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NEP: New Economics Papers
Agricultural Economics
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Edited by: Angelo Zago
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pza49.html
Universita degli Studi di Verona
Date: 2006-12-01
Papers: 18
This document is in the public domain, feel free to circulate it.
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In this issue we have:
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1. Corporate Farming in India: Is it must for Agricultural
Development?
Singh Sukhpal
2. The Hong Kong Declaration and Agriculture: Implications for
Bangladesh
Uttam Kumar Deb; Narayan Chandra Das
3. The optimal carbon sequestration in agricultural soils : does
the dynamics of the physical process matter ?
Lionel Ragot; Katheline Schubert
4. Understanding Zambia?s Domestic Value Chains for Fresh
Fruits and Vegetables
Munguzwe Hichaambwa; David Tschirley
5. The Many Paths of Cotton Sector Reform in Eastern and
Southern Africa: Lessons from a Decade of Experience.
David Tschirley; Colin Poulton; Duncan Boughton
6. Improving Production and Marketing to Enhance Food Security
in Mozambique
David Tschirley; Danilo Abdula; Michael T. Weber
7. The Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of the Budget Cost
of the Czech Supporting and Guarantee Agricultural and
Forestry Fund
Karel Janda
8. The effects of Fair Trade on Marginalised producers: an
Impact Analysis Farmers
BECCHETTI LEONARDO; COSTANTINO MARCO
9. Technological Backwardness in Agriculture: Is It due to Lack
of R&D Expenditures, Human Capital and Openness to
International Trade?
Rodolfo Cerme?o; Sirenia V?rquez
10. Unfinished business: customary land individualization in
olilit village, tanimbar islands
Shantiko, Bayuni
11. The Quest for Productivity Growth in Agriculture and
Manufacturing
Mar?a Dolores Guill?; Fidel P?rez Sebasti?n
12. Price-Induced Technical Progress in Italian Agriculture
Roberto ESPOSTI; Pierpaolo PIERANI
13. The impact of globalisation and trade on the productivity
performance of the Irish food manufacturing sector
Carol Newman
14. Resource curse or not: A question of appropriability
Anne D. Boschini; Jan Pettersson; Jesper Roine
15. An Exercise on the Optimal Use of Groundwater Resources
CASTELLUCCI LAURA; D?AMATO ALESSIO
16. Micro-credit, risk coping and incidence of rural-to-urban
migration
Quamrul Ahsan
17. Spatial variations in climate and Bordeaux wine prices
S?bastien Lecocq; Michael Visser
18. The Allocation of Tradeable Emission Permits within Federal
Systems (or Economic Unions)
D?AMATO ALESSIO; VALENTINI EDILIO
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1. Corporate Farming in India: Is it must for Agricultural
Development?
Singh Sukhpal
Indian agriculture is under policy reforms for some time now.
One of the issues it faces is that of lack of viability of
smallholdings and lack of international competitiveness of its
produce. In this regard, new initiatives of reorganizaing the
production systems are being attempted in the form of contract
farming and corporate farming. At the state level, laws are being
amended to facilitate the practice of contract farming and
corporate farming. Where contract farming means working with
small growers most of the time and therefore, high costs for
agribusinesses, the alternative of corporate farming is being
seen to resolve this problem. For facilitating this, prime
agricultural land and wastelands are being allowed to be bought
or leased in by corporate agribusiness houses, the latter (
wastelands) being given away by the state on nominal lease. This
paper profiles cases of corporate farming practice and examines
the rationale for allowing corporate farming in India in the
context of its agriculture and rural sector. It points out that
the rationale is weak and not supported by international evidence
on corporate farming. It rather argues for other alternatives,
like consolidation of land holdings and contract farming, for
making better use of corporate resources for agricultural
development.
Keywords: corporate farming, India, wastelands, land ceilings,
consolidation, contract farming, agriculture
Date: 2006-11-27
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2006-11-06&r=agr
2. The Hong Kong Declaration and Agriculture: Implications for
Bangladesh
Uttam Kumar Deb
Narayan Chandra Das
This paper reviews the developments in WTO negotiation on
agriculture in the light of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration.
It has critically analysed the decisions and negotiating
proposals adopted through the Declaration. The paper has also
analysed possible impacts of the adopted decisions and proposals
for Bangladesh?s agriculture sector and its economy. Potential
impacts are measured in terms of reduction in tariff, domestic
support and export subsidy. More importantly, the paper has
quantified potential impacts of agricultural trade liberalisation
under Doha Round negotiations on prices and welfare gains,
production, consumption and trade of agricultural commodities in
Bangladesh. Based on the research findings, the paper has
suggested some negotiating strategies for Bangladesh to be
pursued in the on-going WTO negotiations on agriculture.
Keywords: Agriculture, WTO, Hong Kong Ministerial, Bangladesh
Date: 2006-05
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdb:opaper:60&r=agr
3. The optimal carbon sequestration in agricultural soils : does
the dynamics of the physical process matter ?
Lionel Ragot (CES - Centre d'?conomie de la Sorbonne -
[CNRS : UMR8174] - [Universit? Panth?on-Sorbonne - Paris
I], M?DEE - [Universit? de Lille 1])
Katheline Schubert (CES - Centre d'?conomie de la Sorbonne -
[CNRS : UMR8174] - [Universit? Panth?on-Sorbonne - Paris
I])
The Kyoto Protocol, which came in force in February 2005, allows
countries to resort to ?supplementary activities? consisting
particularly in carbon sequestration in agricultural soils.
Existing papers studying the optimal carbon sequestration
recognize the importance of the temporality of sequestration, but
overlook the fact that it is a dissymmetric dynamic process. This
paper takes explicitely into account the temporality of
sequestration. Its first contribution is technical : we solve an
optimal control problem with two stages and a dissymmetric
dynamic process. The second contribution is empirical : we show
that the error made when sequestration is supposed immediate can
be very significant, and we exhibit numerically the optimal path
of sequestration/de-sequestration for specific benefit, damage
and cost functions, and a calibration that mimics roughly the
world conditions.
Keywords: Environment, agriculture, carbon sequestration, Kyoto
Protocol, optimal control.
Date: 2006-11-22
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00115685_v1&r=agr
4. Understanding Zambia?s Domestic Value Chains for Fresh
Fruits and Vegetables
Munguzwe Hichaambwa (Department of Agricultural Economics,
Michigan State University)
David Tschirley
The proportion of smallholder households selling horticultural
produce is very low suggesting that new demand points could enjoy
substantial supply response if they link effectively to the
smallholder sector. The small-scale traditional marketing system
continues to dominate fresh produce flows in the country. Prices
for consumers in this system are much lower, and quality is
comparable and sometimes superior to supermarkets. Yet these
markets suffer from serious structural problems due to a lack of
public investment and little collaboration between public
officials and traders in market management. The Urban Markets
Development Program represents a major and impressive effort to
improve wholesale and retail markets in the country, but has run
into problems as legislative reform has stalled. In addition,
UMDP was not designed to address key issues of improved linkages
between rural farmers and urban markets. These need to be
addressed with improved market information and marketing
extension. Zambia?s horticultural sector operates in a regional
market, exporting and importing every year. Understanding and
quantifying this trade will be the first step in ensuring that
policies and programs are conducive to continued high rates of
growth. Major new supermarket outlets are in the market to stay,
and their effects on smallholder farmers and the traditional
marketing system need to be better understood. Where appropriate,
programs to facilitate direct marketing by smallholders to these
chains should be supported, but should not distract from an
overall focus on improving urban wholesale and retail markets and
linking these more effectively to farmers.
Keywords: food security, food policy, Zambia, horticulture
JEL: Q18
Date: 2006
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:msu:icpbrf:zm-fsrp-pb-017&r=agr
5. The Many Paths of Cotton Sector Reform in Eastern and
Southern Africa: Lessons from a Decade of Experience.
David Tschirley (Department of Agricultural Economics,
Michigan State University)
Colin Poulton
Duncan Boughton (Department of Agricultural Economics,
Michigan State University)
While African cotton sectors face common technical challenges,
the structure of the market for seed cotton strongly influences
which of these challenges are most difficult to meet and which
types of institutions need to emerge if the system is to be
sustainable. Institutional innovation is the key to improving
performance in cash crop sectors; large injections of public
capital are not needed. Direct state management of funds from
industry levies is problematical. Vesting regulatory and
coordination functions within multi-stakeholder bodies ? where
government is one actor among many -- may be the most promising
approach for many sectors. Regular ?deliberative fora? are
invaluable for building trust between stakeholders and seeking
innovative solutions to tackling sector-wide problems.
Keywords: food security, food policy, cotton sector reform
JEL: Q18
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:msu:polbrf:080&r=agr
6. Improving Production and Marketing to Enhance Food Security
in Mozambique
David Tschirley (Department of Agricultural Economics,
Michigan State University)
Danilo Abdula
Michael T. Weber
Food system challenges are examined from the standpoint of the
country?s principal staple food: maize. Steps are identified
that the country could take in the short-run to improve the
situation, and also emphasize the long-term challenges the
country faces. The focus is principally on the Center and South
of the country because, with South Africa, they form a natural
market area due to production patterns and transport costs; maize
north of the Zambezi River flows almost entirely to northern
cities or to Malawi, or feeds net buyers in the North.
Keywords: food security, food policy, Mozambique, maize
JEL: Q18
Date: 2005
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:msu:icpbrf:mz-minag-fl-45e&r=agr
7. The Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of the Budget Cost
of the Czech Supporting and Guarantee Agricultural and
Forestry Fund
Karel Janda (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of
Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)
(University of Economics, Department of Banking and
Insurance, Prague, Czech Republic)
The paper analyzes the government budget cost of credit
guarantees and subsidies. The analysis is done both in a general
qualitative manner and quantitatively for the case of Czech
Supporting and Guarantee Agricultural and Forestry Fund (SGAFF).
In the quantitative part of the paper we show that the portfolio
of the SGAFF has a sufficient value to cover expected costs of
credit guarantees and subsidies provided by the SGAFF. The
qualitative theoretical model is dealing with government
interventions designed to decrease the credit rationing of good
farmers. The theoretical model shows that with uniform non-
targeted supports the budget cost minimizing government
unambiguously prefers lump-sum guarantees to interest rate
subsidies. With supports targeted fully to disadvantaged farmers
the government is indifferent between lump-sum guarantees,
proportional guarantees and interest rates subsidies as far as
the government budget costs are concerned.
Keywords: Transition; Credit; Subsidies; Guarantees
JEL: D82 G28 P31
Date: 2005
Date: 2005
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp086&r=agr
8. The effects of Fair Trade on Marginalised producers: an
Impact Analysis Farmers
BECCHETTI LEONARDO
COSTANTINO MARCO
We analyse the impact of affiliation to Fair Trade (FT) on
monetary and non monetary measures of well-being in a sample of
Kenyan farmers. Our econometric findings document significant
differences in terms of price satisfaction, monthly household
food consumption, (self declared) income satisfaction, dietary
quality and child mortality for Fair Trade and Meru Herbs (first
level local producers organisation) affiliated with respect to a
control sample. Methodological problems such as the FT vis ? vis
Meru Herbs relative contribution, control sample bias and local
cooperative and fair trade selection biases are carefully
discussed and addressed. After reconstructing the dynamics of
human capital investment in the observed households we show that
affiliation to the younger vintage FT project is associated with
a significantly higher schooling investment.
Date: 2005-10
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceiswp:220&r=agr
9. Technological Backwardness in Agriculture: Is It due to Lack
of R&D Expenditures, Human Capital and Openness to
International Trade?
Rodolfo Cerme?o
Sirenia V?rquez
In this paper we investigate the relationship between the
agricultural technological level and R&D expenditures, human
capital and openness to international trade using cross country
information for a sample of 104 countries and various sub samples
over the period 1961-1991. We first model the unobservable
technological level as a dynamic stochastic process in the
context of a general translog production function, and then we
relate the implied technological levels to the aforementioned
variables. For comparison, alternative specifications of the
production and its associated technological process are also
considered. We find that the proposed model outperforms all of
the alternative specifications. The results suggest that the
technological gap between developed and less developed countries
in agriculture has increased considerably over this period of
time and that, overall, the technological levels are directly
related to R&D expenditures, human capital and openness, although
this relationship is not robust across the different groups of
countries considered.
Keywords: Agricultural production function, Agricultural
technology, Dynamic error components models, Non-linear
models, R&D expenditures, Human capital, Openness
Date: 2005-06
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:deg:conpap:c010_014&r=agr
10. Unfinished business: customary land individualization in
olilit village, tanimbar islands
Shantiko, Bayuni
This research discusses the transformation in customary tenure
toward commercialization and appropriation in Olilit village,
Tanimbar Islands. The study analyzes several factors leading to
the customary institutional change. It also looks at the roles of
actors shaping the changes and how the actor mostly the elites
usurp the benefit from the process. Since the process of
individualization has been a widespread trend and seems to be
inevitable in the future, the research suggests the community to
think carefully regarding their decision toward customary land.
Any decisions they made should be based on voluntary with
sufficient information at hand. This research also suggests the
community to invest themselves in order to deal with the
livelihood change after having no access to the land.
Keywords: customary land; commercialization; individualization;
rural development; urban development; land use
JEL: Q15
Date: 2006-12-20
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:918&r=agr
11. The Quest for Productivity Growth in Agriculture and
Manufacturing
Mar?a Dolores Guill?
Fidel P?rez Sebasti?n
We develop a theory to explain the transition from stagnation to
modern growth. We focus on the forces that shaped the evolution
of total factor productivity in agriculture and manufacturing
across history. More specifically, we build a multisector model
of endogenous technical-change and economic growth. We consider
an expanding-variety setup with rising labor specialization and
two different R&D technologies, one for agriculture and another
for manufacturing. As a consequence, total factor productivity in
the model can increase via two different channels. First,
population growth allows larger levels of specialization of land
and labor in the economy that bring efficiency gains. This type
of productivity improvement is capital saving, but can not
generate sustained growth. Technical change is also possible by
investing in R&D. Unlike specialization, new technologies
generated in this way are land and labor augmenting, and are the
key to modern growth. In the model, the economy has not
incentives to invest in R&D until a minimum knowledge base is
available to researchers. This is in line with ideas contained in
Mokyr (2005). To make possible the accumulation of this minimum
knowledge base, we assume that learning-by-doing is the implicit
underlying force that leads to specialization. However, land and
labor specialization is based on knowledge whose nature differs
in agriculture and in manufacturing. More specifically, whereas
this knowledge is farm-specific in agriculture, mainly concern
with the acquisition of uncodified information about local
conditions of soil and whether, specialization in manufacturing
is the result of general knowledge, mainly codified, that
contributes at a larger extent to the knowledge base.
Keywords: stagnation, modern growth, specialization, learning-by-
doing, R&D, Knowledge base
JEL: O13 O14 O41
Date: 2006-06
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:deg:conpap:c011_005&r=agr
12. Price-Induced Technical Progress in Italian Agriculture
Roberto ESPOSTI (Universita' Politecnica delle Marche,
Dipartimento di Economia)
Pierpaolo PIERANI ([n.a.])
In this paper we aim at investigating the price-induced
innovation hypothesis in Italian agriculture. We generalize the
framework of analysis proposed by Peeters and Surry (2000). The
generalization includes a short-run specification of the dual
technology as well as a quadratic spline in a time variable. We
argue that the temporary equilibrium setting gives a more
realistic representation of how relative prices may steer
innovation and variable input bias over time, while the quadratic
function has desirable properties with respect the splined
variable, i.e., a more flexible treatment of exogenous technical
change.;Results provide evidence in favour of price-induced
innovation in Italian agriculture over the years 1951 to 1991.
Keywords: SGM restricted cost function, induced innovation,
italian agriculture
JEL: O30 Q16
Date: 2006-11
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:275&r=agr
13. The impact of globalisation and trade on the productivity
performance of the Irish food manufacturing sector
Carol Newman
Globalisation and international integration can yield efficiency
gains through the promotion of competition and trade in markets
for internationally traded goods. At the firm level, exposure to
competitive pressures has created a necessity for firms to
operate as close as possible to the technology frontier in order
to survive. Furthermore, increased integration has lead to an
influx of investment by Multinational corporations who bring with
them technological innovations. This has the effect of improving
overall productivity by shifting the best practice technology
frontier while at the same time making it increasingly difficult
for smaller competitors to survive. In an Irish context, the food
industry has recently been acknowledged in national policy as an
important sector for future development. The aim of this paper is
to measure the productivity performance of the food processing
industry in Ireland and establish the extent to which
globalisation has brought about efficiency and productivity gains
to the industry.
Keywords: Food Industry, Ireland, Productivity, Stochastic
Production Function
Date: 2006-11-16
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp180&r=agr
14. Resource curse or not: A question of appropriability
Anne D. Boschini
Jan Pettersson
Jesper Roine
This paper shows that whether natural resources are good or bad
for a country?s development crucially depends on the
interaction between institutional setting and the type of
resources possessed by the country. Some natural resources are,
for economical and technical reasons, more likely to cause
problems such as rent-seeking and conflicts than others. This
potential problem can, however, be countered by good
institutional quality. In contrast to the traditional resource
curse hypothesis, we show the impact of natural resources on
economic growth to be non-monotonic in institutional quality.
Countries rich in minerals are cursed only if they have low
quality institutions, while the curse is reversed if institutions
are sufficiently good.
Keywords: Natural Resources, Appropriability, Property Rights,
Institutions, Economic Growth, Development
JEL: O40 O57 P16 O13 N50
Date: 2006-06
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:deg:conpap:c011_050&r=agr
15. An Exercise on the Optimal Use of Groundwater Resources
CASTELLUCCI LAURA
D?AMATO ALESSIO
-
Date: 2005-10
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceiswp:221&r=agr
16. Micro-credit, risk coping and incidence of rural-to-urban
migration
Quamrul Ahsan
The focus of this paper is on the rural poor of south Asia and
their struggle to cope with the seasonal risk of unemployment and
the ensuing income risks. In the absence of formal credit or
insurance markets the rural poor typically resort to, among other
options, the following informal strategies to cope with seasonal
income risks: (i) seasonal rural-to-urban migration, and (ii)
mutual (ex-post) transfers between families of friends and
relatives. Access to credit through a microfinance institution
could also provide a competing source of insurance. The question
raised in this paper is how the access to credit may affect the
more traditional/time honoured means of risk coping, such as
seasonal migration. Given that credit, i.e., a credit-financed
activity, is potentially a substitute for seasonal migration, it
is reasonable to argue that easy access to credit (or high return
on credit) will lower the incidence of migration. However, there
also exists a potential complementarity between the two
activities (if implemented jointly) in terms of gains due to
diversification of income risks. That is, given that income from
migration is not typically subject to the same shocks as income
generated by a credit-financed activity, a joint adoption of both
activities creates opportunities for diversification of risk in
the family incomes portfolio. If the diversification gains are
large enough then the adoption of both activities jointly will be
preferred to adopting either of the activities individually. In
that event, introduction of microfinance in rural societies may
result in raising the incidence of migration. The joint adoption
case for rural households is modelled using a choice theoretic
framework, and exact conditions are derived for when joint
adoption is preferable to adoption of a single project. The model
of joint adoption is estimated by applying a Bivariate Probit
regression model on a single cross-section of household survey
data from rural Bangladesh. Our preliminary results show that
indeed the probability of participation in migration by household
members is positively related to the probability of the household
being a credit recipient.
Keywords: Development, South Asia, Poverty, Microfinance, Rural
labour markets, Rural-to-urban migration, Risk-coping
strategies
JEL: D1 D81 J43 J61 O1 Q12 R23
Date: 2005-06
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:deg:conpap:c010_032&r=agr
17. Spatial variations in climate and Bordeaux wine prices
S?bastien Lecocq
Michael Visser
The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of climate
conditions on Bordeaux wine prices. Unlike previous studies (
based on data from the main weather station in M?rignac), we use
climatological variables from many local stations. Two models are
compared: one where prices are related to M?rignac weather
conditions, and one where prices are related to local conditions (
weather variables measured in the station the nearest to the
ch?teau). Although a non-nested test suggests that the model
based on local weather data is the preferred one, regressions of
the two speci?cations lead to very similar results. This is
reassuring news for researchers interested in the relationship
between climate and wine prices, but who do not have access to
small-scale spatial variations in climate.
Keywords: Bordeaux, France, Wine price, climate conditions
JEL: Q19
Date: 2006-09
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lea:leawpi:0610&r=agr
18. The Allocation of Tradeable Emission Permits within Federal
Systems (or Economic Unions)
D?AMATO ALESSIO
VALENTINI EDILIO
This paper deals with the issue of whether the power of
allocating tradeable emission permits within a federal system (or
an economic union) should be centralized or delegated to the
single states/nations. To this end, we develop a simple two stage
game played by two governments and their respective industries
producing a homogeneous output that is sold in a third country.
We show that when emission permits are traded competitively at a
federal (or economic union) level, a decentralized emission
trading system (DETS) would result in a lower than optimal price
of permits, as well as in an aggregate emission target which is
larger than the socially optimal target that would arise under a
centralized system (CETS). This result partly hinges on standard
international externality considerations; on the other hand, we
find a new ?channel? through which decentralized permits
distribution could lead to distortions: under a DETS, national
governments play a Cournot game, and choose the amount of
allowances to be distributed to domestic firms without accounting
for the spillover such distribution generates on the other
country via the price of allowances.
Date: 2006-05
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceiswp:235&r=agr
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