Agricultural and Resource Economics

Using panel data econometric techniques and propensity score matching procedures, this study evaluates the impact of the MAUNLAD agricultural development program - a program designed to help alleviate poverty in Philippine coconut-producing communities. Our results ...

Many observers have suggested that tax policy can be used to change the relative prices of foods in ways that will produce desirable health outcomes. We briefly review the economic evidence regarding such claims, and discuss several conceptual and pragmatic issues sur- rounding the use of such interventions to achieve public health objectives.

Este texto articula las narrativas de bienes comunes y de soberania alimentaria, proponiendo una dialectica entre ambos campos, hasta ahora notablemente disociados. Propone que el movimiento de soberania alimentaria podria beneficiarse mucho de la consideracion de los alimentos como un bien comun, que seria uno de los pilares teoricos, politicos y eticos de la transicion hacia sistemas alimentarios mas justos y sostenibles.

Nearly all applied research on arts activity has examined phenomena in metropolitan areas. Findings from this past research confirm an arts specialization in a limited number of cities. This paper finds a similar pattern in nonmetropolitan areas, where a limited number of counties maintain or develop a distinct specialization in the arts. We document the emergence of these "rural artistic havens" and identify county characteristics associated with the attraction of performing, fine, and applied artists. The implications of these findings for rural development strategies focusing on the arts are discussed.

Hunger is needlessly killing millions of our fellow humans, including 3.1 million young children every year, condemning many others to life-long exposure to illness and social exclusion. With the dominant no money-no food rationality, hunger still prevails in a world of abundance. This paper argues this narrative has to be re-conceived and a binding Food Treaty, based on a commons approach to food, will create a more appropriate framework to work together towards a fairer and more sustainable world. The eradication of hunger no later than 2025 would be the main objective within a broader framework whereby food and nutrition security shall be understood as a Global Public Good. Within the treaty framework, those governments that are genuinely determined to end hunger (a coalition of the willing) could commit themselves to mutually-agreed binding goals, strategies and predictable funding. The paper presents the rationale to substantiate the treaty, as well as objectives, provisions and a possible route map for the process.

This paper examines the impacts of rising food prices on poverty and welfare in Vietnam. Increases in prices of food raise the real incomes of those selling food, but make net food purchasers worse off. Overall, the net impacts on an average Vietnamese household's welfare are positive. However, the benefits and costs are not spread evenly across the population. A majority of the population would be worse-off from increases in food prices. A uniform increase in both food consumer and producer prices would make 56 percent of households be worse off. Similarly, a uniform increase in the price of rice would reduce the welfare of about 54 percent of rural households and about 92 percent of urban households. The reason why average household welfare increases is that the average welfare losses of the households whose welfare declines (net consumers) are smaller than the average welfare gains of the households that benefit (net producers). With relative small change in food price, the poverty rate declines slightly because poorer households in Vietnam tend to be net producers. However, if price increase is large, for example at 50 percent, poverty rates may increase.

There is an increasing tendency for forest product firms worldwide to adopt sound environmental management practices by voluntarily agreeing to have their forest practices certified by third parties. Using a simple model of profit maximization, we illustrate that the puzzling emergence of this non-state, self-imposed governance structure is compatible with firms' profit motives. An empirical model using firm data from

The socioeconomic determinants adoption of improved cassava varieties by ADP farmers in Anambra State, Nigeria was studied. Multistage random sampling technique was used to select 120 farmers for detailed studies. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information from the respondents. Percentage response, likert scale, profit model and gross margin analysis were used to analyze the objectives of the study. The results show that most farmers were aged, educated and with moderate household size. The following technologies were adopted by the farmers, as they had adoption score of above 3.0, include planting geometry, fertilizer, tillage, quality of planting materials, fertilizer and ridging. The determinant factors to the adoption of the improved cassava technologies were educational level, farm size and credit access. Furthermore, improved cassava production is profitable in the study area with net farm income of N433, 464. The major constraints to the adoption of the improved cassava production technologies were land problems, extension services, labour cost and poor access to credit. The need to enhance farmers " access to education, credit and labour saving devices were recommended.

This study focused on the resource-use efficiency and profitability of ofada rice farming in Ogun State, Nigeria, Primary data were collected from a cross-section of 240 farm households involved in ofada rice production. A multi-stage sampling technique using a combination of purposive and simple random sampling method was adopted to select the respondents for interview using a wellstructured, pre-tested and modified questionnaire. Tools of analysis include descriptive, cost and returns, gross margin and regression analyses. It was observed that literacy level was low among the farmers and majority of them were youths (73%). Most of them (59%) utilized their personal savings for farm operations. Also, about 79% of the farmers operated less than 2 hectares of farmland, and the mean farm size was 1.52 hectares. Average number of parcels operated however decreased as farm size increased. The mean yield of rice increased as farm size increased. Average costs on variable resources constituted about 59% of the total cost of production. The Average Return on Investment (AROI) was estimated at 9.84 while the Rate of Return on Investment (RORI) was 884 per cent, thus suggesting that ofada rice production in the study area is quite profitable. AROI and RORI were higher on sole-cropped rice farms than on rice farms inter-cropped with maize. An average of 66%, 47% and 36% of farmers were technically, allocatively and economically efficient, respectively, in the study area. In other words, a significant allocative and economic inefficiencies exist in ofada rice production in the study area (p ≤ 0.05 ). This suggests considerable room for productivity gains for the farms through better use of available resources, given the state of technology. The inefficient small scale farmers (about 79 percent) still dominate in the production of food for the teeming population. Significant structural changes must be made in the process of modernization & getting agriculture moving. To carry out successfully such structural changes major policy variables are needed to formalize & tinker with current laissez faire operations. From the foregoing, there is need for the various governments to gradually de-emphasize the fact that the inefficient small farmers should be the center piece of food production in the state and in Nigeria in general. Adequate land should be made available to farmers, majority of who do not own the farmland. They should be encouraged and empowered by enhancing their status on land being cultivated; this could be by contractual arrangement whereby government, rather than individual land owners provide the land.

A highly variability and unpredictable climate has always being experienced in the Upper East Region
of Ghana where the is occurrence of droughts and floods which often occur in the same area within
months and poses a threat to food productivity where production is mainly rain fed and decreased yield
due to loss of lands and creates uncertainty about what and when to plant, people at risk from hunger,
decreased fish stock due to increasing temperatures and fall of net revenues from crops. This study
was carried out to examine the determinants of household food security and climate change impact on
agriculture in the Talensi Nabdam District of Upper East Region of Ghana. Data was collected from
sample households by administering questionnaire. Random sampling was used in selecting seven
communities in Talensi Nabdam District in Upper East Region of Ghana. They communities include;
Belungu, Kongo, Damolgo, Zalerigu, Dagliga, Nangodi, and Damolgo. About 88% of the respondence
was male and 12% represented females. Majority of the respondence about 46% falls within age range
of 31-40. From the study, about 43% of the household were food secured and 57% of the household
were food insecure. Farmer based organization, household size; extension contact and labor with the
exception of credit, married, age and male had significant impact on household food security in the
study area.

Fishing is an old occupation in Pakistan, but despite its diversity, a relatively rare one—fisheries in all their forms directly employ fewer than 400,000 of the country’s 190 million people and generate only 0.4 percent of its gross domestic product. Size is small in part because fishers often employ outdated methods and equipment, resulting in low value added, poor sanitation, depletion of stocks, and damage to the
ocean and coastal environment. Investment in aquaculture—“fish farms”—is low. Underlying these problems is haphazard management and outdated laws that hold back the country’s fisheries sector.  This summary report outlines a strategy for Pakistan to revitalize, expand, and modernize its fisheries to make them powerful drivers of economic prosperity.

The random nature of soil loss under alternative land-use practices should be an important consideration of soil conservation planning and analysis under risk. Chance constrained programming models can provide information on the trade-offs among pre-deterrnined tolerance levels of soil loss, probability levels of satisfying the tolerance levels, and economic profits or losses resulting from soil conservation to soil conservation policy

One of the most debilitating problems of research and policy in Agricultural Extension in developing countries like Nigeria is the rate at which available research results are lost. There is a lag of 50 years between discovery of innovations and their effective utilization in the field. The above scenario implicates weak research farmer linkage and exposes inefficient extension service which prevailed in pre and post independent Nigeria before the establishment of a state wide Agricultural development Project (ADPs) in 1986. An active and virile sustainable ADPs anchored on the Research-Extension farmer-input linkage system (REFILS) is a vibrant and veritable extension instrument for effective technology transfer by linking research to policy and development in Nigeria. The characteristics of an efficient and effective agricultural services examined includes ; use of subject matter specialists, motivation of staff, cost effective extension approaches, defined targets or clientele, flexibility and an efficient internal monitoring and evaluation component. Despite identified constraints and the prevailing economic realities, the ADPs REFILS approach has proved an integrated development model in linking research to policy and development in Nigerian agribusiness. This paper examined the REFILS techniques and the strategies that worked for their effectiveness such as the research component, the NGOs input linkage and technology transfer in agricultural business among others.

In international trade involving agricultural products, attempts to safeguard the health of humans, animals, and plants, have led to the imposition of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards. Due to the fact that groundnuts are susceptible to aflatoxin contamination, stringent aflatoxin standards have been imposed on groundnut trade by many developed countries. For Senegal and other groundnut exporters in the developing world, these aflatoxin standards pose a major challenge. As a result, in Senegal's confectionery groundnut sector, CIRAD (a French scientific organization) has commenced research aimed at developing an aflatoxin-reducing program. This study evaluates the potential economic impact of CIRAD's aflatoxin-reducing program.

Plant and animal diseases are a common perennial hazard to agricultural producers, and in recent years, wind-borne diseases have posed serious threats to major U.S. crops. For example, citrus canker in the Florida citrus industry led to signifi cant crop and economic losses (Goodwin and Piggott 2009), karnal bunt caused substantial yield losses in the southwestern United States (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service 2010), and soybean rust has become an annual threat in major U.S. soybean production regions (Bekkerman, Goodwin, and Piggott 2008). Consequently, signifi cant efforts have been made to study the economic risks and impacts associated with wind-borne diseases, which have been found to be diffi cult to detect, to spread rapidly, and to lead to substantial production losses. For example, see Livingston et al.

Pakistan Institute of Development Economics
(PIDE) conducts research on a variety of issues ranging
from economic growth to macroeconomics, and from
poverty to demography. Whereas our research has
generated a number of messages, these remain confined to
research reports and journal archives that are accessible
only to the specialised research and academic communities.
More often than not, the messages tend to get obscured in
technical rigour that is inherent to any scientific inquiry.
This manuscript brings together and presents key messages
emanating from PIDE research on contemporary economic
issues in a concise, reader-friendly form. The objective of
this endeavour is to sensitise all sections of the civil society
to research outcomes with a view to stimulating further
discussion and debate on important development issues.
The research work is organised into eight themes, including
economic growth and development, macroeconomics, trade
and industry, labour economics, poverty issues, agricultural
economics, social and demographic issues, and governance.
A summary of key messages precedes the presentation of
the research sections of our focus here. We are thankful to
Ms. Saima Bashir, Staff Demographer, for her help in the
preparation of this document.

We measured the preferences for Artificial Insemination (AI) for the stocking of Sahiwal cattle by Maasai pastoralists. Multistage sampling was employed in collecting cross-sectional data of 384 respondents using structured questionnaires. An ordered probit regression model was adapted and data analysed using stata. We found group membership, access to extension, AI awareness, production system, county of residence, years of education, household size and herd size to have a positive significant effect while experience and age had a negative significant effect on the perception of farmers towards AI preference. Moreover, pastoralists' perceptions towards AI uptake were influenced by its affordability, accessibility, success rate and its calf tolerance in arid and semi-arid environment. To ease demand for Sahiwal bulls from National Sahiwal Stud, we recommend extensive farmer education through existing agricultural extension networks to positively influence farmer perceptions towards AI technology for its rapid uptake.

An understanding of the empirical relationship between income and environmental quality is evolving through recent studies investigating the Errvirmrmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). The EKC represents an inverted-U relationship between income and environmental degradation. ...

The agricultural sector of Oman represents less than 2% of the total GDP and uses 88% of the fresh water. Several decision makers are questioning whether the agricultural activity in the Sultanate of Oman can be sustained and if so what type of crops should be encouraged. More than 53% of the agricultural cropped area is situated in the Batinah coastal area where farming is exclusively based on groundwater pumping. A sample of 49 market-oriented farms from the Batinah region was surveyed during 2006. Four types of farms were considered. Results showed that the most profitable farms are mixing fodder crops and vegetables with a net margin of 1,412 RO/ha/year. The less profitable farms are based on tree crops and vegetables with a net margin of 847 RO/ha/year. For vegetables the most profitable crop is tomato with an average net margin of 2,580 RO/ha/year with a standard deviation of 2,043 RO/ha/year and the least profitable crop is cabbage with 113 RO/ha/ year with a standard deviation of 182 RO/ha/year. The net margin of crops grown under drip irrigation is higher than that for crops under furrow irrigation, with a difference of 548 RO/ha/year. Farms equipped with such modern irrigation systems tend to irrigate almost the same area in winter as in summer, while farms under furrow irrigation crop less than one percent of their cropped area during summer compared to winter. Consequently and contrary to expectations, modern irrigation systems tend to increase, rather than reduce, groundwater pumping given the financial incentives for farmers to grow summer vegetables instead of only winter vegetables. Even so, the net water use efficiency is greater for vegetable production under drip irrigation

Nearly all applied research on arts activity has examined phenomena in metropolitan areas. Findings from this past research confirm an arts specialization in a limited number of cities. This paper finds a similar pattern in nonmetropolitan areas, where a limited number of counties maintain or develop a distinct specialization in the arts. We document the emergence of these “rural artistic havens” and identify county characteristics associated with the attraction of performing, fine, and applied artists. The implications of these findings for rural development strategies focusing on the arts are discussed.

Policy makers often face the problem of evaluating how water quality affects a region's economic well-being. Using water clarity as a measure of the degree of eutrophication levels (as a lake becomes inundated with nutrients, water clarity decreases markedly), analysis is performed on sales data collected over a six-year period. Our results indicate that water clarity has a significant effect on prices paid for residential properties. Effects of a one-meter change in clarity on property value are also estimated for an average lake in four real estate market areas in New Hampshire, with effects differing substantially by area. Our findings provide state and local policy makers a measure of the cost of water quality degradation as measured by changes in water clarity, and demonstrate that protecting water quality may have a positive effect on property tax revenues.

This paper assesses the roles of various factors influencing the volatility of crude oil prices and the possible linkage between this volatility and agricultural commodity markets. Stochastic volatility models are applied to weekly crude oil, corn, and wheat futures prices from November 1998 to January 2009. Model parameters are estimated using Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The main results are as follows. Speculation, scalping, and petroleum inventories are found to be important in explaining oil price variation. Several properties of crude oil price dynamics are established, including mean-reversion, a negative correlation between price and volatility, volatility clustering, and infrequent compound jumps. We find evidence of volatility spillover among crude oil, corn, and wheat markets after the fall of 2006. This could be largely explained by tightened interdependence between these markets induced by ethanol production.

Land/grant colleges were established to serve the public via a tripartite system of teaching, research, and extension. Agricultural economists have played a key role in this system in meeting agriculture's needs and are expanding this role to better cover the areas of food, natural resources, and the environment. The declining economic importance of agriculture and the growing interest in relegating agriculture to free market forces has resulted in declining formula funding for the land grant system, greater emphasis on competitive funding, demands for greater accountability, and demands for a return to greater focus on public service, problem solving, and stakeholder involvement in the definition of research, teaching, and outreach agenda. Simultaneously, the demand for the traditional “agricultural economics” graduate is declining. This paper reviews the current and long-term issues and trends facing agricultural economics departments, explores the futures of their teaching, r...

The main objective of this research is to compare estimates of technical efficiency obtained from the stochastic frontier approach for two samples of farmers of private and water user associations in the Nefzaoua Oases region (Tunisia), which are characterized by a severe scarcity of water and especially a high degree of salinity. Technical inefficiency effects are modeled as a function of farm-specific socioeconomic factors. Results suggest that both systems are technically inefficient. On average, the private system is found to be slightly more efficient than the associative one. Date yield could be explained mainly by four variables: water quantity applied per palm tree, labor per palm tree, phosphate per palm tree, and water salinity. Output elasticities of all inputs are found to be positive and significant except for the farmyard manure. Water salinity has a considerable negative impact on date productivity. For the technical inefficiency model, none of the socioeconomic variables seem to matter.

A choice experiment was used to determine consumer value for verification of livestock production process attributes. Willingness to pay for verification of production process attributes varied for both milk and pork chops across attributes and verifying entity. Statistically significant evidence of social desirability bias was found by comparing estimates of consumer preferences solicited using direct and indirect questioning. Indirect questioning may yield more accurate representations of consumer value than direct questioning, and therefore more accurate estimates for agribusiness decision making.

This study examines consumer's willingness to consume different types of a nutritionally enhanced food product (i.e., breakfast cereal with calcium, omega fatty acids, or anti-oxidants) derived from grains genetically modified using two types of technologies: plant-to-plant gene transfer technology and animal-to plant gene transfer technology. Findings indicate a majority of the respondents are willing or somewhat willing to consume the

In Japan, a large U.S. export market, there has been growing public opposition against genetically modified (GM) foods. Using a dichotomous choice contingent valuation method, findings show the discount needed for Japanese Seikyou consumers to purchase GM food products is positively affected (i.e., a greater discount is required) by higher levels of self-reported risk perceptions toward GM food, higher levels of concern about food safety and the environment, higher self-reported knowledge about biotechnology, education levels, and income. Interestingly, gender does not significantly affect the discount needed for GM food. Further, it can be inferred from the results that a transformation of Japanese consumers' perceptions and attitudes is needed for GM food products to successfully enter the Japanese market.

Sustainable development is more often considered by media, public opinion, and politicians to be the main goal our society should attempt to pursue in the coming years. To this aim, academic researchers have made sustainability one of the main objects of their studies. This work focuses on environmental sustainability and presents a brief overview of how it is taken into consideration in the agricultural economics field by considering this topic from different perspectives and thus highlighting how this field is gradually broadening its scope to include sustainable development objectives. Our analysis shows that the path towards sustainable development is strongly correlated to the protection of the environment. Therefore, agricultural policies aimed at protecting and preserving the environment, and, more in general, innovation along the agri-food chain, together with consumer attention towards environmental issues, can play an important role in achieving this objective.

Modern-day environmental policies or programs, such as watershed ecosystem restoration, are designed to improve multiple ecosystem services and consist of multiple components or parts. The valuation of such policies or programs should address the multi-dimensionality of the problem. A hybrid of the contingent valuation method (CVM) and attribute-based analysis (Holmes and Adamowicz 2003) is often used. Several related policy options are included in the survey, which

We focus on rice policy reform required for Taiwan's admission to the WTO, and examine the effects, theoretically and empirically, of the re-instrumentation of domestic policy needed to achieve environmental objectives when both positive and negative environmental externalities exist. Policies that treat non-commodity attributes in agriculture as secondary to existing aims, such as income support, are unlikely to result in

U.S. soybean producers have been cooperatively investing in both production research and demand promotion for nearly four decades to enhance the profitability and international competitiveness of their industry. Have producers benefitted from their contributions to soybean checkoff program activities over the years? How has the return to investments in soybean production research compared to that of soybean demand promotion investments?

We estimated the economic benefits resulting from controlling soybean aphid infestation by using a multi-regional competitive dynamic equilibrium model. Results indicate that the reduction of soybean production resulting from a soybean aphid infestation is largely absorbed by reducing soybean exports, due to the higher price elasticity of export demand compared to domestic demand. Producer benefits resulting from controlling soybean aphids would increase by between $949 million and $1.623 billion in ten years under various scenarios. Results also suggest that it is economically more efficient to control soybean aphids when the rate of intrinsic growth is relatively lower, the supply price elasticity of soybean acreage is relatively more elastic, and insecticide treatment costs per acre are lower. However, if the discovery of the gene Rag-1 (TF04048) leads to new cultivars that withstand the soybean aphid, our estimates will overestimate the actual damages. Even so, our analysis demo...

Introduction Moving beyond "business as usual": Gender integration in agricultural development Understandings of gender in development Gender-transformative approaches in AAS Change mechanisms: Critical reflection and more Learning by doing: Insights from Bangladesh and Zambia on operationalizing gendertransformative approaches Southern Bangladesh Polder Zone Emergent gendered outcomes of the participatory action research and farmer field school approach Amplifying emergent outcomes: Systematic gender-transformative approach design

The paper, aims to address the economic institutions, and economic development, in Aboriginal i community in Benishangul, by reviewing different economic theory and emerging field of economic institution and other empirical case studies in order to point out little of economic disadvantageous of Aboriginal community in the region. Aboriginal community in Benishangul have occupied a huge and large resources land, Aboriginal account large of population from total population of the region, but within all of the above opportunities basic developments fall under a great questions. Economic development is seen as the best way for Aboriginal communities to improve their welfare and lessen the considerable disadvantages they suffer. Unfortunately, the economics profession has shown little interest in their plight. Agricultural and resource economists have much to offer in helping to foster economic development in Aboriginal communities throughout Benishangul. Suggestions are made as to various ways in which our particular interests and experiences can hopefully be applied.

Real livestock prices and farm-wholesale marketing margins have steadily declined over the past 20 years. Studies examining the causes of these declines have generally failed to account directly for technological change in livestock production and red meat slaughtering. We estimate reduced-form models for beef and pork farm-wholesale marketing margins and cattle and hog prices that include specific measures of technological

The extent to which individual factors influence the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices is estimated using a Iogit model and data from a 1990 survey of West Virginia producers. The results are, as expected, different than those for conventional agricultural technologies. For example, the effects of human capital characteristics are significant, while those for structural and institutional characteristics ace not. However, the likelihood of adoption of sustainable agricultural practices is affected most by the environmental characteristic of whether or not the producer is aware that ground water contamination exists on his farm. This creates an important "awareness effect" upon which policies to promote sustainable agriculture adoption can be formulated. It also implies the existence of a derived demand for sustainable agriculture.

A choice experiment was used to examine the value of various fluid milk attributes. Respondents were surveyed regarding half or whole gallon milk purchases. A split-sample design was used to examine consumer inferences regarding food safety. Willingness to pay for verification of production process attributes varied across attributes and verifying entity. Consumers were generally willing to pay substantial premiums for milk produced without the use of rbST, on local family farms, with assured food safety enhancement, and for these claims to be verified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Review coordinated by Gary Brester. 1 We use the term "rbST-free" to indicate that the milk was produced without rbST hormone supplementation. We recognize that the milk still has a standard bovine somatotropin content, but our use is consistent with marketing practices and a general level of knowledge.

Lifestyle landowners value land for its amenities and ecological characteristics and could play an important role in managing and conserving native vegetation in multifunctional rural landscapes. We quantify values of ecosystem services captured by owners of rural lifestyle properties in Victoria, Australia, using a spatial hedonic property price model. The value of ecosystem services provided by native vegetation is maximized when that vegetation occupies about 40 percent of the area of a lifestyle property. Since the current median proportion of native vegetation is 15 percent, most lifestyle landowners could benefit from increasing the area of native vegetation on their properties.

Using a unique spatial database, a hedonic model is developed to estimate the value to nearby residents of open space purchased through agricultural preservation programs in three Maryland counties. After correcting for endogeneity and spatial autocorrelation, the estimated coefficients are used to calculate the potential changes in housing values for a given change in neighborhood open space following an agricultural easement purchase. Then, using the current residential property tax for each parcel, the expected increase in county tax revenue is computed and this revenue is compared to the cost of preserving the lands.