Wheat production in Saudi Arabia between feasibility and efficiency

The cultivation of wheat in Saudi Arabia has been claimed to be resource depletable. Huge amounts of high quality inputs, especially water, seeds, and nitrogen fertilizers, have been applied to the sandy Saudi soils to increase productivity. However, the economic feasibility of wheat production has been totally neglected, mainly for political reasons. Classical production functions analysis has not yielded significant conclusions regarding the use of inputs. A 3-year experiment on an educational farm with a soil type representative of the agricultural soil in Saudi Arabia, yielded some interesting results concerning the use of inputs. The findings were obtained through the stochastic dominance efficiency criterion which assessed the efficient levels of seeds, water, and nitrogen fertilizers in wheat cultivation when Production risk was considered.     

Risk and (Re-)organization in Agriculture: The Economics of Back grounding Cattle in Saskatchewan

The beef system in western Canada is currently undergoing restructuring. To increase the number of animals a feedlot finishes, their portion of the production process is being narrowed to the final 136 kgof weight gain. This results in a stage of production known as backgrounding, where calves are grown before entering the feedlot. This paper explains the reorganization that is occurring in the context of transaction cost economics, which explains this evolution as a process in which the governance structure involved in contracting has minimized the transaction costs. New methods of marketing these backgrounded cattle are being developed, which may increase the profitability of these operations. This paper measures the impacts of five different marketing options on the backgrounding enterprise's risk and returns. Thirteen enterprises are modeled, using various levels of capital and labor intensities, live stock numbers, sizes of calves fed and average daily gains. These models are simulated from 1978 to 1994 using costs of production and prices of cattle. Profits per head calculations allow the comparison of the enterprise efficiencies. The marketing alternatives are then evaluated using mean-variance rule(E-V) and stochastic dominance methods of risk analysis.     

Shopping Behavior and Evaluation of Store Features: Perspectives from a Food Market in the Arabian Peninsula

ABSTRACT

Globally, the food retailing industry is seen as most dynamic and rapidly changing. In this paper we investigate the shopping behavior of shoppers in Saudi Arabia, the largest retail market in Arabian Peninsula. Using empirical research, this paper examines factors influencing shopping decisions and the attitude toward shopping of shoppers in Saudi Arabia. Comparisons based on demographic factors are also discussed. The article discusses the findings and makes recommendations to retail store management. Future research directions are also suggested.     

Effects of subsidized crop insurance on crop choices

This study focuses on how subsidized crop insurance affects crop choices. Crop insurance may change farm investments by reducing risks and providing subsidies. First, actuarially fair insurance reduces risks in crop production and marketing, holding the expected return constant. Second, insurance subsidies encourage farms to purchase crop insurance, which increases the expected return to insured risky crops. Farms also have many self‐insurance mechanisms such as crop diversification or working off the farm. We derive conditions under which (1) unsubsidized and actuarially fair crop insurance or (2) insurance premium subsidies lead to more investment in a risky higher return crop. We then examine the role of self‐insurance for these conditions. The impact of premium subsidies is decomposed into a direct profit effect and an indirect coverage effect. These effects are explained by substitutions between market insurance and self‐insurance and between a risky crop and a safe crop. We discuss each effect as a combination of subsidy and risk effects. Numerical illustrations show that an insurance subsidy has a larger impact on risky crop investments compared to that of an input subsidy when farms are more risk‐averse and have high costs of self‐insurance. The framework provides a novel way to evaluate subsidized crop insurance programs.     

Analysis of a supply-control program under uncertainty and imperfect competition: Chinese cabbage in Taiwan

Researchers have often attributed the farm–wholesale price spread, after adjusting for marketing costs, as compensation for marketing firms' risk bearing. However, price spreads in excess of marketing costs can also be due to marketing firms' exercise of market power. In settings where both imperfect competition and marketer risk aversion are plausible, a modeling framework must be sufficiently general to accommodate both types of behavior. This article develops and estimates such a model in the context of fresh produce marketing and develops the implications for analysis of supply‐control programs. The model is applied to the production and marketing of Chinese cabbage in Taiwan and specifically to the analysis of supply‐control programs implemented in this industry by the Taiwanese government. The empirical results provide little support for the hypothesis that marketing firms exhibit risk averse behavior, but they do show that marketing firms exercise oligopsony power in procurement of the product from farmers, and that this power is positively related to the quantity supplied in each market period. This provides a heretofore unexplored impetus for supply controls intended to raise producer incomes. However, such controls are also rendered less effective by imperfect competition because marketing firms capture part of the benefits from supply reduction.     

Food Waste Avoidance Actions in Food Retailing: The Case of Denmark

Food waste occurs throughout the entire food supply chain, from production to consumption of food in households. Retailers are in a unique position to contribute to food waste avoidance, not only by minimizing the amount of waste in their distribution channels but also by influencing consumer attitudes and behaviors. This explorative study aims to identify which food waste avoidance actions are conducted by retailers in Denmark, to which extent, and how they vary across food categories and supermarket chain. Based on an analysis of secondary and empirical data collected via observations at retail stores, the authors identify 22 food waste avoidance actions in Danish retail. The results provide new insights into food waste avoidance in retail. Based on the findings, suggestions for further research directions are developed that should serve to identify the most efficient customer targeted actions in the in-store setting and marketing of suboptimal foods.     

Estimating the range of economic impacts on farms of nutrient leaching reduction policies

Declining agricultural incomes, increasing concern over rural poverty and sporadic crises such as those of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and Foot and Mouth Disease mean that the imposition of further costs on U.K. agriculture are likely to be politically and socially sensitive. Such additional costs are however on the agenda with the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD; European Commission, 2000 ). The WFD aims to achieve “good ecological status” in EU water bodies reducing, inter alia, diffuse pollution from agriculture. In this study, we assess four possible WFD measures proposed to the U.K. Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs: reducing inorganic fertilizer application, conversion of arable land to ungrazed grassland, reducing livestock stocking rates, and reducing livestock dietary N and P intakes. For each measure, changes in farm gross margins (FGMs) are estimated using a dataset of over 2000 farms. In contrast to previous analyses, which have focussed upon mean responses on stylized farms, our approach allows the analysis of the range of impacts across a wide variety of real‐world farms and farm types. Findings reveal high variability in impacts. Cost‐effectiveness analysis indicates that, on average, cropping farms seem capable of reducing nutrient leaching in a more cost‐efficient way than livestock or dairy enterprises.     

The firm size,farm size,and transaction costs: the case of hazelnut farms in Turkey

This study analyzes the effects of transaction costs on the size of hazelnut farms in Turkey. The study finds that higher land slope and higher variance of rain, as transaction‐cost‐increasing natural effects, lead to smaller hazelnut land holdings. High slope and weather variation can increase the costs of monitoring the laborers, make moving inputs or output up and down harder, limit the use of machinery, and reduce contractual performance of labor contracts. For farm production functions, land is a complex input with measurable interactions with nature. Contrary to common production theory approaches that take natural properties of land as given, the study develops a production function that incorporates natural properties, such as, slope and rain variance. The study utilizes two separate data sets for the estimations. The first data set explores the characteristics of hazelnut farmers, while the second one analyzes the regional characteristics of hazelnut farms.     

Regional Shifts in Pork Production: Implications for Competition and Food Safety

U.S. pork production and processing is consolidating in larger, more economically efficient units, and shifting from the Midwest into the Southeast. A regional model of farm supply and processing demand shows that smaller Midwest operations can survive only if processing capacity remains concentrated in that region. Salmonella incidence is higher in the Southeast and on larger farms. Restricting salmonella incidence in hogs delivered for processing to the minimum feasible level would increase total industry costs by 3%, due to increased production and delivery costs. It would also increase the comparative advantage of farms and processing firms in the Midwest.     

Department of environment planning research programme: New projects 1987/88

Summary

Contemporary urban planning in Saudi Arabia has been developed in an arbitrary fashion, relying on foreign consultancies, Western techniques, and operating without the backing of a specific national legislation. This has resulted in conflict with the shari'a, which remains the dominant law of the country. This conflict is exemplified. It is concluded that change is unlikely, owing to the importance of shari'a law in maintaining the existence of Saudi Arabia as a nation.     

吉林省渔民对渔业技术需求的调查分析

根据调查资料,描述了渔民一般性生产需求类型分布和渔民对渔业技术需求的强度和类型,从渔业技术用户角度分析渔民学习渔业技术的途径及影响渔民对渔业技术需求的主要因素,分析认为:渔民需求最大的是市场信息、市场服务、渔业生产技术和资金等;渔民获取渔业技术的主要渠道是渔业技术人员技术指导、新闻媒体和邻里效应;在影响渔民对渔业技术需求的主要因素中,资金不足、自然条件差、收益小、投资风险大、技术推广缺位、劳动力不足、政策不到位等因素较为突出,但是不同生产状况的渔民对渔业技术需求的强度与需求类型有较大的差异,因此必须针对不同层次渔民的实际情况,解决其投资渔业生产项目、学习渔业生产技术的制约因素。     

Farm size,productivity and returns to scale in agriculture revisited: a case study of wine producers in South Africa

The inverse relationship between farm size and productivity has almost become a ‘stylised fact’ in the economic development literature. Most of the studies contributing to this preception have been Hawed by methodological shortcomings and the request is that these studies be treated with caution. Using recent farm survey data from the wine producing areas of the Western Cape of South Africa, this study attempts to overcome some of the methodological problems, distinguishing between partial and total productivity measures. Using data envelopment analysis, most of the wine grape producers were found to operate under constant returns to scale. Co-operative membership seemed to overcome the economies of scale associated with processing and marketing. The inverse relationship between farm size and both land productivity and total factor productivity is weak, not consistently negative and differs between regions. Thus, caution must be used when advocating rural development policies based on the inevitability of an inverse relationship existing in all sectors and production regions of agriculture.     

Revealed Comparative Advantage and Measurement of International Competitiveness for Dates

The purpose of this study was to understand the pattern of export of dates in Iran and the other main exporter countries. Revealed comparative advantage (RCA) was used to examine comparative advantage of the main exporters of dates. Export-share revealed the comparative advantage index and Spearman's correlation coefficients were analyzed to identify the dynamic changes in comparative advantage for dates. In the last 4 decades, comparative advantage for dates changed for many countries. A trend developed toward reduction in the comparative advantage of Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in favor of United Arab Emirates (UAE), Tunisia, and Pakistan from 1989 to 2005. Spearman's correlation coefficients showed that the RCA of Iran and UAE were negatively related to the RCA of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. A regression export model indicated that comparative advantage and export promotion policy had a major role in the export of Iranian dates.     

Decisions and tradable production quota when yield is uncertain

This article analyses optimal decisions under regulation by tradable agricultural production/marketing quotas when production is stochastic. For risk-neutral and risk-averse producers the fraction of planned production that is covered by quota is separable from input decisions when yield randomness is additive. The role of quota in protecting against the risk of production shortfall is investigated. A producer is shown to benefit from being allowed to treat as one all tranches of production quota under his control. Production decisions are invariant to this amalgamation. But when production randomness is additive normal, the qualitative impact of amalgamation on quota positions depends upon whether the ratio of rental price to the price difference that is being protected exceeds one half.     

DYNAMIC FARM—LEVEL PLANNING MODEL FOR BEEF FEEDLOT PRODUCTION AND MARKETING

The study is aimed at formulating and empirically applying a dynamic farm-level model for the planning of optimal beef feedlot production and marketing strategies. A dynamic programming (DP) model is used to calculate the optimal feeding schedule (i.e. liveweight gain sequence), market liveweight and stock replacement for a single bull calf over a one-year planning period, taking into account seasonal fluctuations of planning parameters such as beef prices, feeding costs, nutritional requirements, and stock replacement costs and obtainability. The DP model includes a linear programming (LP) subroutine for calculating least-cost feed rations. The planning model is empirically applied using data and assumptions representative offeedlots in the Coastal Plain region of Israel where most feedlot production and marketing decisions are made by ‘rule-of-thumb’ using set liveweight gain sequences, market standards and stock replacement decisions. The empirical findings indicate that the profitability of feedlot production and marketing could be increased by an average of 10% over that obtained from ‘rule-of-thumb’ decision rules.     

The evolving role of large and medium farms on Brazilian agriculture

We use Brazilian agricultural censuses data since 1970 to describe land structure evolution in Brazil, focusing on the most important agricultural commodities and livestock products across regions. The analysis reveals a remarkable stability in the number of farms in the period, as well as in the structure of land distribution across farm sizes, with a persistence of a dual agricultural structure. Land distribution, as measured by the GINI index, has changed very little and is still very high. The number of large farms is increasing significantly in time, while the number of farms with area below 500 ha changed little in the 1970–2006 period. Medium‐sized and large farms, although heavily outweighed in numbers, account for the highest share of annual crop production currently, and their share in crop (annual plus permanent) production value increased between 1980 and 2006, while the same share decreased for smaller farms. We conclude that the observed stability will probably reduce in the future, as economic forces will likely change the balance in favor of an increase in the number of large farms. This is an issue of obvious political importance, especially considering the importance of the smaller farms for employment in agriculture.     

Cost and environmental efficiency of rice farms in South Korea

We examine cost and nutrient use efficiency of farms and determine the cost to move farms to nutrient‐efficient operation using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with a dataset of 96 rice farms in Gangwon province of South Korea from 2003 to 2007. Our findings show that improvements in technical efficiency would result in both lower production costs and better environmental performance. It is, however, not costless for farms to move from their current operation to the environmentally efficient operation. On average, this movement would increase production costs by 119% but benefit the water system through an approximately 69% reduction in eutrofying power (EP). The average estimated cost of each EP kg of aggregate nutrient reduction is approximately one thousand two hundred won. For technically efficient farms, there is a trade‐off between cost and environmental efficiency. We also find that the environmental performance of farms varies across farms and regions. We suggest that agri‐environmental policies should be (re)designed to improve both cost and environmental performance of rice farms.     

An assessment of farmers’ satisfaction with land consolidation performance in China

Rural land consolidation has been a very important and efficient development tool all over the world for a century and is now an indispensable instrument for rural sustainable development in China. The Chinese central government has devoted large sums of money to rural consolidation projects each year in an effort to help protect cultivated land, to improve agricultural production, to enhance the socio-economic development of rural communities, and to help build rural landscapes. However, little attention has been paid to evaluating the performance of land consolidation projects from the view of community members, which is sorely needed. Household satisfaction with land consolidation projects is a key indicator of consolidation performance. Understanding the factors that influence household satisfaction is an effective way of dealing with problems in the interactions between land restructuring and human behaviors in rural areas and can help improve project performance. This paper examines the performance of land consolidation in terms of rural households’ levels of satisfaction in rural China and analyses the most influential factors of satisfaction. Data were gathered via questionnaires and analyzed with a probit model. Results indicated three significant points. First, overall satisfaction rate was 76.5%, meaning that most rural households in the regions of Hangzhou, Changsha, and Guiyang were satisfied with land consolidation projects. Second, 11 factors significantly affected rural residents’ satisfaction with consolidation. These factors included farmers’ level of education, employment characteristics, family size, input level of agricultural production, agricultural produce transportation methods, level of agricultural mechanization, the characteristics of land transfer in the village and within their own families, the perceived importance of land consolidation, their level of social insurance support, and their participation in rural production cooperatives. Third, six of these factors had positive effects on performance; four had negative effects, and one (employment characteristics) demonstrated a significant influence.     

Institutional factors and farmers’ adoption of conventional,organic and genetically modified cotton in Burkina Faso

Organic farming and genetically modified (GM) crops technologies are currently being promoted as alternatives to conventional farming that is seen as unsustainable. However, institutional constraints can impede the adoption of even the most sustainable technology. This paper analysed the effect of institutional factors on farmers’ adoption of conventional, organic and GM cotton in Burkina Faso. Building on the expected utility model and institutional theory, a multinomial logistic regression was performed using farmers’ survey data from the 2014–2015 production season. The results showed that subsidies on fertiliser and credit for cereals production, the power of farmers’ association and that of the cotton company favoured the adoption of conventional and GM cotton at the expense of organic cotton. In order to succeed, organic cotton projects need to include components that help farmers to access organic fertilisers for cereals production. They also need to involve the cotton companies that are the most powerful stakeholders of the cotton sector. Extension services are necessary for both organic and GM cotton adoption. Other important factors to consider include farmers’ education, the potentials of the technologies, the good agro-ecological conditions, the continued involvement of women, the availability of virgin lands and the closeness of farmers to their farms.     

Costs and Risks of Testing and Segregating Genetically Modified Wheat

Development of genetically modified (GM) crops is challenging the functions of the grain marketing system. A stochastic optimization model was developed in this study to determine optimal testing strategies. The model chooses the optimal testing strategy that maximizes utility (minimizes disutility) of additional system costs due to testing and rejection, and allows the estimation of the risk premium required for sellers to undertake the dual marketing of GM and non-GM segregations over a non-GM system. Costs are estimated for a vertically integrated grain export chain including testing, rejection, and a risk premium. The model includes elements of costs and risks of adventitious commingling at all stages of the marketing chain, variety declaration, grower truth-telling, and accuracy of testing technologies. Sensitivities were evaluated for the effects of GM adoption, risk parameters, variety declaration, and tolerance levels.