Saskatchewan Wheat Pool's Transformation from Co-op to Public Corporation: The Farmers'Reaction

In 1996, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (SWP), the largest grain handling and agricultural marketing cooperative in Canada, changed its ownership structure to become a new-generation co-op. Traditionally, co-ops sell shares to members, and the ownership structure provides one vote per member, regardless of how many shares the member owns. In 1996, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool issued to its farmer members one Class A voting, nontransferable share. They also issued to each member a number of nonvoting Class B shares equal to the value of their co-op equity, which could be traded publicly on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The transition to a new-generation co-op has not been unopposed. There have been members who have suggested that SWP is no longer a real co-op and that it is no different from any other public corporation.
The study uses two surveys of SWP farmer members, one completed prior to going public and one after, to compare how the members felt about the changes. The October 1995 survey results indicate significant opposition to the change in SWP's ownership structure. A majority of farmer members wanted SWP to remain a traditional co-op and not to make the change to public corporation. SWP forged ahead with the change, indicating that it was necessary for the future competitiveness and well-being of the company. The November 1996 survey results indicate that many farmer members have changed their minds. These results show far greater support for the new Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.     

Efficiency of Cooperatives and Investor Owned Firms Revisited

The objectives of dairy processing cooperatives differ from those of investor‐owned firms (IOFs). However, the literature usually assumes the same performance measures for cooperatives vis‐a‐vis IOFs. This study compares the performance of dairy cooperatives and IOFs in major European dairy producing countries. A traditional input oriented approach is used and two alternative approaches are used to account for the differential objectives of cooperatives. Cooperatives’ performance differs across the two approaches from being outperformed by IOFs using the input oriented approach to outperforming them when using an approach that is more in line with cooperatives’ objectives.     

Does acquisition of a cooperative generate profits for the buyer? The Dairyworld case

This article examines the takeover of a cooperative (Dairyworld) by an investor‐owned firm (Saputo) that was not previously present in the industry, determines if this takeover generates greater returns for the investor‐owned firms (IOF), and on the basis of this evidence makes some inferences about the behavior and performance of cooperatives and IOFs. The empirical evidence strongly supports the conclusion that Saputo's stock price rose with its takeover announcement. This outcome is consistent with a number of explanations, including that Saputo was unaffected by hubris, a factor often suggested as the reason that many firms overbid when they undertake acquisitions. Dairyworld's poor liquidity and capital shortage problems, as well as a limited number of suitors, may have weakened its bargaining position in its dealings with Saputo. The observed increase in Saputo's stock price is also consistent with the possibility that, by taking over a cooperative, Saputo was able to decrease competition and thus increase its profits. A fruitful area for future research would be a rigorous theoretical and empirical determination of the impact that these various factors have on acquisition profitability. Such analysis is required before inferences about the behavior and performance of cooperatives and IOFs can be fully answered.     

Process Innovation Activity in a Mixed Oligopoly: The Role of Cooperatives

This article develops a sequential game-theoretic model of heterogeneous producers to examine the market and welfare effects of cooperative involvement in process innovation activity in the agricultural sector. The analysis examines an open-membership, input-supplying cooperative (co-op) that maximizes member welfare and finances its innovation activity through retained earnings. Analytical results show that the presence of the co-op can increase the arrival rate of innovations while reducing the price of agricultural inputs. Cooperative involvement in innovation activity can thus be welfare enhancing and socially desirable with its effectiveness being determined by the degree of producer heterogeneity and the size of innovation costs.     

Unpacking the Anti-corruption Agenda: Dilemmas for Anthropologists

This paper explores the dilemmas involved in an anthropological examination of both corruption and the international anti-corruption agenda, arguing that the two must be seen as closely related. The dilemma for anthropologists is that in either unpacking the “meaning” of corruption at a local level, or deconstructing the anti-corruption agenda, the realities of power involved in the attribution of corruption may be overlooked. It is concluded that, to a large extent, the solution lies in the ethnographic focus. Rather than simply examining meanings at a local level, or the international discourse, it is important to see how particular accounts of corruption develop and are translated from international to national and local policy contexts.     

Livelihoods after Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Understanding Processes of Rural Differentiation

This paper explores the consequences of Zimbabwe's land reform for the dynamics of differentiation in Zimbabwe's countryside, reporting on the results from a 10‐year study from Masvingo province. Based on a detailed analysis of livelihoods across 400 households at 16 sites, the paper offers a detailed typology of livelihood strategies, linked to a class‐based analysis of emerging agrarian dynamics. The paper identifies a significant and successful ‘middle farmer’ group, reliant on ‘accumulation from below’ through petty commodity production, existing alongside other worker‐peasants and the semi‐peasantry, whose livelihoods remain vulnerable, with prospects for accumulation currently limited. In addition, there are others who are ‘accumulating from above’, through patronage and corruption. While small in number, this group has significant political and economic influence, and is embedded in powerful alliances that have fundamental impacts on the wider political–economic dynamics. To conclude, the economic, social and political implications of the emerging patterns of differentiation in Zimbabwe's countryside are discussed.     

Detecting origin fraud with trade data: the case of U.S. honey imports*

Following the 2001 U.S. imposition of antidumping tariffs on imported honey from China and Argentina, industry press noted patterns of trade suggesting that honey was being transshipped to circumvent tariffs, origin fraud that was later uncovered in criminal cases. This article presents three approaches that use trade and production data to flag countries for possible instances of origin fraud and then compares these countries with those implicated in criminal cases and media reports. In our preferred empirical method, we also find that countries with higher corruption scores are more likely to show increases in suspicious trade patterns following the tariffs.     

农户土地经营规模与粮食生产效率关系实证研究

研究目的:确定农户土地经营规模与粮食生产效率之间是否存在显著关系,如果存在,则是怎样的一个关系。研究方法:访谈调查法,相关分析法,聚类分析法和DEA分析法——BCC(VRS)。研究结果:农户土地经营规模与粮食生产效率之间不是简单的正向或负向的线性关系。研究结论:在一定规模范围内,农户粮食生产效率随土地经营规模的扩大呈现U型曲线的变化规律;过于狭小的土地经营规模使得绝大多数粮农家庭规模报酬递增显著,其粮食增产增效具有较强的上升潜能;农户存在大量的劳动剩余,家庭从事非农产业用工量的适当增加反而对粮食生产效率提高具有一定的促进作用。     

Co-operative Life Cycle and Goals

Ten case study businesses were assessed in relation to sixteen criteria in order to test the application of an hypothesised life cycle. Analysis of stakeholder aspirations for each of these ten businesses was also undertaken. On the basis of the empirical evidence, it was demonstrated that stakeholder groups favour diverse goals, that the level of goal coherence between major stakeholder groups declines as a co-op progresses through the co-operative life cycle and that in the later stages of the life cycle, the aspirations of the managers, rather than those of the farmers, are realised. Furthermore, the managers' preferred goals are reflected in the organisational and financial structures and trading practices of individual late stage businesses, which are more akin to investor oriented firms than traditional co-operatives.     

Some implications of generalised C.E.S. production functions for normative effects of output prices and shifts in supply schedules

Abstract

This paper studies the demand for hired casual labour under production risk for a sample of Indian cultivators. A simple static household model under production risk is constructed to yield the demand for hired labour function. A detailed discussion of the various technological and non‐technological regressors is then presented. Empirical results reveal that the risk variables do not have a significant influence on hiring‐in behaviour. This result is important since the theoretical literature shows that a marginal increase in risk would lead to a decline in the demand for labour. Further, caste factors do not appear to influence hiring‐in, contrary to evidence for eastern India. Land‐augmenting technological factors appear to be the most important in explaining rightward shifts in the demand curve over time.     

A Comparative Static Analysis of the Welfare Impacts of Supply-Restricting Marketing Boards: Reply

The comment by Harvey and Hubbard (hereafter HH) on our earlier paper concerns the welfare implications of our long-run analysis. They assume a competitive industry where the firms face perfectly elastic supply functions for all factors of production except one. Under such assumptions, they suggest that the area above the long-run supply curve and below a price line can have meaning as a welfare measure. This is in contrast to our paper in which such an area can have no meaning as a welfare measure.     

The Value of Plains Cotton Cooperative Association

The Value of Plains Cotton Cooperative Association is a teaching case that allows students to consider the cooperative business model and the impact of this unique form of organization in agriculture. The Plains Cotton Cooperative Association (PCCA) , a highly successful, innovative, and dominant cotton cooperative, is considered in this case.
The general question is whether the cooperative form of organization is viable and relevant in the face of intensifying economic competition. Cotton producers and long-time co-op members must decide if they will remain loyal to the cooperative in light of recent negative publicity and disappointing returns from its marketing operations.     

Beyond the unions: The Pembillai Orumai women's strike in the south Indian tea belt

The article examines an extraordinary wildcat strike led by women tea workers against a giant tea plantation company and dominant trade unions in the south Indian tea belt of Munnar. It employs situational analysis to examine the larger processes that led to the strike, implications for the workers, and to the wider socio‐economic relations in the tea belt. It is argued here that in addition to the exploitative plantation production and the poor implementation of welfare measures, the strike was largely fuelled by and directed against union corruption and the breach by union leaders of egalitarian relations in the workers' society. At the end, the article calls for an understanding of local conceptions of inequality, injustice, and humiliation as forces that have the potency to initiate and intensify labour resistance under exploitative production relations.     

粮食主产区耕地质量影响因素与粮食产能关系分析

[目的]分析耕地质量构成要素对粮食产量影响,探讨提高粮食生产能力途径和方法。[方法]文章选取河南省粮食主产区内近10年来的土地资源调查、农用地分等、耕地地力评价、粮食产能核算等多项成果数据,以4.645 0万个行政村为评价单元,采用GIS空间分析法,建立了耕地质量单因素变化及因素指标组合与粮食产能关系曲线,测算了多模型影响下耕地质量因素改变量对粮食产能的影响大小。[结果](1)耕地质量影响因素各指标分级变化会引起粮食产能改变,总体上,当耕地所处的环境因素改善后,粮食产能将不断增加,因素指标分级对粮食增产能力的影响大小各不相同,11个因素的理论最大增产量和平均增产能力排序大致相当,但最大与最小间相差约8倍;(2)自然质量分充分体现了因素指标组合状态,四次多项式是表示耕地质量因素组合与粮食产能最佳关系模型,即随着自然质量总分提高,标准粮产量提升值呈现"倒S"型变化,即自然质量总分每变化0.01个单位,标准粮提升或降低78.15kg/hm~2。[结论]该文成果为粮食核心区内高标准农田建设提供数据支撑。     

退耕还林对农业生产结构影响的实证研究——以陕北吴起县为例

首先运用描述性统计方法从种植业、畜牧业和林业、渔业等几方面对退耕还林前后农业生产结构的变化进行分析;然后借助洛伦兹曲线和基尼系数,分别计算了吴起县退耕还林前后的农业生产结构合理化指数,得出退耕还林后吴起县农业生产结构合理化综合指数有所提高(由0.8270提高到0.8596),但仍有进一步调整的空间;特别是退耕还林前后劳动力合理化指数都偏低(分别仅为0.7426和0.7762),说明吴起县劳动力结构调整力度还有待加强。     

Spatial determinants of productivity growth on agri‐food Spanish firms: a comparison between cooperatives and investor‐owned firms

This study analyses the effect of the spatial factor, location, and interaction effects among peer companies, on the productivity growth of agri‐food companies in Spain. With this aim, we build a productivity growth index and apply a multiequational Seemingly Unrelated Regression on a sample of 344 Spanish cooperatives and investor‐owned firms for the period 2010–2012. Our findings show that agri‐food firms are influenced by spatial factors finding interesting differences between cooperatives and investor‐owned firms. With regard to the geographical location, cooperatives in the western of Spain show higher productivity growth rates, whereas investor‐owned firms in the northeast of Spain present better results. The interaction effect among closer peer companies is also a relevant factor to determine the productivity growth in agri‐food companies. This factor is more relevant for cooperatives than for investor‐owned firms.     

The value of education in small‐scale agriculture: Some evidence from Ogun State,Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the value of education in Ogun State agriculture using the production function framework. The results indicate that education contributes substantially to agricultural production in the State. The allocative effect of increased education was found to be more important than the worker effect while the input‐selection component of the allocative effect was more important than the input‐allocation component. Thus involvement in farmers’ education or a successful policy at luring educated persons into agriculture can be expected to bring about increased agricultural production in the State and, by extension, the entire country.     

Does agricultural official development assistance facilitate foreign direct investment in agriculture: Evidence from 63 developing countries

Although past studies have separately explored the direct impact of agriculture official development assistance (ODA) and foreign development investment (FDI) on agricultural production, the nexus between these two elements is often neglected. This article aims to understand the linkage between agricultural ODA and FDI, using data from 63 developing countries from 1991 to 2019. Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimations reveal that agricultural ODA considerably promotes FDI in the agriculture, fishery and forestry sectors (FDI_aff) by approximately 0.5%, while its impact on FDI in the food, beverages and tobacco industries (FDI_fbt) is overall insignificant. Geographical and ecological conditions play a decisive role in accounting for FDI in agriculture. While coastal and land-rich countries receive a significantly higher amount of FDI_aff and FDI_fbt, tropical countries are evidently more attractive destinations for FDI_fbt. The empirical analysis also shows that a peaceful social environment encourages FDI_aff. Well-established legal systems and reductions in corruption facilitate FDI_aff, whereas the impact of overall institutional quality on agricultural FDI is insignificant. Results suggest that donors prioritise agricultural initiatives with higher positive spillover effects, such as programmes supporting food crop production and agricultural research.     

中国水稻生产与化肥施用的脱钩关系及其关联效应分析

目的 推进水稻生产和化肥施用的脱钩,实现粮食安全和生态安全的同步提升。方法 文章采用脱钩模型分析2003—2018年中国水稻生产与化肥施用的脱钩状况,构建两者之间的关联模型,运用对数平均迪氏指数分解法将水稻产量变化分解为规模、结构、强度和效率4种效应,揭示它们对中国水稻生产和化肥施用脱钩关系的影响。结果 （1）2010年之前我国水稻生产和化肥施用总量之间以扩张负脱钩为主,之后则以弱脱钩和扩张连接为主。分肥料种类看,就氮肥和磷肥而言,2010年之前其与水稻生产的脱钩关系和化肥施用总量与水稻生产的脱钩关系差别不大,但之后水稻生产与氮肥以强脱钩关系为主,与磷肥以扩张负脱钩关系为主;对钾肥而言,在整个2003—2018年其与水稻生产都以扩张负脱钩关系为主。（2）全国和省域层面分析均表明,扩大规模效应,提高结构效应能够显著推进水稻生产和化肥施用脱钩,但在人多地少的条件下,寄希望于持续扩大规模效应和提高结构效应来实现水稻生产和化肥施用脱钩的目标难以实现。（3）强度效应是促进水稻增产的重要因素,但化肥投入的长期增长已严重威胁稻田的生态安全和可持续生产能力,使其水稻边际产出水平明显下降,导致效率效应成为水稻增产的关键障碍,这在安徽、江西、湖北、云南、江苏、浙江、内蒙古、辽宁、海南和陕西10省区表现尤为明显。结论 推动水稻生产与化肥施用脱钩需要加强对粮食主产区的经济补偿,压实东南沿海地区粮食安全责任底线,全面提高重点区域的化肥利用效率。     

Factors influencing the decision to hire contract labour by Indian manufacturing firms

ABSTRACT

Over a third of workers employed in the Indian formal manufacturing sector are ‘contract’ workers – hired through the services of labour contractors, facing lower wages and no job security in relation to regular workers. We investigate the role of a variety of factors that influence the decision of employers to hire in contract workers, using information from a specially commissioned survey of manufacturing firms. While there are immediate cost advantages that tilt firms towards hiring in contract labour, a counterforce has employers favouring regular workers in firms that have a large proportion of their workforce concentrating on production activity – probably instances where long-term human capital investment by regular workers is important for the firm.

Abbreviation: CLA: Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 ASI: Annual Survey of Industries NIC: National Industrial Classification MSME: Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises SEZ: Special Economic Zone ICRIER: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations