Potential impacts of Bt eggplant on economic surplus and farmers' health in India

In this article, the potential impacts of Bt eggplant technology in Indian agriculture are analyzed. Several proprietary Bt hybrids are likely to be commercialized in the near future. Based on field trial data, it is shown that the technology can significantly reduce insecticide applications and increase effective yields. Comprehensive farm-survey data are used to project farm-level effects and future adoption rates. Simulations show that the aggregate economic surplus gains of Bt hybrids could be around US$108 million per year. Consumers will capture a large share of these gains, but farmers and the innovating company will benefit too. As the company has also shared its technology with the public sector, Bt open-pollinated varieties might become available with a certain time lag. This would make the technology more accessible, especially for resource-poor farmers, entailing further improvements in welfare and distribution effects. The wider implications of the private–public technology transfer are discussed. Furthermore, the potential benefits for farmers' health resulting from reduced insecticide applications are examined, using an econometric model and a cost-of-illness approach. These benefits are worth an additional $3–4 million per year, yet they constitute only a small fraction of the technology's environmental and health externalities. More research is needed for comprehensive impact analysis.     

Multilateral Trade and Agricultural Policy Reforms in Sugar Markets

We analyse the impact of trade liberalisation, removal of production subsidies and elimination of consumption distortions in world sugar markets using a partial‐equilibrium international sugar model calibrated on 2002 market data and current policies. The removal of trade distortions alone induces a 27% price increase while the removal of all trade and production distortions induces a 48% increase in 2011/2012 relative to the baseline. Aggregate trade expands moderately, but location of production and trade patterns change substantially. Protectionist Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries (the EU, Japan, the US) experience an import expansion or export reduction and a significant contraction of production in unfettered markets. Competitive producers in both OECD countries (Australia) and non‐OECD countries (Brazil, Cuba), and even some protected producers (Indonesia, Turkey), expand production when all distortions are removed. Consumption distortions have marginal impacts on world markets and the location of production. We discuss the significance of these results in the context of mounting pressures to increase market access in highly protected OECD countries and the impact on non‐OECD countries.     

我国农业保险政策实施的现状及建议

中国是农业灾害发生最为严重的国家之一,而农业风险控制的重要方式是农业保险,政策的指导与引领农业保险良好发展的需要。经过不断的探索,从2004年到2013年,我国为支持农业保险的稳健发展出台了一系列相关政策,已取得了比较明显的成效。但是不可否认的是,当前农业保险政策执行中存在着许多问题。面对国内外农业保险发展的新形势,完善和发展农业保险政策十分重要。本文通过深入分析农业保险政策实施过程中出现的一系列问题及原因,提出我国农业保险政策长足发展的建议。     

International diffusion of gains from biotechnology and the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy

This paper analyses the impact of adopting or rejecting genetically modified (GM) crops in the European Union, taking into account the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In this paper the productivity impact of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) differs across crops, taking factor biased technology change into account. The transfer of knowledge across countries is modelled as a process of endogenous knowledge spill-overs. Analysis with a multi-region applied general equilibrium model shows that the CAP protects farm income and production despite non-adoption of the more productive GM crops in the EU. The EU will forgo substantial benefits in terms of economic welfare if it bans GM imports.     

Will cotton make a comeback in Mali?

With the decline of cotton especially in the marginal cotton areas, farmers have been using more of the cotton‐financed inputs on the cereals. The cotton para‐statal company (CMDT) has made a virtue out of this recommending diversification for these regions. Following the world price spike in 2010, the Malian government responded with a substantial price increase for cotton in 2011 of 38% to rejuvenate the Malian sector. This article looks at the impact of this price policy in the cotton economy and the potential of new cereal technology and marketing strategy to raise incomes and facilitate the diversification. Given the importance of the marketing decision of selling later after the recovery of cereal prices from the harvest collapse, a discrete stochastic programming model was developed for three‐stage decision making. Then, the recent changes in the cotton economy and government fertilizer subsidies were analyzed along with the introduction of the new technology marketing of sorghum. Cotton and maize continue to dominate the economy but the combined sorghum technology marketing increases farmers’ incomes by 16% to 21% and eases the return to normal cotton prices, after the 2011 price spike, as well as the removal of the fertilizer subsidies.     

Crop Insurance in a Political Economy: An Alternative Perspective on Agricultural Policy

Lawmakers often subsidize farmers in times of financial distress. This article models this political impulse as a constraint on government farm policy, describing how ex ante government farm insurance can deter ex post "disaster relief" and improve production incentives by countering the moral hazard that otherwise prevails. Absent ex ante government policy, ex post relief takes the form of revenue insurance, which prompts excessive entry into farm production and under-production by operating farmers. Ex ante government policy can raise economic and political welfare by buying out low productivity farmers and offering profitable farmers a combination of revenue insurance, price supports, and a program participation fee.     

The status quo bias and reform of the Common Agricultural Policy: impact of voting rules, the European Commission and external changes

We develop a formal model of EU decision-making on the CommonAgricultural Policy (CAP). The model is used to evaluate underwhat conditions CAP reform occurs and what the influence ofthe European Commission (Commission) is on CAP reform. We findthat the voting and amendment rules in the Council of the EuropeanUnion, the number of policy instruments and external changeshave important impacts on the occurrence and extent of CAP reformand on the influence of the Commission. Stricter voting rulesincrease the status quo bias and reduce Commission influence,whereas stricter amendment rules increase both the status quobias and Commission influence. More significant external changeresults in more reform and more Commission influence.     

Modeling the Reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy for Arable Crops under Uncertainty

The size of the insurance and wealth effects of a change in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for arable crops is estimated. The impact of price uncertainty is accounted for in the specific decision-making structure of the European Union (EU) arable crop producers under nonlinear mean-variance risk preferences. A system of output supply, input demand, and land allocation equations is estimated on a sample of Italian specialized arable crop farms. The simulation of the impact of the recent reforms confirms that farmers' output responses are consistently affected by the size of the insurance and wealth effects.     

The Value of Badger Populations and Control of Tuberculosis in Cattle in England and Wales: A Note

This note reports on the results of a choice experiment survey of 400 people in England and Wales, conducted to estimate the value that society places on changes to the size of the badger population. The study was undertaken in the context of the possible need to reduce the badger population by culling to help control bovine tuberculosis in cattle. The study found that people were concerned about the problem of bovine tuberculosis in cattle, which was reflected in their willingness to pay to control the disease, and gave a relatively low value to changes in the size of the badger population (within limits). However, people did not like the idea of a policy that intentionally killed large numbers of badgers and had a relatively very high willingness to pay not to have such a policy.     

The Varying Impacts of Agricultural Support Programs on U.S. Farm Household Consumption

Farm households are economic agents whose income is derived from farm, off-farm, and government sources. This article uses farm-level data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) and recent advances in the econometric theory of dynamic pseudo-panels to show that farm households consume various sources of income differently at the margin. Particular attention is given to a specific type of lump-sum government transfer payment intended to be decoupled from (independent of) farm production decisions. The results suggest that relatively decoupled government subsidies have a greater marginal effect on farm household consumption than subsidies that are tied to market conditions.     

Food consumption impacts of adherence to dietary norms in the United States: a quantitative assessment

Promotion of adherence to healthy-eating norms has become an important element of nutrition policy in the United States and other developed countries. We assess the potential consumption impacts of adherence to a set of recommended dietary norms in the United States using a mathematical programming approach. We find that adherence to recommended dietary norms would involve significant changes in diets, with large reductions in the consumption of fats and oils along with large increases in the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and cereals. Compliance with norms recommended by the World Health Organization for energy derived from sugar would involve sharp reductions in sugar intakes. We also analyze how dietary adjustments required vary across demographic groups. Most socio-demographic characteristics appear to have relatively little influence on the pattern of adjustment required to comply with norms. Income levels have little effect on required dietary adjustments. Education is the only characteristic to have a significant influence on the magnitude of adjustments required. The least educated rather than the poorest have to bear the highest burden of adjustment. Our analysis suggests that fiscal measures like nutrient-based taxes may not be as regressive as commonly believed. Dissemination of healthy-eating norms to the less educated will be a key challenge for nutrition policy.     

Assessing CAP Reform: Sensitivity of Modelling Decoupled Policies

The European Union reformed farm policy in June 2003 towards the decoupling of farm income support instruments. Available impact studies find that this reform reduces production incentives substantially for beef and to a lesser extent for arable crops. However, these studies assume that the previous reform, under Agenda 2000, already decoupled arable crop direct payments to a considerable extent, while beef premiums were linked more closely to production. Our main objective in this paper is to test the sensitivity of these results to this questionable modelling of Agenda 2000 direct payments, which neglects eligibility rules and land market imperfections. Our analysis reveals that the effects of the reform on both arable crop and beef production are always negative, however the Agenda 2000 direct payments are modelled. On the other hand, we show that, when the eligibility rules and land market imperfections are acknowledged, the production reducing effects may be much larger for arable crops than for beef. Policy implications of these results are noted.     

Farmers’ Preferences for New Environmental Policy Instruments: Determining the Acceptability of Cross Compliance for Biodiversity Benefits

This paper addresses the issue of farmers’ views concerning the perceived legitimacy of environmental cross compliance as a governance mechanism. Recent work on the theory of regulation emphasises the importance of the legitimacy ascribed to a regulation in determining the effectiveness with which it can be implemented. The current study outlines a rationale for why this motivational question should receive attention in economic studies of policy design and reports the results of a survey of 102 arable farmers in East Anglia, UK, which investigated the level of support for the principle of cross compliance for biodiversity objectives. It was found that two attitudinal factors, referred to as ‘Stewardship Orientation’ and ‘Technological Beliefs’, were by far the most significant in determining the acceptability of cross compliance in the sample, and that structural and socio‐demographic factors were considerably less important. The study also identified clusters of farmers according to their overall attitudinal orientation. Of the five groups thus categorised, four appeared on average likely to reject cross compliance as a general principle, leaving only the most ‘Environmental’ cluster in support. The policy implications are discussed and some conclusions drawn.     

Preface

The paper examines the main issues surrounding distributional effects in the domains of natural resource management and land policies, agricultural technology and research policies, agricultural market and trade policies, and consumer‐oriented policies, including standards, subsidies, and labeling. Agriculture is drifting into an ever more drastic bifurcation at a global level and within many countries. Correcting that bifurcation will require large investments in rural areas and rural people, in institutions, and in information and biological technologies accessible by the poor in the world's smallholder sector. Large and growing national and international inequalities related to agriculture and rural areas threaten peace, growth, and sustainable development.     

技术进步对我国农民收入的影响及对策分析

一、引言近年来 ,农民收入问题的主要症状可以概括为 :农民收入增长幅度缓慢 ,相当部分的农民收入水平下降。农民收入问题事实上已成为我国社会经济持续发展的制约因素和重要瓶颈。国内对农民收入问题的考察主要从以下几方面展开 :第一 ,加入WTO后因农业国际化而对农民收入产生的影响。诸多学者认为 ,农业将成为受影响最大的产业之一。随着市场的开放度加大 ,农业国际化进程加快 ,进口农产品的竞争压力增大 ,会对一些大宗农产品的生产产生一定影响 ,农产品卖难 ,农民增收的难度加大 (帕塔木·巴拉提 ,2 0 0 2 )。加入WTO在农业经营和非农…