https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15740862/2022/53/S1
Impact of aquaculture training on farmers’ income: Cluster randomized controlled trial evidence in Ghana
Catherine Ragasa, Sena Amewu, Seth Koranteng Agyakwah, Emmanuel Tetteh-Doku Mensah, Ruby AsmahExtreme weather events and high Colombian food prices: A non-stationary extreme value approach
Luis Fernando Melo-Velandia, Camilo Andrés Orozco-Vanegas, Daniel Parra-AmadoAgricultural diversification, productivity, and food security across time and space
Jean-Paul Chavas, Giorgia Rivieccio, Salvatore Di Falco, Giovanni De Luca, Fabian CapitanioMarginal cost of carbon sequestration through forest afforestation of agricultural land in the southeastern United States
Oladipo S. Obembe, Nathan P. HendricksIs it more convenient to waste? Trade-offs between grocery shopping and waste behaviors
Brenna Ellison, Linlin Fan, Norbert L.W. WilsonUnderstanding transient technology use among smallholder farmers in Africa: A dynamic programming approach
Maolong Chen, Chaoran Hu, Robert J. MyersPrecision livestock agriculture and productive efficiency: The case of milk recording in Ireland
Iordanis Parikoglou, Grigorios Emvalomatis, Fiona ThorneDo producer organizations improve trading practices and negotiation power for dairy farms? Evidence from selected EU countries
Federica Di Marcantonio, Enkelejda Havari, Liesbeth Colen, Pavel CiaianPricing efficiency in livestock auction markets: A two-tier frontier approach
Leslie J. Verteramo Chiu, Loren W. Tauer, Yrjo T. Gröhn
Impact of aquaculture training on farmers’ income: Cluster randomized controlled trial evidence in Ghana
Catherine Ragasa, Sena Amewu, Seth Koranteng Agyakwah, Emmanuel Tetteh-Doku Mensah, Ruby AsmahAbstract: Aquaculture in Ghana is experiencing tremendous growth, led mainly by large-scale commercial cage operators. A major objective of the government and its partners is to ensure that this rapid growth is sustainable and includes small-scale farmers and poor rural producers. This paper evaluates the aquaculture trainings implemented in six main tilapia-producing regions in Ghana as part of the Ghana Tilapia Seed Project. The impact evaluation is designed as a cluster randomized controlled trial, with half of the producing districts randomly-assigned as the treatment and the rest as the control, complemented by qualitative interviews. One year after the trainings, results show positive impacts on the adoption of good record-keeping, water management, and some biosecurity practices, and on productivity and incomes. In terms of mechanism, improved management practices resulted from reducing overstocking, reducing inbreeding, maintaining water level for fish ponds, regular pond clearing and establishing physical barriers, following advice and recommendations on feeding practices, and complementing feeding practices with farmers’ own feed formulation. Half of the trained farmers experienced lower fish mortality, faster growth, and heavier fish at harvest. Marketing and processing advice through the trainings and complementary FishConnect WhatsApp platform likely contributed to higher incomes, although the platform's coverage and regular updating can be improved.Extreme weather events and high Colombian food prices: A non-stationary extreme value approach
Luis Fernando Melo-Velandia, Camilo Andrés Orozco-Vanegas, Daniel Parra-AmadoAbstract: Given the importance of climate change and the increase of its severity under extreme weather events, we analyze the main drivers of high food prices in Colombia between 1985 and 2020 focusing on extreme weather shocks like a strong El Niño. We estimate a non-stationary extreme value model for Colombian food prices. Our findings suggest that perishable foods are more exposed to extreme weather conditions in comparison to processed foods. In fact, an extremely low precipitation level explains only high prices in perishable foods. The risk of high perishable food prices is significantly larger for low rainfall levels (dry seasons) compared to high precipitation levels (rainy seasons). This risk gradually results in higher perishable food prices. It is nonlinear and is also significantly larger than the risk related to changes in the US dollar-Colombian peso exchange rate and fuel prices. Those covariates also explain high prices for both perishable and processed foods. Finally, we find that the events associated with the strongest El Niño in 1988 and 2016 are expected to reoccur once every 50 years.Agricultural diversification, productivity, and food security across time and space
Jean-Paul Chavas, Giorgia Rivieccio, Salvatore Di Falco, Giovanni De Luca, Fabian CapitanioAbstract: This article presents an investigation of agricultural production risk over time and across space and its implications for food security. The econometric approach involves a Quantile Autoregressive (QAR) model and a copula to provide a flexible representation of the distribution of yield risk and its evolution over time and across space. The analysis relies on a two-step estimation method to evaluate the multivariate yield distribution and its spatial and temporal evolution. Linkages between agricultural production risk and the economics of food security are explored, with implications for the welfare cost of food insecurity. The approach is illustrated in an econometric application to regional wheat and corn yields in Italy. The analysis provides new and useful information on the evolving linkages between agricultural production risk, productivity, and food security. Our integrated approach documents the role of regional diversification and of productivity growth along with their effects on food security.Marginal cost of carbon sequestration through forest afforestation of agricultural land in the southeastern United States
Oladipo S. Obembe, Nathan P. HendricksAbstract: One tool to mitigate climate change is to sequester carbon through changes in land use. The purpose of this study is to analyze the cost-effectiveness of carbon sequestration through afforestation of cropland via the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in the United States. We use the correlated random effects (CRE) probit model to estimate the impact of an increase in the CRP rental payments on land use transitions between cropland and forest. Our estimates are used to simulate land use change and carbon sequestration supply curves over different time horizons. Increasing the CRP rent to reflect the social cost of carbon of $154/tonne of carbon increases annual carbon sequestered by 7.42 million tonnes, 23.58 million tonnes, and 34.96 million tonnes over 1, 5, and 10-year horizons.Is it more convenient to waste? Trade-offs between grocery shopping and waste behaviors
Brenna Ellison, Linlin Fan, Norbert L.W. WilsonAbstract: Efforts to reduce food loss and waste are being made across the supply chain, with households targeted as one of the most wasteful nodes in the chain. In this article, we consider the impact of changing one household food management behavior: grocery shopping. Households that shop more frequently typically incur less food waste. This has resulted in a call for households to adopt a just-in-time (JIT) grocery shopping approach, taking smaller trips to the store more frequently. While households may be able to reduce food waste by adopting a JIT shopping approach, their willingness to shop more frequently is less clear. The purpose of this research is to examine the trade-offs between grocery shopping frequency and food waste behaviors among U.S. households. We employ a choice experiment to determine whether consumers are willing to reduce waste by adopting a JIT shopping approach. We explore heterogeneity across households and consider the potential welfare impacts associated with moving to a JIT model of shopping. Our results indicate that, on average, consumers were averse to adding extra shopping trips to their weekly grocery shopping routines and would need to be compensated to do so (mean: $24/week for one extra trip). Consumers would need to see approximately a 12 percentage point reduction in waste to be indifferent to adding one shopping trip to their weekly routine. Spending more to waste less resulted in more welfare gains, on average, yet there is significant heterogeneity in grocery shopping preferences.Understanding transient technology use among smallholder farmers in Africa: A dynamic programming approach
Maolong Chen, Chaoran Hu, Robert J. MyersAbstract: This article studies the causes and effects of transient use of agricultural technology. Most existing studies have assumed that adoption of modern technology is irreversible, and widely ignored the switching between technologies that is often observed in practice. To more fully understand the pattern of agricultural technology adoption, this article takes switching behavior into account and develops a dynamic switching model to analyze transient technology use. The conceptual model is then calibrated and simulated using dynamic programming, and numerical results show that relative profitability, switching costs, and farmer's foresight are important influences on the pattern of transient technology use. Switching costs play a key role in preventing farmers from adopting new technologies, even when they appear otherwise profitable, and can cause farmers to switch back to traditional technologies, even when the move appears otherwise irrational. Also, smallholder farmers, differentiated based on their perception of switching costs and future economic conditions, exhibit heterogeneous decision rules and adoption patterns. Therefore, policies targeted at increasing technology adoption will be more effective if they differentiate specific types of farmers.Precision livestock agriculture and productive efficiency: The case of milk recording in Ireland
Iordanis Parikoglou, Grigorios Emvalomatis, Fiona ThorneAbstract: This article investigates the effect of precision livestock agriculture and, in particular, milk recording, on the productive efficiency of Irish dairy farms. We use a micropanel of farms that covers the period 2008–2017 and a dynamic stochastic frontier (DSF) model to account for the dependence of efficiency on past values. This allows us to distinguish between short- and long-run effects of precision livestock agriculture practices on technical efficiency (TE). We provide evidence that the Irish dairy sector experienced fast productivity growth in the period covered by the data, which was achieved mostly through technical change (TC) and efficiency improvements, but not due to scale effects (SEs) at the farm level. Furthermore, our results show that precision livestock agriculture in the form of milk recording contributed to a more efficient use of resources. Specifically, use of milk recording is found to affect positively TE in both the short and long run. Finally, we provide policy implications and directions for future research.Do producer organizations improve trading practices and negotiation power for dairy farms? Evidence from selected EU countries
Federica Di Marcantonio, Enkelejda Havari, Liesbeth Colen, Pavel CiaianAbstract: This article analyzes the impact of producer organizations (POs) on dairy farmers’ self-assessed experiences of unfair trading practices (UTPs) and negotiation power. We employ an endogenous switching regression (ESR) model using cross-sectional survey data collected in four EU countries: France, Germany, Spain, and Poland. The results show rather mixed impacts of PO membership. PO membership reduces the likelihood of farmers reporting UTPs. On the other hand, PO membership is found to reduce the self-assessed negotiation power of PO members. The estimated impact of PO membership is found to be largest for smaller farms.Pricing efficiency in livestock auction markets: A two-tier frontier approach
Leslie J. Verteramo Chiu, Loren W. Tauer, Yrjo T. GröhnAbstract: We estimate the pricing efficiency of a livestock auction market using a two-tier stochastic frontier model. This model captures pricing inefficiency of a hedonic pricing model for livestock via exponential error terms above and below the hedonic model specification. The direction of pricing inefficiencies, whether above or below the hedonic pricing model, represent surplus transfer from buyers to sellers or from sellers to buyers, respectively. Using data from a 7-year period in a livestock auction market, we found that on average livestock buyers extract about 6% of surplus from sellers. That is, on average, livestock auction market underprices by about 6% below its full information price. Buyer concentration also affects the degree of surplus transfer. At low levels of buyer concentration, when the top four-buyer market concentration is <30%, there is an overpricing of only 1.23% over the full information price, extracting surplus from buyers to sellers. At higher buyer concentrations, buyers can extract up to 7% of surplus from sellers.
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