bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Marketing reforms, market development and agricultural production in China
Authors: Weersink Alfons , Rozelle Scott 
Published: January 2020

AbstractChinese agricultural reforms have consisted of two transitional stages; initially decollectivization in the late 1970s followed by market liberalization in the mid 1980s. While much research has been conducted on the initial stage of increasing the incentives for farmers in collective cultivation, little quantitative evidence exists on how marketing reforms and the development of rural markets has affected agricultural production decisions. Using more accurate and disaggregated measures of the reform and market development components of liberalization than previous research, this study examined the effects of these liberalization policies on the agricultural production decisions in Shaanxi province. Procurement quota levels were found to be positively associated with the area planted to grain crops. Thus, quotas represent an effective way of increasing grain production and thereby also a means of achieving food self sufficiency which remains an important policy objective for the Chinese government. The involvement of state grain stations in free market grain trade and the expansion of rural markets has increased the area planted to the two potential cash crops, soybeans and wheat, and reduced the sown area of the Subsistence crop, corn reflecting the reduced need to plant corn as a self insurance mechanism for smoothing consumption. An increase in procurement quotas increases fertilizer use on grain crops, due to the policy of linking quotas to access to below‐market priced fertilizer, but decreases the use of labor, which shifts to other more profitable enterprises. Market development has increased these off‐farm employment opportunities and the earnings associated with them, thereby promoting the shift of labor out of crop production and increased the use of fertilizer which has also become more available.
The trade and environment nexus in Mexican agriculture. A general equilibrium analysis
Authors: Beghin John , Dessus Sebastien , Roland‐Hoist David , van der Mensbrugghe Dominique 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis paper analyzes linkages between growth, trade and the environment in Mexican agriculture with an empirical economy‐wide model. The investigation considers trade liberalization, environmental policy reform, and their coordination. The analysis decomposes the change in pollution emission induced by changes in the sectoral composition of production, effects of technology on emission intensity, and aggregate Scale effects. Outward orientation alone induces a contraction of aggregate agricultural output, but promotes growth and pollution in some agricultural sectors. Overall, free trade does not induce wholesale specialization in dirty agricultural activities. Environmental taxes on pollution emitted in agricultural sectors have a moderate negative impact on agricultural output, except for the tax on water‐borne toxic chemicals. More liberal trade combined with targeted effluent taxes can achieve significant environmental mitigation and efficiency gains, but with the implication of a contraction of most agricultural sectors.
A stall‐feeding management for improved cattle in semiarid central Tanzania: factors influencing adoption
Authors: Kaliba Aloyce R.M. , Featherstone Allen M. , Norman David W. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis study's objectives were to determine factors influencing smallholder farmers' adoption of a stall‐feeding management system for improved dairy cattle in semiarid Tanzania and other related technology packages, Heckman's two‐stage procedure was used to determine factors influencing participation in the project and the adoption of recommended management practices. Stall‐feeding technology is Jocularly attractive to those households with fewer resources particularly those that are female headed. Wealthier farmers, as measured by area of land cultivated, are less likely to adopt the stall‐feeding technology. Household labour is found to be important in determining the degree to Which the technology and associated management practices were adopted. Age of the household head has a positive impact on the size of the Intensive feed gardens. Different measures of extension‐related contact are significant in influencing the potential lor adopting stall‐fed technology, the number of stall‐fed cattle kept, the probability of growing water melons, and the size of intensive feed gardens. The implications are that research and extension messages with reference to the stall‐feeding management system need to be targeted to specific types of households (e.g., female farmers, those with children to provide labor, and limited resource farms). This supports the notion that technology development and dissemination need to be sensitive not only to the characteristics of the biophysical environment but also to the socioeconomic environment, which is often neglected. The study also demonstrates that in the poorer parts of the world where land is very limited, a strategy for improving ecological sustainability can be linked closely to one for increasing agricultural productivity.
Consumption risk, farm characteristics, and soil conservation adoption among low‐income farmers in the Philippines
Authors: Shively Gerald E. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis paper investigates patterns of soil conservation adoption among low‐income farmers in the Philippines. A model is presented that focuses attention on the role ot assets and consumption risk in conservation adoption decisions. Results Iron, a reduced‐form probit model of adoption are reported. These econometric findings indicate that patterns of soil conservation adoption reflect relative risk considerations in addititon farm and household characteristics. Farm size, tenure security, labor availability, and land quality all exhibit a positive association with soil conservation adoption. In contrast, controlling on these and other household characteristics, the probability of adoption falls as consumption risk rises. These results underscore a need for greater sensitivity among policymakers to the role of consumption risk in influencing soil conservation decisions in low‐income settings.
Technical efficiency in the Spanish agrofood industry
Authors: Apezteguía Belén Iráizoz , Gárate Manuel Rapún 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis study estimates frontier production functions with cross‐section data lor the Spanish agrofood industry by using deterministic and stochastic parameuic approaches. We compute the individual technical efficiency for each firm, compare the results and explain the relationship between technical efficiency and other relevant quantitative variables. The results indicate that the Spanish agrofood industry has a level of efficiency between 68% and 93%; which means that it is potentially capable of increasing production without increasing its Consumption of inputs. This efficiency level is positively related to factor productivity and unitary labour costs.
How to define and study farmers' management capacity: theory and use in agricultural economics
Authors: Rougoor Carin W. , Trip Ger , Huirnc Ruud B.M. , Renkema Jan A. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractTextbooks and articles on farm management stress the importance of the management capacity of the farmer with respect to his farm results. However, explicit definitions together with an elaboration of this concept are hard to find. In this article, aspects of management capacity are grouped into: (1) personal aspects, consisting of fanner's drives and motivations, fanner's abilities and capabilities and his biographical facts such as age and education; and (2) aspects of the decision‐making process, consisting of practices and procedures with respect to planning, implementation and control of decisions at the farm. Empirical studies on the role of management capacity in relation to farm results are reviewed. Frontier production functions are widely used in recent literature to estimate technical and economic efficiency of farms. However, in explaining differences in efficiency most studies do not go further than adding a biographical variabk (e.g., level of education). This study concludes that a next step would be to include aspects of the decision‐making process. Longitudinal on‐farm observations, which give possibilities for studying the dynamic aspects of the decision‐making, are suggested to further analyze the concept of management capacity.
The effects of expenditure growth and urbanisation on food consumption in East Asia: a note on animal products
Authors: Rae Allan N. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractConsumption functions for total animal‐derived food products were estimated for six East Asian countries. Incorporation of urbanisation was found to make a significant contribution to the functions. The urbanisation elasticities were always positive, indicating that the process of urbanisation had a positive effect on the demand for animal food products. The expenditure elasticities were also positive, but often less than they would be if estimated from consumption functions that excluded the effects of urbanisation. Thus, projections of consumption that ignore the influence of urbanisation may be biased.
Pasture taxes and agricultural intensification in southern Mali
Authors: Dalton Timothy J. , Masters William A. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis study integrates biophysical simulation data with a farm household model of intertemporal optimization, to investigate changing crop‐livestock management practices in the Sudano‐Guinean zone of Mali. Over a 15‐yr time horizon we find that free grazing on the commons remains more attractive to the representative household than adopting more labor‐and capital‐intensive confinement systems, but that a relatively low level of pasture tax (around US$3 per livestock unit per year) would be sufficient to induce intensification. Because confinement raises output, the net cost of the tax to the household is only about US$1 per unit per year. Imposing pasture taxes to induce intensification could raise community welfare, if the value of commons resources liberated by reduced grazing pressure exceeds that level.
The rise and fall of public sector plant breeding in the United Kingdom: a causal chain model of basic and applied research and diffusion
Authors: Thirtle C. , Bottomley P. , Palladino P. , Schimmelpfennig D. , Townsend R. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis paper examines the barley and wheat breeding programmes of the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI), which was the most successful public plant breeding institute in the UK, until privatization in 1987. The PBI's shares in barley and wheat seed sales are explained, showing that the success with barley was largely a matter of serendipity, whereas the wheat programme followed a more normal pattern. For wheat, the causal chain, or recursive, model decomposes the well‐documented link between research expenditures and increases in agricultural productivity into three stages. These are the effects of R&D expenditures on basic research output, measured by publications, the effect of publications and applied R&D expenditures on trial plot yields, and the diffusion of the trial plot technologies, which raises yields on farms. Applying the model to the FBI's wheat varieties allows estimation of the lag structures. In contrast to the results for aggregate agricultural research, for a single plant breeding programme alone there is a considerable lead time before there is any response, followed by a lag distribution only a few years long. The returns to the R&D investments are calculated from the causal chain model, from single equation estimates and by evaluating the yield advantage of the PBI varieties. All three approaches give consistent results, which show that the returns to barley and wheat alone were sufficient to support the entire PBI budget and still give rates of return to applied research of between 14 and 25%. The return to the basic science expenditures of the John Innes Institute has a lower bound of 17%, but must have been even higher than for the PBI if the other Institutes were taken into account. The paper concludes by commenting on the effects of the privatization of the PBI.
Pesticide productivity, host‐plant resistance and productivity in China
Authors: Widawsky David , Rozelle Scott , Jin Songqing , Huang Jikun 
Published: January 2020

AbstractPesticides are used as the primary method of pest controf in Asian rice production. Conditions in China have led to demand for high and increasing rice yields, resulting in intensive cultivation and adoption of fertilizer responsive varieties. The consequence has been widespread pest infestations. Many studies have estimated pesticide productivity, but few have estimated the productivity of alternative methods ot pest control, namely host‐plant resistance. None have estimated the substitutability between these methods of pest‐control. The productivity of pesticides and host‐plant resistance, and the substitutability between them is measured using two‐stage Cobb‐Douglas and translog production functions. Under intensive rice production systems in eastern China, pesticide productivity is low compared to the productivity of host‐plant resistance. In fact, returns to pesticide use are negative at the margin. Host‐plant resistance is an effective substitute for pesticides and substantial reductions in pesticide use could be achieved, with no loss in rice production, through improvements in host‐plant resistance. These results suggest that pesticides are being overused in eastern China and host‐plant resistance is being underutilized. Government policies to promote increased pesticides in rice might be ill advised given the low productivity and negative returns, particularly in light of well known negative externalities associated with pesticide use.
Co‐integration and error‐correction modelling of agricultural export supply in Cameroon
Authors: Tambi N. Emmanuel 
Published: January 2020

AbstractEstimates of factors influencing Cameroon,s exports of cocoa, coffee and cotton are derived in a system of equations using the Engle‐Granger and Johansen co‐integration and error‐correction representation procedures. Two co‐integrating vectors involving cocoa and coffee exports as endogenous variables are identified in the system while tests for exogeneily of cotton exports are consistent with the independence of cotton from the other two commodities. These findings are corroborated by estimates of a restricted error‐correction model which lead to acceptance of the hypothesis that cocoa and coffee exports are‐indeed determined endogenously to the system and not linked to cotton exports. Statistical significance of the error‐correction terms for cocoa and coffee validates the existence of an equilibrium relationship among the variables in each of these co‐integrating vectors. The combined short run dynamic effect of lagged quantities of cocoa and coffee, export/domestic price ratio and GDP jointly explain changes in exports of cocoa whereas lagged quantities exported do not seem to have a significant short‐run dynamic effect on changes in coffee exports.
The income earned by women: impacts on welfare outcomes
Authors: Haddad Lawrence 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis paper provides an updated review of the evidence on income pooling across household members. Income pooling is one of the main predictions of the unitary model of the household. New studies come to much the same conclusion as do past studies: income pooling and the unitary model are rejected. The paper then looks beyond the mere rejection of the unitary model and explores some of the issues that arise. First, what is the progress in testing the restrictions imposed by non‐unitary models of the household? Second, what are the implications of rejection of the unitary model for policy and program design? Finally, what are some of the challenges faced by programs and policies that internalize the rejection of income pooling in terms of impact evaluation?
Seasonality and spatial integration in agricultural (product) markets
Authors: Zanias George P. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThe recent testing approaches of the ‘Law of One Price’ which ate based on co‐integration analysis are modified by incorporating the seasonal components of the agricultural price series into the testing procedure. Application of the modified testing approach to the soft wheat market of live European Union member stales produces mixed results as some of the markets turn out to be integrated while in some cases a unified market cannot be assumed. I hese results differ in some cases from those obtained by co‐integration tests which ignore seasonal unit roots.
The organization of agricultural research in western developed countries
Authors: Huffman Wallace E. , Just Richard E. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis paper reviews agricultural research structural and organizational changes in western developed countries, examines new financing prospects for agricultural research, and provides some tentative conclusions about which organizations are best positioned to provide services for the twenty‐first century. Given that these countries face many similar economic, political, scientific, and agroclimatic factors and fiscal issues, we can expect a set of similar new developments that have potentially important and widespread long‐run implications. After three common developments are outlined, principles of impure public good financing are applied leading to the following agricultural science policy recommendations: (i) new political jurisdictions should be formed to finance research, e.g. new alliances across countries and subregions within large countries; (ii) intellectual property rights should be strengthened to increase the total amount and share of total (public and private) agricultural research that is privately financed and conducted, i.e. the private sector should find it profitable to undertake a large share of applied research but not be expected to finance public‐sector agricultural research; and (iii) the public sector should redirect its research efforts increasingly to areas that are socially worthwhile, but not privately undertaken, e.g. in the basic and pretechnology areas, on environmental, resources, food safety and human nutrition, and policy. Finally, large countries that have developed a system of shared public anti private financing and performance and decentralized public support of agricultural research seem best positioned for meeting the needs of the twenty‐first century.
Meat and milk self‐sufficiency in Asia: forecast trends and implications
Authors: Rutherford A.S. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractRecent structural changes in dietary patterns in Asia resulting from economic development are placing increasing pressure on the existing production systems in the region‐particularly those systems producing ruminant meat, non‐ruminant meat and milk. This has significant policy implications for the countries in the region in terms of self‐sufficiency goals in these commodities and the associated inter‐and intra‐regional trade opportunities in the future. Forecasts of ruminant meat, non‐ruminant meat and milk production and consumption for selected Asian countries between the years 2000 and 2010 revealed the following: China, Pakistan and Viet Nam are likely to be self‐sufficient with respect to ruminant meat; Malaysia is likely to continue to be a net importer of ruminant meat; India and Malaysia will be more than self‐sufficient with respect to non‐runvinant meat with the converse being true for Pakistan; and India, Laos and Pakistan will be self‐sufficient with respect to milk production with the possibility of Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia becoming self‐sufficient if the current trends continue. Structural changes in the early 1980s generally resulted in higher average annual growth rates of production‐particularly in non‐ruminant meat production. Thus forecasts of ruminant meat production and consumption by 2000 using the medium‐term average annual growth rates for production present a more favourable outcome in terms of self‐sufficiency for countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines and Viet Nam but a less favourable outcome for countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos and India. Similar forecasts for non‐ruminant meat indicated an improvement in the long‐term non‐ruminant self‐sufficiency estimates for most cases‐particularly for Bangladesh, China and Cambodia. Intensification and commercialisation of meat production systems have increased meat self‐sufficiency in a number of countries but often at the expense of grain self‐sufficiency. Given these trends, the impact of trade liberalisation measures on livestock production in the region and inter‐and intra‐regional trade of livestock commodities and grain is likely to be significant.
A comparative analysis of water price support versus drought compensation scheme
Authors: Becker N. 
Published: January 2020

AbstractThis paper examines the preferred governmental intervention towards crops growing methods in semi‐arid regions. These regions are characterized by an average amount of rain which is sufficient to grow the crop but it is also very risky. The farmers' attitude towards risk motivates the government to encourage them to shift to more profitable and riskier crop rotations. The paper analyses two alternatives of which the government can work through: drought compensation scheme (DCS) and water price support (WPS). The semi‐arid region in Israel is analyzed and policy conclusions are derived. In particular it is shown that for different sub‐regions within the semi‐arid region different mechanisms are preferred by the government and the farmers. Sometimes these mechanisms coincide and sometimes they do not. A welfare analyzes compares the different situations.
Externalities in the agricultural export sector and economic growth: a developing country perspective
Authors: de Piñeres Sheila Amin Gutiérrez 
Published: January 2020

AbstractFor years economists have ignored the diversity in agriculture and its potential to increase long run growth rates by enhancing a country's knowledge base. Non‐traditional agriculture requires significant investments in the infrastructure and knowledge; and therefore, has the potential to increase long run growth rates. Policy makers in developing countries have tended to enact macroeconomic policies designed to enhance the manufacturing sector at the expense of the agricultural sector. A theoretical model is developed to explain the dynamics between two non‐traditional export sectors and the long run economic growth of the country. The model illustrates that growth in highly perishable agricultural exports, not domestic production of manufactured goods, can potentially lead to higher long run growth rates. The model is applied to the fruit and flower industries in Colombia to bring forth an example with real world relevance.