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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2014‒10‒22
27 papers chosen by |
| By: | Gerlt, Scott; Westhoff, Patrick |
| Keywords: | Farm Policy, Crop Insurance, Agricultural and Food Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, Q180, |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaeacj:184289&r=agr |
| By: | Davis, Todd D.; Anderson, John A.; Young, Robert E. III |
| Abstract: | A stochastic simulation model is used to determine crop insurance premiums and farm program payments for a Illinois corn-soybean and Mississippi corn-soybean-rice-cotton farm. The optimal portfolio of crop insurance and farm programs are determined subject to payment limitations and crop insurance subsidy constraints. |
| Keywords: | farm management, risk management, farm policy, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaeacj:184244&r=agr |
| By: | Benoit Daviron; Mathilde Douillet |
| Abstract: | The production, exchanges and prices of food products are strongly influenced by the agricultural and trade policies of the world's largest countries. These policies are one of the major drivers of global food security. This paper will provide an overview of the key agricultural and trade policies of the major players – i.e. countries - in the global food system. A separate, detailed overview of farm policies in Brazil, China and the US is included. |
| JEL: | F13 Q17 Q18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fsc:fspubl:12&r=agr |
| By: | Lippoldt, Douglas |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iats13:182509&r=agr |
| By: | Katchova, Ani L.; Ahearn, Mary Clare |
| Abstract: | This study considers the issue of the transition of new farmers into U.S. agriculture, by examining land ownership and leasing trends. Our approach is to characterize the entire distribution by farmer age and farmer experience rather than using young versus old and beginning versus established farmer categories. We also use a linked-farms longitudinal approach instead of a repeated cross-sectional approach to show trends over time in farmland expansion and contraction. Differences in farm size are more pronounced based on farmer experience than farmer age, as farms operated by older beginning farmers tend to be smaller and do not tend to grow over time. We find that it is mostly young farmers as opposed to all beginning farmers that rapidly expand their farm operations after entering agriculture. Our findings inform policy makers about the strategies that young and beginning farmers use to start their businesses and expand over time and suggest more effective approaches for targeting loan programs to young and beginning farmers. |
| Keywords: | farmland ownership, farmland leasing, beginning farmers, young farmers, Agricultural Finance, Land Economics/Use, Q12, Q15, Q18, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ukysps:184725&r=agr |
| By: | Kuethe, Todd H.; Briggeman, Brian C.; Paulson, Nicholas D.; Katchova, Ani L. |
| Abstract: | This study compares the characteristics of farms who participate in farm management associations to the wider population of farms at the state level. Farm-level records obtained from the USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) are compared to similar data obtained from farm management associations in three states: Illinois, Kansas, and Kentucky. Data collected through farm management associations tend to represent larger farms and a greater share of crop producers as compared to livestock producers. Association data, however, capture a greater share of younger farm operators. This is the first study to compare farm statistics from several farm management associations to ARMS, and the study confirms the findings of existing studies of prior USDA surveys. |
| Keywords: | Farm Management, Agricultural Finance, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management, Q14, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ukysps:184680&r=agr |
| By: | Barry Desker (S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS)); Mely Caballero-Anthony (S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS)); Paul Teng (National Institute of Education (NIE)) |
| Abstract: | This Policy Brief is based on the Issues Paper on ASEAN Food Security: Towards a More Comprehensive Framework. The key message is that food security is a priority agenda for the AEC, and the issues to be addressed are: (1) current impediments to agricultural trade and food production; (2) standardisation mechanisms and regulatory frameworks; (3) disjunctions between regional arrangements and domestic policies; (4) public-private partnerships; and (5) crucial indicators for food security robustness. |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:era:wpaper:pb-2014-03&r=agr |
| By: | Newton, John; Bozic, Marin; Wolf, Chris; Thraen, Cameron S. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaeacj:186633&r=agr |
| By: | Oloya, J.J.; Poleman, T.T. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Development, |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:cudasp:185836&r=agr |
| By: | Meade, Birgit; Regmi, Anita; Seale, James L. Jr.; Muhammad, Andrew |
| Keywords: | Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uerstb:184297&r=agr |
| By: | Goytom Abraha Kahsay (Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen); Lars Gårn Hansen (Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the production function for agricultural output in Eastern Africa incorporating climate variables disaggregated into growing and non-growing seasons. We find a substantial negative effect of within growing season variance of precipitation. We simulate predicted climate change for the region and find a resulting output reduction of between 1.2% and 4.5%. We also find substantial potential for mitigating the effects of within growing season precipitation variability through conventional technologies such as flexible planting and rainwater harvesting that substantially exceeds the potential loss from predicted climate change. |
| Keywords: | Climate change, adaptation policy, Eastern Africa, agricultural production |
| JEL: | Q18 Q54 O55 E23 O13 R11 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:foi:wpaper:2014_08&r=agr |
| By: | Cont, Walter; Porto, Guido |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the impact of a change in the price of cashew received by exporters in general -- and by FUNPI, a fund to promote the industrialization of agricultural products, in particular -- on farmgate prices and poverty in Guinea-Bissau. The analysis builds a theoretical model of supply chains in export agriculture that includes exporters, traders, and farmers competing in a bilateral oligopoly fashion. The model is adapted to data from the country's cashew sector and a household survey. Given the market structure, a shock on export prices or the introduction of an export tax, such as the FUNPI contribution, has a strong effect on farmgate prices, as farmers absorb about 80 percent of the tax (while exporters take up 13 percent and traders absorb the remaining 7 percent). The effect is uneven across households, as poor rural households are more exposed to price volatility and most cashew farmers are poor. It is estimated that their income falls by 12 percent as a result of the FUNPI contribution. Complementary policies can overcome the effect of the FUNPI surcharge on farmgate prices by aiming for reductions in transport, infrastructure, and transaction costs for traders and exporters. Fostering cashew processing would create added value through a displacement of volume from exporters to processors. The analysis finds it implausible that, under reasonable assumtions, a subsidy would overturn the welfare costs of the FUNPI contribution. |
| Keywords: | Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research,Debt Markets,Emerging Markets,Access to Markets |
| Date: | 2014–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7036&r=agr |
| By: | M. Huchet Bourdon; C. Laroche Dupraz |
| Abstract: | This paper does not set out to redefine and re-explain the food security concept, but to look into the links between food security and international trade. First, we propose a conceptual framework to sum up the relationships between food security, international trade and public policies. Second, we check whether the widely used food security indicators are really suited to monitoring the impacts of government interventions and external trade shocks on the food security level. We use the Bonilla Index as our food security indicator throughout this analysis of the impact of national policies on food security. |
| JEL: | F13 Q18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fsc:fspubl:17&r=agr |
| By: | Martha Prevezer |
| Abstract: | I am using the North Wallis Weingast (2009) framework to analyse the nature of the basic Limited Access Order (LAO) in Tanzania. Looking at Tanzania historically in terms of the creation of state capacity, I use Levy’s (2013) categorisations to place Tanzania in weighing up centralized state capacity vs strength of checks and balances and state dominance vs competitive clientelism models and identifying who the dominant elites have been, particularly since independence in 1961. Tanzania has strong state capacity compared with Zambia and various other Low Income countries but relatively weaker checks and balances to constrain state power; Tanzania fits better with a state dominance model than a competitive clientelism model in relation to dominant elites and nature of institutions. I combine this with an analysis of the history of property rights in Tanzania and following Boone (2007) outline the tensions between three types of property rights: communal, customary rights vs private individualized rights vs state user rights. Despite considerable debate within Tanzania (the Shivji Commission and other bodies), state user rights have won out over both customary and to a lesser extent private rights. I outline how the dominance of state user rights over property combined with strong centralized state capacity via its bureaucracy and patronage over jobs has underpinned Tanzania’s development path, in line with Bates (1982,2014) analysis for many SSAs. In the 1960s and 1970s this path was to redistribute resources away from small farmer agriculture towards a monopolistic nascent industrial sector in a push to develop industry, absorbing surpluses from agriculture in exportable crops (eg coffee, sisal) via state-controlled structures such as Marketing Boards. Other supports such as extension officers, inputs, training shaped which farmers were supported and controlled prices paid to farmers to subsidize urban wage goods and control urban unrest. Since liberalization in the 1990s constraints on agriculture have been loosened, but in practice the power of District Commissioners and Marketing Boards remain in force. Land, backed by state user rights, is redistributed for the purposes of urban and rural/industrial enterprise away from smallholder farming and away from communal rights. More recent enterprise development has been in agribusiness, manufacturing and construction, diversified across industries but concentrated in relatively few firms. (Sutton 2012). There is a tension between the combined forces of strong centralized state capacity, weaker checks on the state plus property rights that give the state ultimate power to determine land use, and the fostering of bottom-up agricultural enterprise, either through cooperatives or through individual private enterprise. Liberalization has favoured private industrial enterprise, although difficulties over clarity of land rights, availability of land and administrative issues over transferring land continue to be obstacles. |
| Keywords: | Institutions, Property rights, low-income countries, Tanzania, development |
| JEL: | P00 O1 O5 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgs:wpaper:54&r=agr |
| By: | Timothée Demont (CERDI, University of Auvergne) |
| Abstract: | In developing countries, most poor households experience extremely variable in-come because of a large exposure to climatic, economic and policy shocks, combined with a lack of appropriate insurance devices. Extreme weather events, in particular, are projected to become more frequent in a warming climate, leaving rainfed agriculture and large populations in developing countries at risk. In this context, reliable access to finance in general and credit in particular can potentially bring welfare-improving opportunities to smooth household consumption. This paper documents the extent and the nature of the reactions to rainfall shocks that can be attributed to the participation to informal savings and credit groups in villages of Northern India. I exploit first-hand panel data measuring the living standards of member and control households, coupled with meteorological data at the district-level. I find that agricultural production and income are very dependent on the monsoon quality. Interestingly, while the access to credit collapses for control households after a bad monsoon, Self-Help Groups (SHGs) appear to be robust credit sources that offer to member households the possibility to increase borrowing in order to cope with shocks, even when those are largely covariate within the village. This in turn implies a higher degree of food security over the year and a lower need for temporary migration following a large negative shock. Finally, I review some noteworthy features that allow SHGs to withstand covariate shocks, though potentially at a cost in terms of longer-term insurance. |
| Keywords: | Microfinance, climate shocks, income smoothing, risk-coping strategies |
| JEL: | O13 O15 G21 Q54 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nam:wpaper:1410&r=agr |
| By: | World Bank |
| Keywords: | Agriculture - Agricultural Research Public Sector Expenditure Policy Economic Theory and Research Rural Development Knowledge and Information Systems Finance and Financial Sector Development - Debt Markets Macroeconomics and Economic Growth Public Sector Development Rural Development |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:20122&r=agr |
| By: | Hart, Jarret |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iats13:182500&r=agr |
| By: | Brink, Lars |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries, Production Economics, |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iats13:182481&r=agr |
| By: | Branscum, D. Ethan; Nalley, Lawton L.; Dixon, Bruce L.; Siebenmorgen, Terry J.; Tack, Jesse; Danforth, Diana M. |
| Abstract: | Rice production is distinguished from most other field crops by distinct differences in yields across cultivars and producers being paid on production as a result of post-harvest milling into head rice and brokens. In the ten years of Arkansas harvest data from performance trials in six different locations, hybrids are shown the have 19 percent higher paddy yields and head rice yield rates 1.8 percentage points lower than conventional varieties. In crop insurance yield protection and revenue protection policies, no distinctions in premiums are made on the basis of variety. Adjustments for adverse milling outcomes are made only in the most extreme cases. Using a three-equation, econometric model to predict paddy yields, milled rice yields and head rice yields, the relative returns to yield protection and revenue protection crop insurance are estimated. Additionally, a policy that is more sensitive to milling deficiencies is explored. Results indicate some advantage for hybrids compared with conventional cultivars as a ratio of indemnities to premiums. A revenue protection policy that would cover adverse milling outcomes would lessen risk marginally. |
| Keywords: | Rice, crop insurance, milling yields, cultivar differences, Arkansas, Crop Production/Industries, Production Economics, Q18, Q12, |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaeacj:184247&r=agr |
| By: | Zhen Liu (Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | By overcoming the barriers that limit access to financial liquidity and human resource, the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) can promote rural livelihood diversification. This paper examines this effect using a household survey data set spanning the 1999 implementation of the Sloping land conversion program. Our results show that SLCP works as a valid external policy intervention on rural livelihood diversification. In addition, the findings demonstrate that there exist heterogeneous effects of SLCP implementation on livelihood diversification across different rural income groups. The lower income group was more affected by the program in terms of income diversification. |
| Keywords: | Sloping Land Conversion Program; China; Livelihood diversification; Income diversity index; Identification condition; Difference in differences |
| JEL: | Q12 Q15 Q58 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:foi:wpaper:2014_07&r=agr |
| By: | World Bank |
| Keywords: | Finance and Financial Sector Development - Access to Finance Environmental Economics and Policies Rural Development Knowledge and Information Systems Finance and Financial Sector Development - Debt Markets Public Sector Expenditure Policy Public Sector Development Rural Development Environment |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:20121&r=agr |
| By: | Luca Lambertini (Department of Economics, University of Bologna); Giuseppe Pignataro (La Trobe University, Victoria Australia); Alessandro Tampieri (CREA, Université de Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyse a setup where consumers are heterogeneous in the perception of environmental quality. The equilibrium is verified in a setting with horizontal and vertical (green) differentiation. Profits are increasing in the misper- ception of quality, while, the investment in green quality decreases the more the goods are substitutes. We further consider the introduction of either an emission tax or an environmental standard. The former rises the investment in environmen- tal quality due to the higher cost of production, whereas in equilibrium quality always improves after the introduction of the latter. We show that an optimal environmental standard is an effective regulatory instrument against greenwashing and that the efficacy of the interventions is conditioned to the damage distribution and the aggregate level of emission. |
| Keywords: | Green quality; Misperception; Pigouvian taxation; Environmental; Standard. |
| JEL: | L13 L51 Q50 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luc:wpaper:14-21&r=agr |
| By: | Paul Alagidede and George Adu |
| Abstract: | Climate change has been classed as the greatest and urgent global issue facing humanity today, yet the empirics of the debate remain largely muted, more so with reference to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where the impact of warming global temperatures are forecasted to have the worst impact. This paper is a contribution to the empirics of climate change and its effect on sustainable economic growth in SSA using nonparametric regression techniques. We establish the following: the relationship between real GDP per capita on one hand and climate change on the other hand, is intrinsically linear and monotonically decreasing at a constant proportionate rate. This relationship holds for both temperature and precipitation. |
| Keywords: | climate change, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sustainable Growth, Nonparametric techniques |
| JEL: | C14 C23 O11 O13 O40 Q54 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:460&r=agr |
| By: | Ebenstein, Avraham |
| Keywords: | Industrial Organization, Production Economics, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iats13:182503&r=agr |
| By: | How, R. Brian |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries, |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:cudasp:185945&r=agr |
| By: | Burfisher, Mary; Dyck, John; Meade, Birgit; Mitchell, Lorraine; Wainio, John; Zahniser, Steven; Arita, Shawn; Beckman, Jayson |
| Keywords: | International Relations/Trade, Production Economics, |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iats13:182480&r=agr |
| By: | Randall Jackson (Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University) |
| Abstract: | There is an increasing demand for models that address both environment and economy, and that also estimate or forecast the impacts of introducing new and markedly different technologies from those already existing in the systems under study. Because most conventional models are calibrated to recent data characterizing current economic structure and conditions, their standard turn-key operation will need to be replaced by more comprehensive algorithms and procedures designed to explicitly accommodate shifts in technology and economic structure. This paper lays out one viable alternative for integrating environmental and economic modeling frameworks, and focuses specifically on one of the major challenges to this kind of modeling, that of dovetailing life cycle assessment and input-output modeling frameworks. (Acknowledgements: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1235684 and USDA NIFA Award 2012-67009-19660.) |
| Keywords: | environement, environmental modeling, life cycle assessment |
| JEL: | Q55 |
| Date: | 2014–02–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rri:wpaper:2014wp01&r=agr |