel general equilibrium framework for agricultural trade policy analysis with heterogeneous producers in which agro-ecological characteristics in uence patterns of specialization within the sector and trade costs are product-specific. This induces substantial variation in market share elasticities with respect to trade costs, with the largest magnitude elasticities between countries most likely to compete head-to-head in the same products. The model is thus able to generate more nuanced predictions for how bilateral agricultural trade and production patterns shift in response to changes in policy than existing models. I draw on techniques pioneered in the discrete choice literature to estimate parameters that describe the distribution of productivity and trade costs across products. This approach has the considerable advantage of allowing me to solve a product-level conceptual model with little data beyond what is used in a standard gravity model. This framework promises to allow researchers to make more informed predictions for how global agricultural trade and production patterns shift in response to policy change. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Trade, Gravity, Trade Costs, Discrete Choice, Productivity, Comparative Advantage, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170083&r=agr |
| By: | Bolotova, Yuliya; Novakovic, Andrew |
| Abstract: | The objective of this research is to evaluate increasing interaction between the private Exchange spot cheese market and Federal Milk Marketing Orders pricing system during three milk pricing regimes: Minnesota-Wisconsin price series (1960s-1995), Basic Formula Price (1995-1999) and Multiple Component Pricing (2000 – present). |
| Keywords: | cheese pricing, dairy industry, Federal Milk Marketing Orders, milk pricing, regulated pricing, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Industrial Organization, Marketing, |
| Date: | 2014–05–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169752&r=agr |
| By: | Vassalos, Michael; Lim, Kar Ho |
| Abstract: | A Latent Class model is utilized to examine vegetable and livestock producers’ preferences for a number of different features offered by food exchange websites. The results indicate that growers are willing to pay on average $55.69 per month if an online marketplace is offered. Additionally, the WTP for advertising on FacebookSocial media is on average $20.43 per month. Lastly, the producers are willing to pay $31.37 per month more for the service if it is provided by a private for profit company. |
| Keywords: | E-Commerce, Online Food Exchange, Marketing, Local Food, Choice Experiment, Agribusiness, Marketing, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Q13, Q18, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170199&r=agr |
| By: | Zhong, Hua; Hu, Wuyang |
| Abstract: | Copyright 2014 by Hua Zhong and Wuyang Hu. All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non‐commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. |
| Keywords: | best management practices, contingent valuation method, water quality trading, two-step choices, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Land Economics/Use, Q25 Q51 Q52, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169800&r=agr |
| By: | Harvey, David; Hubbards, Carmen; Majewski, Edward; Malak-Rawlikowska, Agata |
| Abstract: | The paper presents results of the FP7 Econ-Welfare Project “Assessing the socio-economic consequences of measures promoting good animal welfare”. The paper illustrates the economic consequences at the farm level of indicative improvements in animal welfare conditions for pigs and cattle and addresses the consequences of improved animal welfare for international trade and competitiveness1. For the farm level considerations costs - effectiveness analysis was applied, whilst impacts of the upgraded standards on international trade and competitiveness was assessed with the use of the partial equilibrium Agmemod model. The Belief Network Approach was used to determine the effects of animal welfare standards and labels on the competitiveness of the EU animal production and supply chain. Introducing upgraded Animal Welfare standards at the farm level would increase costs of production in pigs and beef cattle sectors. In dairy sector upgrading cows welfare standards results with higher benefits than costs. Accordingly, Agmemod results indicate that on the pork and beef markets international competitive position of the EU producers may be undermined. However, as the analysis showed, there are both supply conditions and demand side circumstances which may well resolve the apparent conflict between animal welfare and chain competitiveness. On the supply side, it is apparent that there are some animal welfare improvements that can be made without compromising competitiveness. Supply chain information, education and training may well be able to improve both animal welfare and competitiveness. In addition, better understanding of both animal welfare and animal productivity (through R&D) can be expected to lead to improvements in both objectives. |
| Keywords: | animal welfare, upgraded standards, cost and benefits, Agmemod, trade implications, competitiveness, chain., Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iefi13:164746&r=agr |
| By: | Beatty, Timothy K.M.; Tuttle, Charlotte |
| Keywords: | Food Security, Energy Prices, Income Shocks, Food Security and Poverty, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170546&r=agr |
| By: | Gi-Eu, Lee; Scott, Loveridge; Julie, Winkler |
| Abstract: | While policies for responding climate change impacts need the support and cooperation from the public who may be affected by the policies, understanding the general public’s opinion is important and can help form feasible action plans. In this paper we take advantage of a temperature event that took place during primary data collection to explore how this affects public opinion about helping farmers adapt to climate change. We find that the public is surprisingly supportive of government involvement in farmer adaptation, and that the warm spell has a brief positive effect on support. For several years until 2011, there was a trend of declining belief in the existence and seriousness of climate change. In 2012, belief in climate change bounced back and meanwhile for several months in that year the monthly average temperatures were record highs. While it is reasonable to hypothesize that contemporaneous weather may influence the public’s attitudes about addressing climate change issues, it is unclear how temperature affects public attitudes. There are gaps in existing research about the determinants of public attitudes towards climate change. How public attitudes towards adaptation policy, especially with respect to a government’s intervention aimed at improving prospects for a particular industry sector, is influenced under unusual weather events, are rarely discussed. Until very recently, researchers have not explored how public opinion is influenced by climate change phenomenon per se, especially periods abnormally warm temperature. Prior articles discuss the effect of temperature with certain limitations, including perception of temperature rather than actual temperature, general temperature rather than deviations from normal status, and either short run or relatively long run average temperature to represent the temperature when the survey was taken rather than the temperature of the day when the respondent answered the survey. Another missing issue among climate change surveys is the public’s opinion on adaptation policies, although many have discussed ideas surrounding that of mitigation policies. As Palutikof, Agnew and Hoar indicated in their work, “…none of these studies addressed people’s responses and adaptations.” How the general public thinks about adaptation strategies and policies is seldom considered. Similar to studies about public opinion, we found little research regarding how willingness to pay (WTP) for adaptation policies or strategies is influenced by specific climate change phenomenon. None of the research considered the WTP for an adaptation policy in reference to a particular industry or addressed the effect of abnormal warm temperature. Since agriculture is likely to be one of the most affected industries under climate change, with potentially serious global food availability issues if climate change outpaces the rate of adaptation, understanding public support for government involvement in adaptation and the public’s WTP to fund such efforts can inform policy dialogue about these critical questions. Therefore, we focus on adaptation in agriculture to explore public opinion toward government involvement in helping the sector adapt as well as the WTP for an adaptation policy. We use the data based on a random sample general population poll in Michigan, secondary sources, and an unseasonal fruit-crop damaging warm spell that occurred during the survey period to assess the effects of this short-term phenomenon on public attitudes and the WTP. Temperatures during the two-week warm spell went as high as 40° F above normal Considered as a natural experiment, this unexpected warm spell provided variation of daily temperature deviation and variation of the exposure of this abnormal temperature when respondents were surveyed. Thus, in addition to the daily temperature deviation, as well as its accumulation for a short period (3 days, a week, etc.), several time period index variables are used to explore how the level of the respondents’ exposure to the warm spell would affect the attitudes and WTP. The basic set up is before-within-after warm spell, and we test several variations of time modeling approaches to explore the duration of the effect. Demographic variables and political ideology are used to control selection bias. While it is unable to control in our data set, we consider the effect due to media coverage of the warm spell as an indirect effect and part of the priming mechanism. We constructed four questions to understand how attitudes about government adaptation assistance vary across levels of government (state or national) and crop types (corn-soybeans or fruits-vegetables) since climate change is an issue which has national and worldwide impacts but agricultural production techniques are more localized. In addition to the questions about government assistance, the instrument also included single-bounded dichotomous choice questions to evaluate the WTP for government-sponsored adaptation programs. Given the contentious nature of climate change, it was surprising to find that around two thirds of the respondents showed a tendency to support the idea of the governments’ role helping farmers of either corn/soybeans or fruit/vegetables adjust their cropping systems. This could be due to the warm spell or the fact that we focus on agriculture, where the public may more easily connect changes in weather with the need to adapt than might be the case with other sectors. Results from the basic models confirm several of our hypotheses. Abnormally warm temperature deviation does affect the public attitude toward government’s role on adaptation significantly. So does the variables of sub-periods or exposure of warm spell. However, the WTP is only affected significantly by these time period index variables while the temperature deviation is not significant. In other words, there appears to be a kind of tipping point beyond which further increases in deviation do not make much difference. From the preliminary results, we found that, the public attitudes about whether government should be involved in the adaptation are quite sensitive to short run temperature anomalies. The warm spell effect boosted the support, but it did not last long and quickly dropped back to the pre-event level or lower level merely on the second week of the warm spell. In addition, temperature anomalies may lead to more polarized public attitudes. We also found that the support is higher while the question specified the agriculture industry than in the general question without mentioning specific industry. The importance of local agriculture production had certain but more muted influence than our a priori expectations. Our research focuses on the agriculture industry, adaptation policies, as well as the WTP. The three key dimensions distinguish this paper from prior work. Our research further identifies the effect of the unusual warm spell event by various means. This paper shows how the warm spell event influenced the public attitudes toward climate change adaptation policy regarding two government levels and two crop types and the WTP for government-sponsored adaptation programs. The effects of daily or cumulated temperature deviation as well as the level of exposure to the warm spell will be discussed. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change, Agricultural Adaptation Policy, Public Attitudes, Temperature, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q54, Q18, Q58, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170161&r=agr |
| By: | Narjes, Manuel; Lippert, Christian |
| Abstract: | This article is an attempt to estimate the economic value of policies aimed at conserving native bees (and their pollination services) in Northern Thailand, by means of a discrete choice experiment. The preferences of 198 longan (Dimocarpus longan) farmers for three conservation strategies in particular, namely “bee-friendly pest management”, “improving native bee habitats within agro-forest ecosystems” and “fostering the husbandry of native bee species”, were analyzed. Thereby, the part-worth utilities of these strategies and of their potential effects on the population of native bees were estimated with conditional logit and random parameter logit models. Furthermore, the contribution of a “cost” attribute to the explanation of the utility associated with the choice alternatives allowed the calculation of willingness to pay estimates for the individual conservation strategies and for changes in the population of native bees. As a result, a positive contribution of the proposed conservation measures to the utility derived from the choice alternatives containing them could be established. Similarly, positive changes in the population of native bees also increased the chances of related conservation policy profiles being chosen. It can be concluded that the population of longan farmers is generally willing to pay for the conservation of native bees in their region, although explaining their preference heterogeneity for the proposed conservation measures will require further analyses. |
| Keywords: | Native Bee Conservation, Crop Pollination, Northern Thailand, Discrete Choice Experiment, Conditional Logit, Random Parameter Logit., Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gewi14:187427&r=agr |
| By: | Rejesus, Roderick M.; Safley, Charles D.; Strik, Bernadine C |
| Abstract: | This article examines the potential market demand and economic welfare impacts of a potential foodborne illness outbreak in the US blackberry industry using an ex ante partial equilibrium demand-supply framework. Even though a food contamination event has not occurred for blackberries in the US, estimating the magnitude of economic losses from this incident (if it is to occur) is important information that can help guide food safety decisions of blackberry producers and industry stakeholders. Our numerical analysis suggest that total welfare loss from a food safety event in both the fresh and processed blackberry markets is around $16 million after 24 months. Blackberry producers, rather than consumers, are more adversely affected in terms of economic welfare losses, when a foodborne illness occurs. Given the extent of potential losses in the blackberry industry if an outbreak should occur, producer groups and the industry (as a whole) should consider further collective efforts to develop/implement novel interventions that can reduce the risk of an outbreak in the industry. |
| Keywords: | Blackberry, Consumer surplus, Food safety event, Market demand, Producer surplus, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Q11, Q13, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169452&r=agr |
| By: | Liu, Xiaoou; Lopez, Rigoberto; Zhu, Chen |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how lowering consumer search costs based on labeling formats affects the probability of choosing healthy foods. We propose a theoretical model of the links between information costs and consumer choices of healthy foods and empirically test the ensuing propositions with scanner data from ready-to-eat breakfast cereals (RTEC). Based on a natural experiment with changes in labeling for otherwise identical products, we apply an alternative-specific conditional logit model to approximately 1.13 million observations derived from Nielsen Homescan weekly purchases data matched to advertising and product nutritional and labeling data. Empirical results confirm the theoretical propositions that more convenient labeling significantly increases the probability of a healthier product being chosen. We also find that consumers with a higher volume of RTEC purchases are more sensitive to information cost reductions. Overall, the use of front-of-package labels is effective in inducing consumers to select healthier RTEC products. |
| Keywords: | information cost, consumer choices, healthy, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, Marketing, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169080&r=agr |
| By: | Harris, J. Michael; Erickson, Kenneth |
| Abstract: | This poster examines the issue of whether debt and leasing are substitutes. Using 2012 Agricultural Resource Management Survey data, a tobit model is estimated to estimate the debt-to-lease displacement ratio. Leasing and debt were found to be substitutes and the ratio was found to vary among farm typologies. Medium and large farms had near perfect substitution ratios. |
| Keywords: | leasing, debt, debt displacement ratio, ARMS data, Agricultural Finance, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170495&r=agr |
| By: | Carpio, Carlos E.; Boonsaeng, Tullaya; Chen, Zhen; Okrent, Abigail |
| Abstract: | The main goal of this was to examine the impact of the SNAP program on the allocation of food and nonfood spending expenditures across six subgroups: food, utilities, apparel, transportation, medical care, and other nonfood spending. The empirical analysis is conducted using a consumer demand approach instead of the traditional Engel curve approach used to evaluate the effect of SNAP participation on household spending. Endogeneity and measurement error of the SNAP participation variable and endogeneity of total expenditures are accounted for with the use of specialized econometric procedures. |
| Keywords: | Measurement error, binary variable, Generalized Method of Moments, bounds., Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170650&r=agr |
| By: | Brankov, Tatjana Papic; Milovanovic, Milos |
| Keywords: | Food Security and Poverty, |
| Date: | 2014–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa142:169093&r=agr |
| By: | Pham, Matthew V.; Roe, Brian E. |
| Keywords: | College Meal Plans, Nutrient Density Score, Food Safety and Nutrition, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170166&r=agr |
| By: | Ogundari, Kolawole |
| Abstract: | The objective of the study is twofold: first, to investigate whether a nutrition convergence process exists in sub Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, and second, to examine the response of per capita nutrient intake [i.e. calories, proteins and fats] to changes in income (i.e. nutrient-income elasticities) in the region. Annual time series data for 43 countries covering 1975-2009 cum balanced panel of 1505 observations was employed for the analysis. The convergence hypothesis is examined using the neo-classical growth model, whilst nutrient-income elasticities are estimated based on the aggregate Engel Curve. However, the empirical results show that the null hypothesis of no nutrition convergence is strongly rejected, which indicates tendency towards equalization of per capital nutrient intake in SSA countries. Also, the estimated nutrient-income elasticities are of modest size as the relationship between calories-income and proteins-income was found to be non-linear and linear for fat-income. Further analysis reveals that the calorie and protein-income elasticities are significantly different from zero at higher income and diminished. |
| Keywords: | Nutrition, convergence, health, welfare, income, elasticity, and SSA, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy, C33, I31, O47, O55, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170221&r=agr |
| By: | van der Vorst, Jack G.A.J.; Peeters, Lotte; Bloemhof, Jacqueline M. |
| Abstract: | with environmental and social performance. Therefore, in 2012, we started a collaborative project on this topic named SCALE (Step Change in Agri-food Logistics Ecosystems). SCALE aims to improve the sustainability of food and drink supply chain logistics in the context of rising food demands, increasing energy prices and the need to reduce environmentally damaging emissions. More in particular, SCALE aims to deliver a number of tools and frameworks valuable for the agri-food sector to secure a step change in operational practices, which will improve the efficiency and sustainability of supply chain logistics. In the paper we will present first results of this project. Aim of this paper is (1) to present a sustainability research framework for food supply chains logistics including drivers, strategies, performance indicators, metrics and improvement opportunities to measure and potentially enhance sustainability performances; and (2) to analyse and diagnose the current status of Dutch food & drinks companies and logistics service providers using this framework. Results are found via a literature review, web-based research and structured interviews with Dutch food industry and logistics service industry. |
| Keywords: | Food Logistics, sustainability, performance, food industry, logistics service providers, Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iefi13:164762&r=agr |
| By: | Meixner, Oliver; Haas, Rainer; Moosbrugger, Helmut; Magdits, Philipp |
| Abstract: | In addition to traditional marketing communication instruments, social media marketing has become a powerful tool of interaction with participants within supply chains. An increasing number of com-panies, especially in the US, are using social media platforms not only to market their products and manage their customer relationships, but also to initiate active interaction and communication with current and prospective customers. One core objective of this study was to evaluate certain content and contact features, as well as social media activities of companies of the Austrian food and bever-age industry. The evaluation of the content and interactivity possibilities on corporate websites was carried out with a set of criteria that had been elaborated according to research literature. Another objective was to gain insights into threats, risks, and opportunities for companies when interacting with customers by means of social media. This was done by a qualitative survey amongst Austrian business leaders. The research study clearly shows that a minority of the Austrian food and beverage industry actively uses social media platforms for marketing purposes and interaction with present and potential cus-tomers. Usually the platforms are not applied for active customer relationship management but for distributing exactly the same advertising messages already broadcasted via traditional mass media. The basics of a successful customer relationship management by use of social media are frankness, willingness to engage in dialogue, truthfulness and a short reaction time. In this case, potentials can be activated, while risks are minimized. The results imply that social media applications are innova-tive alternatives for implementing effective customer relationship management initiating a true dia-logue with customers. However, more knowledge on how to properly use social media marketing seems to be necessary within the food sector. |
| Keywords: | Web 2.0, food industry, communication, social media, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iefi13:164731&r=agr |
| By: | Jensen, Kimberly L.; Zhang, Jun; Lambert, Dayton M.; Clark, Christopher D.; English, Burton C.; Larson, James A.; Yu, T. Edward; Hellwinckel, Chad; Claytor, Hannah |
| Abstract: | Beef cattle production is responsible for approximately 2.2% of total US GHG production. In some agroecosystems, afforestation has the potential to sequester more carbon than other pasture and rangeland management practices. This research examines the factors, including an incentive, influencing afforestation on beef cattle farms east of the 100th meridian. |
| Keywords: | Afforestation, Cattle Producers, Incentives, Willingness to Adopt, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, Q12, Q16, Q28, |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:167354&r=agr |
| By: | Khanal, Aditya R.; Mishra, Ashok K.; Bhattarai, Madhusan |
| Abstract: | Climatic conditions and weather play an important role in production agriculture. Using district level panels for 42 years from India and dynamic panel estimation procedure we estimate the impact of weather risk on cropping intensity. Our non-stationary and dynamic panel model results suggest that the impact of weather risk on cropping intensity, in rural India, is negative on short run, while it is positive on long run. Additionally, we found a negative effect of education on cropping intensity. Finally, in the long run, our results indicate positive effects of high yielding variety production and share of irrigated land on cropping intensity. |
| Keywords: | weather risk, panel, non-stationary, adaptation, land use, cropping intensity, rainfall variability, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170603&r=agr |
| By: | Snodgrass, Donald |
| Keywords: | International Development, |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:midiwp:189106&r=agr |
| By: | Dharmasena, Senarath; Capps, Oral, Jr. |
| Keywords: | Wellness and functional beverages, Nutrition, EASI demand system, Preference heterogeniety, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, D11, D12, |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169811&r=agr |
| By: | Heesun, Jang; Xiaodong, Du |
| Abstract: | The US dairy industry has experienced significant structural changes in the last few decades. Dairy production has been consolidated into fewer but larger farms, and shifting toward Western and Southern states from traditional dairy regions including the Lake States and Corn Belt. The changes also involved significant entry and exit of small- and medium-sized farms. The paper attempts to characterize patterns of dynamic evolution of productivity, size, and entryexit of dairy farms over time and across major production regions in the US. The analysis sheds light on the contribution of farm and regional characteristics on farm-level productivity changes. Regional differences in climate and economic interconnection between farm productivity and entry-exit are also examined with a focus on the distinction among dairy farm sizes. |
| Keywords: | Control function, exit probability, heat stress index, production region., Industrial Organization, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169824&r=agr |
| By: | Valcu, Adriana |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2014–05–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170493&r=agr |
| By: | Shao, Qianqian; Punt, Maarten; Wesseler, Justus |
| Abstract: | The EU and the US launched negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in July 2013. Among the TTIP aims, there are negotiable terms under which the EU would import more genetically modified (GM) products and change its labeling regulations on GM Organisms (GMOs). This paper discusses a trade agreement of agricultural products between two countries, with different GM regulatory regimes from a political economy perspective. We find the negotiation equilibrium of the GMO Trade Agreement and compare it with a stricter trade policy. We find that if the trade agreement leads to a lenient GM regulation, lobbying intensifies. However, this effect is moderated if there are exports of non-GM products. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy, GMOs, international trade, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170047&r=agr |
| By: | Höllmer, Jan-Paul; Hartmann, Monika |
| Abstract: | consumption of F&V among European school children. In addition, another objective of the program is to stabilize the fruit and vegetable market in the EU. The program varies between EU countries and with respect to some countries, e.g. Germany, even between the different federal states involved. This paper will concentrate on the specific situation in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany. Our research therefore aims to map and analyze the situation of companies involved in the SFS in NRW, to reveal the social and economic driving forces for those companies to get engaged in the SFS, identify the networks that have developed as well as the factors that lead to success for those companies. For this purpose quantitative data of commodity flows of delivered goods and the logistics are combined with case studies gained from qualitative Interviews. The results show, that companies involved in the school fruit scheme range from small farms and one man retail businesses to large multinational retail companies. According to our findings especially small and medium sized enterprises (SME) benefit from the SFS in NRW. In urban areas some firms have developed relationships with more than 30 schools leading to high turnover for these companies from their engagement in the SFS. Generally supply relationships vary in economical characteristics (variety, product value, origin) as well as in social attributes (motivation, social embedding). |
| Keywords: | Alternative foot networks, Local production, Rural development, SME, Farm-to-school, Regional food procurement, Agribusiness, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, Marketing, |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iefi13:164755&r=agr |
| By: | Jin, Jing; Wailes, Eric; Dixon, Bruce; Nayga, Rodolfo M. Jr.; Zheng, Zhihao |
| Abstract: | Over the past decade public perception of GM food in China has become increasingly contentious. Concerns have emerged with regard to public health, environmental safety, and economic impacts. This paper utilizes a survey conducted in 2013 to evaluate China’s urban consumers’ acceptance and willingness to pay (WTP) for genetically modified rice. The survey was conducted in thirteen of the main rice consuming provinces of China. Responses from 994 consumers are used to estimate WTP for GM rice relative to non-GM rice. A double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation method is used to estimate consumers’ WTP for GM rice products. The effect of socio-demographic characteristics of consumers on acceptance and WTP is also reported. The survey design includes different information treatments for GM rice: no specific rice trait information, environmental/producer trait information (Bt rice), consumer health trait information (Golden rice) and stacked environmental/producer plus consumer health traits information. For the three specific rice trait information treatments, the risks and benefits information were reordered for the half of the respondents. The main result of the study is that a majority of Chinese urban consumers require a large discount to be willing to pay for GM rice regardless of rice trait and information treatment. Compared to previous studies, Chinese consumers’ WTP and attitudes on GM rice have become more negative. |
| Keywords: | GM rice, China urban consumers, willingness to pay, double bounded dichotomous choice model, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing, D12, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170503&r=agr |
| By: | Kim, Hyeyoung; Jauregui, Carlos; Lee, Jonq-Ying |
| Abstract: | The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 requires that the FDA develop standardized Nutrition Facts Panel (NFP) labels for most packaged food products sold in the United States. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) reported more people were using the NFP. Per capita consumption of juices in the United States has decreased steadily, from 8.88 gallons in 2000 to 7.21 gallons in 2010. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the use of the NFP and the consumption of juices in the US using cross-section data provided by the NHANES. We used data from three waves of NHANES: 2005–2006, 2007-08, and 2009-10. Because not all respondents consumed juice during the survey periods, a Tobit model was used in the analysis. Results show that using the NFP label has a negative impact on juice consumption and that there is a negative time trend in juice consumption. These results indicate that the juice industry needs to find a way to combat the negative impact of the NFP label on juice consumption, and to find out what is causing the negative time trend in juice consumption. |
| Keywords: | Juice label, Juice consumption, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, D12, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:168583&r=agr |
| By: | Bakucs, Lajos Zoltan |
| Abstract: | The main purpose of this research is the comparative analysis of overall HCPI and food inflation rates’ regional convergence between the European Monetary Union and New Member States (NMS) using both aggregated and disaggregated data from January 2000 until December 2013. Although there exist now a wealth of empirical papers with respect to inflation convergence, NMS were somewhat neglected, more, research highlighted that many results suffer from inappropriate methodology and data aggregation problems. There are a number of theoretical and policy implications with respect to divergence of inflation rates in a monetary union. For NMS, (overall and food) inflation rate convergence is important on one hand because of the desire to meet Maastricht euro convergence criteria and on the other, from consumers’ welfare point of view. The food basket expenditure as part of disposable income is still significantly higher for NMS consumers that those in ‘old’ EU member states. One of the main novelties of this paper is that it derives conclusions by employing a dataset that covers a politically, socially and none-the-less economically extremely interesting period: from before the EU accession, through the global financial crisis, price spike the adoption of Euro in some NMS, and finally the adherence of the newest NMS, Croatia. There is some evidence that after an initial, pre- and post EU accession convergence process, the financial crises together with the agricultural and food commodity price surge (price spike) did not halt, but diversified the convergence process of NMS. |
| Keywords: | inflation rate convergence, food inflation, European Union, New Member States, unit root tests, Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170574&r=agr |
| By: | Bak, Nahyeon; Coggins, Jay S. |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of the new unit-based pricing system (UPS) for food waste on the volume of solid waste collected, accounting for the effect of cross price elasticity and environmental activism. Based on causal inference using a natural experiment with a difference-in-differences model for Korea for 2003-2010, this paper shows that adopting UPS for food waste has a significant negative effect on the volume of solid waste. A key contribution relative to the broader literature is that this paper initially examines the impact of adopting a UPS for food waste on the volume of solid waste by using a natural experiment. Furthermore, this research suggests a way to implement UPS that needs to be considered according to the characteristics of each type of waste. For solid waste, the effects of own price elasticity and income elasticity are clear and significant. However, for food waste, the effect of own price elasticity exists but, the effect of income elasticity is insignificant. Increasing the price of bags for food waste may send residents a signal regarding the cost of waste disposal and thereby motivates residents to reduce their total waste. |
| Keywords: | Unit-based pricing, Environmental activism, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Land Economics/Use, D12, H31, Q38, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170145&r=agr |
| By: | Yu, T. Edward; Larson, James A.; English, Burton C.; Boyer, Christopher N.; Castillo-Villar, Krystel K. |
| Keywords: | bioenergy, storage, switchgrass, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Production Economics, Q12, Q42, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170518&r=agr |
| By: | Smith Porter, Shannon; Phillips, Jon C. |
| Abstract: | While interest in agricultural graduate programs increases throughout the nation, there is a lack of comprehensive information characterizing Master’s programs in agricultural economics. This study examines Master’s programs in agricultural economics (or equivalent, including resource economics, applied economics, and agribusiness) at U.S. land grant universities and categorizes commonalities, differences, strengths and positive aspects. The research identified a common core structure among the existing agricultural economics Master’s programs, as well as differentiating characteristics contributing to the individuality and viability of each program. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural economics, master’s degree, agribusiness, graduate education, online education, Agribusiness, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, A2, Q00, Q1, |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:cscerr:187829&r=agr |
| By: | Johansson, Sara (Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) and Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS).); Pettersson, Lars (Jönköping International Business School (JIBS)) |
| Abstract: | This study explore the location pattern of gourmet restaurants in Sweden by using information about restaurant quality from the White Guide. The purpose of the paper is to analyze which factors that influence the location pattern of gourmet restaurants, with particular focus on the influence of small-scale food producers. This variable can be expected to be of substantial importance in creating comparative advantages related to geographical location. Econometric estimates of a zero-inflated Poisson regression show that the number of small-scale food producers in a location significantly increases the number of gourmet restaurants in locations with non-zero count. Moreover, factors related to the demand side, such as market size and tourism significantly increases the number of gourmet restaurants in a municipality once the probability of a non-zero count is accounted for. The tourism sector appears to be of particular strong importance in rural areas where the size of the permanently residing population is insufficient for creating business opportunities for restaurateurs striving for the upper quality segment. |
| Keywords: | Culinary markets; restaurants; small-scale food production; tourism; regional development; innovation systems; agglomeration economies |
| JEL: | L66 R10 |
| Date: | 2014–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0382&r=agr |
| By: | Bozic, Marin; Newton, John; Thraen, Cameron S.; Gould, Brian W. |
| Abstract: | We develop a new parametric bootstrap-based statistical test for presence of futures price and options-based implied volatility biases. The new test is applicable to data with overlapping prediction horizons. Information on anticipated volatility embedded in options prices is explicitly used when testing for futures price biases. Our method is well adapted to analysis of fast changing commodity markets as it does not rely on asymptotic theory and does not require a time series spanning several decades. We apply the new test to investigate if futures and options biases can explain very low loss ratios exhibited by USDA’s Livestock Gross Margin for Dairy Cattle insurance program. |
| Keywords: | parametric bootstrap, futures price bias, volatility bias, revenue insurance, LGMDairy, Agricultural and Food Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170416&r=agr |
| By: | Stenberg, Peter L. |
| Abstract: | Rural communities have had less Internet service accessibility than their urban counterparts and, as a consequence, have been perceived as disadvantaged. Federal government policy makers have recognized the shortfall in service provision with its perceived disadvantage and have been trying to address it through the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 and The Farm Security Act of 2002 (what have been more commonly called the Farm Bills), and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. This support was renewed with the recent passage of the Agriculture Act of 2014 (the newest Farm Bill). Policy makers have, however, been asking what has been the impact of this broadband Internet investment on rural America. The answer is not simple and much of the impact will not be felt for years. That is the focus of this research paper. |
| Keywords: | broadband Internet, Farm Bill, Rural Economies, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:173277&r=agr |
| By: | Savage, Jeffrey; Ribaudo, Marc |
| Abstract: | A concern for any program that offers payment for environmental services is that those services be additional. Non-additional services are those that would have been provided without the payment. One source of non-additionality is farmer misrepresentation of their pre-program management. Farm management practices are often difficult to observe, particularly those that do not involve structural changes, such as nutrient management. If practices are difficult to observe, management oversight lax, and enforcement weak, the farmer has an incentive to provide biased information that increases the likelihood that he will receive a more favorable baseline for calculating services created, and a larger payment. This is a moral hazard problem. The presence of non-additional credits in a water quality trading program can result in the degradation of water quality. Point source discharges above permitted levels are replaced by equivalent reductions from unregulated nonpoint sources. If the abatement that point sources purchase from nonpoint sources is non-additional, discharges will be higher than if the abatement was truly additional. Preventing non-additional credits from entering a water quality trading market is one of the goals of program design. In this paper we assess how program eligibility baseline choice affects the incentive to misrepresent baseline nutrient management practices using data from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. |
| Keywords: | additionality, point-nonpoint water quality trading, baseline, nutrient management, moral hazard, Environmental Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170426&r=agr |
| By: | Kotsiri, Sofia; Zering, Kelly; Mayer, Michelle |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to develop a model that calculates the probability distribution of camelina expected yields dependent on location-related variables such as precipitation, temperature, and solar radiation, as well as nitrogen rate and others. Camelina is an oilseed crop grown in cool climate with low input requirements including little water. The application to camelina addresses challenges in analysis of potential adoption of crops with limited field data. Our data include trials and crop yields in the United States from 2005 to 2012. They have been assembled from various published reports covering a range of locations, seasons, and production methods. We begin by fitting a least squares (LS) regression model to camelina yields. As a robustness check we also apply a stochastic frontier framework under Cobb-Douglas technology. Preliminary results indicate that the average maximum precipitation for the period of interest positively affected the mean camelina yields, whereas it has no impact on yield variability. An increase in average maximum precipitation will more likely decrease the technical inefficiency. Both higher nitrogen rates and higher average maximum growing degree days will more likely increase the average yields. A taller camelina plant positively affects the mean yields and the yield variability. In contrast, total solar radiation is negatively correlated with mean yields and variation. There is still much to be learned about the crop and its best management practices as production expands. The analysis of the interaction of managed input variables and environmental factors will help us assess varietal performance and provide location conditional predictions. |
| Keywords: | camelina, stochastic frontier, weather, Crop Production/Industries, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170232&r=agr |
| By: | Hess, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | The global trend of agro-industrialisation is increasingly transforming farms and firms into specialist component suppliers within a multi-stage food processing chain. The trade-in-tasks theory predicts in this context that declining costs for cross-country outsourcing of certain stages of the production process (tasks) generates intra-industry trade and may increase the competitiveness of the final product. Based on this theory, a conceptual framework was established and empirically applied to the EU27 pig industry. The results suggest that the average EU country could increase the competitiveness of its processed meat exports; one potential source of these gains can be structural change among pig farms in other EU countries, which is utilized through vertical intra-industry trade in live pigs. In contrast, changes in outsourcing costs since 2002 due to changes in EU membership or due to the adoption of the Euro appeared non-significant in panel regressions. |
| Keywords: | Outsourcing, Trade-in-Tasks, Intra-Industry Trade, Structural Change, Livestock Production/Industries, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gewi14:187438&r=agr |
| By: | Qiu, Feng; Swallow, Brent; Jeffrey, Scott; Laliberté, Larry |
| Abstract: | Under heavy development pressure, farmland is rapidly being converted to non-agricultural uses such as houses, roads, and recreational facilities. A great deal of research has investigated these farmland losses and their associated drivers. However, the existing empirical studies have neglected two important issues related to farmland conversion: spillover effects from neighboring areas and the impacts of farmland fragmentation. This study incorporates fragmentation and neighboring impacts into the farmland conversion analysis and provides new insights for the land-use/cover change literature. Empirical results indicate that increases in fragmentation further encourage farmland conversion to urban uses, but the effects are not linear with decreasing marginal influences. Land-use activities and decisions have strong spillover effects on neighboring areas. Ignoring this externality could result in biased results and thus misleading policy decisions and recommendations. |
| Keywords: | Farmland conversion Fragmentation Neighbor influences Spatial regression, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170147&r=agr |
| By: | Tran, Minh Chau; Gan, Prof Christopher; Hu, Baiding |
| Abstract: | This study aims at identifying factors affecting formal credit constraint status of rural farm households in Vietnam’s North Central Coast region (NCC). Using the Direct Elicitation method (DEM), we consider both internal and external credit rationing. Empirical evidences confirm the importance of household head’s age, gender and education to household’s likelihood of being credit constrained. In addition, households who have advantages in farm land size, labour resources and non-farm income are less likely to be credit constrained. Poor households are observed to remain restricted by formal credit institutions. Results from the Endogenous Switching Regression model suggest that credit constraints have negative impact on household’s consumption per capita and informal credit can act as a substitute to mitigate the negative influence of formal credit constraints. |
| Keywords: | Credit constraint, determinants, impact, welfare, rural households, Agribusiness, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, International Development, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:nzar14:187495&r=agr |
| By: | Kravenchenko, Alex |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:nzar14:187987&r=agr |
| By: | Sneeringer, Stacy; Key, Nigel D. |
| Keywords: | livestock, regulation, nutrients, Clean Water Act, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, Environmental Economics and Policy, Livestock Production/Industries, Q1, Q53, Q58, |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169660&r=agr |
| By: | Alston, Julian; Plakias, Zoe T. |
| Abstract: | In the United States, public universities may choose to license a plant variety to a limited number of producers (an exclusive license) or to an unlimited number of producers (an open license). This choice has implications for the quantity and distribution of total benefits from the variety. Universities have traditionally released new apple varieties under open licenses, but several universities have now begun exploring or implementing exclusive licensing. In this paper, we consider the choice faced by a public university when licensing a plant variety patent, with a focus on apples. Our work differs from the majority of past studies on patent licensing because we allow licensees to determine the signal of product quality through a trademark and we consider welfare objectives for a public university that differ from simple maximization of patent income. In this context, we compare monopoly licensing and two oligopoly licensing scenarios. We then solve for the optimal choice of licensing fees for the university. Using numerical simulations, we find that consumer surplus and social welfare may be higher under exclusive licensing if consumers are relatively responsive to expenditure on the trademark but relatively insensitive to price. However, exclusive licenses may create distributional concerns among producers. Furthermore, different objective functions of the university can imply different optimal outcomes for both the number of licensees and the licensing fees. Although we focus on apples, this model and its results could apply in a variety of settings. |
| Keywords: | intellectual property, patents, trademarks, public research, plant breeding, plant varieties, Agricultural and Food Policy, Industrial Organization, Marketing, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170649&r=agr |
| By: | Rosa, Franco; Vasciaveo, Michaela |
| Abstract: | The milk quotas were introduced in Italy in 1984; from that time onward, the dairy chain has progressed in technology and organization with consequences for the market competition. The Aglink-Cosimo simulations suggest milk production will return to an increasing path, driven by a fairly optimistic demand outlook for the improved macroeconomic 2020 future prospects in the EU-27 economies and milk production will exceed the present level by about 3%. Milk deliveries would be expected to increase in Italy by a slightly higher rate, according with the consumption trend of dairy products. Purpose of this paper is to analyze the consequences of structural adjustments of the dairy chain for the competitive price setting assuming the retailers and processors having the control on the market prices, causing changes on the welfare distribution. The analysis is based on derived demand and price-transmission equations, using a successive oligopoly model. The conjectural hypothesis about the players provides the framework for estimating the degrees of price transmission in a dynamic setting with agents at the industry and retail levels (rather than firm) are acting as two oligopoly players. The conjectures about the oligopoly depending on the structure (number of competitors, size and degree of collusion), across the vertical stages of the dairy chain allow to simulate different degrees of market imperfection reflected on the price transmission and welfare distribution. (Dhar and Cotterill, 2000; McCorriston and Scheldon, 96; Morgan and Rayner, 1988). Six simulations for price transmission and ten simulations for welfare distribution are performed assuming different collusive patterns and results are used to check for the market efficiency hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | dairy chain, imperfect competition, successive oligopoly, price transmission, welfare, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, JEL L13, |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iefi13:164747&r=agr |
| By: | de Souza, Joao Paulo A. (The University of Massachusetts at Amherst); (The University of Massachusetts at Amherst) |
| Abstract: | Using dynamic panel models with data for 62 developing countries, this paper examines whether growth in agriculture elicits growth in manufacturing. For identification, I use population-weighted, average temperature as an instrument for growth in agriculture. I identify large short-run effects: An increase in growth in agriculture by one percentage point is estimated to raise contemporaneous growth in manufacturing by between 0.47 and 0.56 percentage points. The baseline models also imply sizable long-run effects of permanent increases in growth in agriculture. Extensions of the empirical model suggest that growth in agriculture benefits the manufacturing sector by improving its domestic terms of trade, by increasing the share of investment and saving in GDP, and by increasing the capacity to import industrial inputs. The paper makes two main contributions. First, it joins a growing literature using climate data to identify supply shocks in agriculture, establishing a robust empirical relation between these shocks and growth in manufacturing. Second, it includes a stylized two-sector model to illuminate the macroeconomic channels behind this complementarity. Together, these contributions lend support to the notion that agriculture plays key macroeconomic roles in the industrialization of developing countries by relieving saving, aggregate demand, _scale, and foreign exchange constraints on the industrial sector. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Productivity, Industrialization, Multisector Growth |
| JEL: | O13 O14 O41 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2014-11&r=agr |
| By: | Tajibaeva, Liaila; Haight, Robert; Stephen, Polasky |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze the optimal spatial pattern of open space and residential development in an urban model that includes provision of both local and global public goods. In our model, households choose where to live based on land prices, proximity to employment, and amenity values that include access to open space (local public good). Open space also provides habitat for biodiversity (global public good). We applied the model in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area and include endogenous land prices, land taxes that finance the purchase of open space, heterogeneous land quality, multiple employment locations, and pre-existing spatial features, such as institutional and environmental amenities. Based on this application we develop an efficiency frontier that shows tradeoffs between maximum welfare of households, which includes provision of local public goods, and provision of habitat for biodiversity, which is assumed to not affect household welfare. We show there is the potential for a large increase in biodiversity conservation with only modest reductions in welfare when starting from a spatial pattern of development that maximizes household welfare. Biodiversity conservation can be improved by changing the spatial configuration of open space towards higher quality habitat and aggregating protected areas to increase contiguity. |
| Keywords: | open space, residential development, environmental amenities, urban economics, biodiversity conservation, spatial configuration, land use, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Q50, Q57, R21, R52, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170602&r=agr |
| By: | Cupak, Andrej; Pokrivcak, Jan; Rizov, Marian; Alexandri, Cecilia; Luca, Lucian |
| Keywords: | Demand and Price Analysis, |
| Date: | 2014–05–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa142:168929&r=agr |
| By: | Schulz, Lee L.; Hadrich, Joleen C. |
| Abstract: | This study determines the factors leading to adoption of split-sex and phase feeding by U.S. hog producers and consequently the impact of adoption on operation’s input cost performance. A sample selection model is employed to account for unobservable variables possibly being correlated with the decision to use split-sex and/or phase feeding and input cost performance. Results demonstrate that operations using phase or combination of phase and split sex feeding are most cost effective and productive than hog operations using conventional feeding. |
| Keywords: | hog production, input cost performance, productivity, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169983&r=agr |
| By: | Dobbins, Craig; Harrison, Gerry; Hurt, Chris; Langemeier, Michael; Miller, Alan |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Farm Management, |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:inpuer:189092&r=agr |
| By: | Sesmero, Juan; McCarty, Tanner |
| Abstract: | Over the past few years cellulosic biofuel production has continually fell short of the mandates set by the Renewable fuel standard. This has continued to happen despite positive predictions in the net present value of a cellulosic biofuel plants and government subsidy/assistance programs. The present study evaluates the impact of alternative policy instruments on the price that firms require to enter the market. Some policies aim at increasing the mean returns on investment without affecting uncertainty (annual subsidy and establishment cost subsidy), others are designed to reduce uncertainty without affecting the mean (long-term production contracts), and finally some instruments affect both (blending mandates and price supports). Results from a parameterized real options model analyzing and comparing the cost effectiveness of different policies show, on a per dollar basis, that not all policies are created equal when it comes to lowering the price premium required for entry into the industry. Our analysis finds that a biofuel price support constitute the most cost-effective policy option. |
| Keywords: | biofuel policy, cost effectiveness, entry, real options, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170598&r=agr |
| By: | Du, Xiaoxue; Lu, Liang; Zilberman, David |
| Keywords: | Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170254&r=agr |
| By: | Gehrke, Esther (German Development Institute); Grimm, Michael (University of Passau) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the apparent paradox between widespread support of cattle farming by agricultural policy interventions and negative returns to cattle as stressed in recent works. Using a representative panel dataset for Andhra Pradesh, a state in the south of India, we examine average and marginal returns to cattle. One variant of our identification strategy builds on instrumental variable estimation, where the exposure to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is used as an instrument for investment in cattle. We find average returns in the order of -2% at the mean, but they vary across the cattle value distribution between negative 35% (in the lowest quintile) and positive 5% (in the highest). In contrast, marginal returns are positive over the entire distribution and, on average, as high as 13% annually. Both, average and marginal returns vary considerably not only across scale, but also across cattle breed and individual animal value. Our results suggest that cattle farming is associated with sizable non-convexities in the production technology and that substantial economies of scale as well a high upfront expenses of acquiring high productivity animals might trap poorer households in low-productivity asset levels. |
| Keywords: | livestock, profits, investment, India |
| JEL: | D24 O12 Q12 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8525&r=agr |
| By: | Surathkal, Prasanna; Chung, Chanjin; Han, Sungill |
| Abstract: | This study examines the dynamic relationship between wholesale and retail prices of beef products, accounting for product differentiation in cuts and quality grades. We test for long-run association in price transmission relationship in presence of asymmetry caused by threshold-type adjustments. The results indicate that there are significant asymmetric effects such that decrease or increase in wholesale beef prices tend to have different effects on the retail beef prices, and this effect varies across quality grades. Superior quality beef tend to show longer persistence to increase in prices and are adjusted at a slower rate than relatively inferior quality beef. This shows that adjustment of beef prices at retail market is influenced by the level of quality, thus supporting our original hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | Asymmetric price transmission, Threshold Cointegration, Error correction model, Market linkages, Beef, the United States, Agribusiness, Demand and Price Analysis, Industrial Organization, Livestock Production/Industries, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170196&r=agr |
| By: | Oh, Juhyun; Guan, Zhengfei; Toor, Gurpal S. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170523&r=agr |
| By: | Tjernström, Emilia |
| Keywords: | Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170540&r=agr |
| By: | Khachatryan, Hayk; Zhou, Guzhen |
| Abstract: | Urban sprawl in the U.S. has substantially increased the area of maintained residential landscapes. While there are social and economic benefits associated with well-maintained residential lawns, improper landscaping practices, such as excessive irrigation and fertilization may result in adverse environmental effects such as fertilizer chemicals runoff into water resources. Previous studies investigated homeowners’ landscaping practices such as amount and frequency of irrigation or fertilizing. However, preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for eco-friendly fertilizer attributes, which would benefit marketers, educators, and local governments in fertilizers regulation related decision making, remains largely unexplored. This study utilized a discrete choice experiment to investigate whether and how the presence of ecofriendly attributes influence consumers’ preferences and WTP for lawn fertilizers. Results from the mixed logit model showed that homeowners were willing to pay price premiums for products featured with environmentally-sustainable attributes (i.e., controlled-release nitrogen, phosphorus-free, and natural and/or organic). It was also found that the experiment participants preferred lawn fertilizers that were labeled as pet-friendly and those that included pest control feature. Relevant policy and marketing implications are discussed. |
| Keywords: | lawn care, eco-friendly, organic, controlled-release, nitrogen fertilizer, choice experiment, willingness to pay, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q53, Q56, D12, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170210&r=agr |
| By: | Khanna, Madhu; Hector, Nunez; David, Zilberman |
| Abstract: | Brazil has pursued a mix of policy interventions in the fuel sector to achieve multiple objectives of economic and social development, promoting biofuels and reducing dependence on oil. We develop a welfare economic framework to analyze the rationale the fuel policy choices in Brazil and to analyze the trade-offs they have engendered in the fuel and sugar sectors. We also examine their distributional impacts on producers and consumers in the sugar, oil and biofuel sectors and on government revenues. Additionally, we undertake a normative analysis for the purpose of comparing the welfare and environmental impacts of existing policies with those justified by the goal of maximizing social welfare and addressing market failure. The ex-post analysis of the outcomes for different stakeholders in the fuel and sugar sectors provides insights on the likely political-economic factors guiding policy choices. We find that the status quo policies are likely to have been motivated by the objectives of exporting oil, raising government revenue and promoting rural development through the sugarcane sector and have had a significant adverse effect on fuel and sugar consumers and aggregate social welfare in Brazil. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:169471&r=agr |
| By: | Debnath, Deepayan; Binfield, Julian; Whistance, Jarrett |
| Abstract: | Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed biofuel requirements for 2014 that suggest the use of ethanol would probably be lower than the volume previously envisioned in the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. The impact of waiving down the mandate in the U.S., and shrinking the “advanced gap” will mean that both the U.S. and Brazil will export more to other countries. Given the flexibility the EPA has for setting policy, we analyze the impact of two alternative scenarios for mandate waivers on the U.S. domestic biofuel market and its implications for the world ethanol and biodiesel market: (1) overall mandate is waived down to a level which preserves the “advanced gap” at the levels envisioned in the RFS2; (2) overall mandate is achieved by expanding the biodiesel mandate is expanded from 1.28 billion gallons to 1.8 billion gallons. Increasing the advanced gap leads to both an increase in imports, but also an increase in exports of ethanol for the U.S., driven by the fact that the U.S. discriminates on the basis of feedstock where Brazil does not. |
| Keywords: | Global biofuels model, U.S. biofuels mandates, Demand and Price Analysis, International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q42, Q48, |
| Date: | 2014–07–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:173301&r=agr |
| By: | Cai, Ruohong |
| Abstract: | Future climate change will likely to increase the frequency and severity of droughts in many regions of the U.S., especially in the southwestern states, thus further will reduce the water supply in those states. On the water demand side, the population of the U.S. also moves to the southwestern states (both domestic and international migrants). Coupling the projections of water supply and demand, we generate the relative water stress index for the contiguous U.S. counties for the years 2020, 2030, 2040, and 2050. We find a worsening water stress situation, especially in the western U.S. Meanwhile, we find that some metropolitan areas in the east may also have severe water stress despite good water supply. |
| Keywords: | Climate change, water supply and demand, human migration, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014–05–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170383&r=agr |
| By: | Lim, Siew; Wachenheim, Cheryl; Burbidge, Linda; Roberts, David; Jackson, Jeremy |
| Abstract: | Nationally, females account for less than one-third of the students in agricultural economics undergraduate programs. We identified a gender gap in test performance between genders with women in general economics and agricultural economics scoring nearly three percent lower than men. Compared to men, women also tended to be less interested in the subject. Contrary to expectations, interest in economics was not higher among women within business and economic majors than other women. Findings suggest the challenge of increasing women’s interest in economics persists. |
| Keywords: | gender, economics, teaching, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170499&r=agr |
| By: | Cowley, Cortney; Brorsen, B. Wade; Hamilton, Doug |
| Abstract: | In the U.S., anaerobic digestion systems are rarely adopted because large construction costs make them economically infeasible for most animal feeding operations. However, limited research is available on the application of these technologies on swine farms. Net present values were calculated to compare the economic feasibility of anaerobic digestion systems and covered lagoons under different output, co-product, and government policy scenarios. Results seem to indicate that with no government intervention, the lower-cost covered lagoon systems were more economically feasible than the complete mix and plug flow anaerobic digestion systems. |
| Keywords: | anaerobic digestion, covered lagoons, net present value, carbon credits, co-product marketing, Farm Management, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170621&r=agr |
| By: | Bolarinwa, Olufemi; Onel, Gulcan; Kropp, Jaclyn D.; Moss, Charles B. |
| Keywords: | farmland values, Farm Management, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170708&r=agr |
| By: | Stephanie McWhinnie (School of Economics, University of Adelaide) |
| Abstract: | Efficiency analysis in fisheries is not uncommon. In the past, efficiency analysis has mainly focused on productivity, cost and revenue, with relatively few investigating profit efficiency. Negative profits and small sample sizes in fisheries have been some of the obstacles diverting attention from this direction. We consider a new approach in the context of fisheries to overcome these challenges and examine profit efficiency in the rock lobster fisheries of South Australia. Specifically, we apply Nerlovian and Directional Distance Function methods to decompose profit efficiency of the rock lobster fishery into technical and allocative efficiencies. We use meta-frontier efficiency techniques to compare the Northern and Southern zone rock lobster fisheries. Results show that profit inefficiency in the South Australian rock lobster fishery can be largely attributed to allocative inefficiency. Results also show significant variability between efficiency levels in the Northern and Southern zones. |
| Keywords: | fisheries, profit efficiency, nerlovian, directional distance functions, meta-frontier anlysis, bootstrapping |
| JEL: | Q2 Q22 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adl:wpaper:2013-13&r=agr |
| By: | Li, Xi-Le; Saghaian, Sayed |
| Keywords: | Market power, price adjustment, Colombian Milds, Agribusiness, Demand and Price Analysis, C32, Q13, Q02, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:170348&r=agr |
| By: | Stutzman, Sarah; Eales, James |
| Abstract: | Our study compares the demand for high and low quality chicken, pork, and beef in Seattle and Indianapolis during 2008- 2010. We determined which of the Barton’s General Demand System specifications best fit the data and if beef, pork or chicken demands are asymmetrically separable by either quality or type of meat product. Our data is from a random weight syndicated grocery dataset. This data set provided weekly expenditures on meat products at sample stores within a given city. We found that the Indianapolis data best fist the AIDS model, while Seattle data does not satisfy any of the subset models nested in the Barton Demand system. There is no evidence of asymmetric separability by high quality, low quality, or type of meat, in either Indianapolis or Seattle. |
| Keywords: | Separability, Meat Demand, Demand and Price Analysis, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea14:164929&r=agr |