RISK AND FARM SIZE IN THE PASTORAL ZONE

Variable performance over time is an important feature of wool growing in the eastern pastoral zone of Australia. An analysis of time series data from the Australian Sheep Industry Survey indicates that standard deviation of net farm income is related more or less linearly to size of firm and increases with size at about the same rate as does average net income. A tentative conclusion is drawn that large farms have had a slight tendency to experience less variable rates of return than small farms. However, it is found that farms that have experienced relatively variable returns have tended to enjoy average rates of return above those of other farms of similar size.     

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS,INTERDEPENDENCE AND UNCERTAINTY*

Interdependence has always been central to economics but assumes pressing importance for agricultural economists as they deal with industrialising agricultures. Continued unresolvable uncertainties, when properly recognised, also add to the challenge of relevant work in agricultural economics. The related roles of interdependence and uncertainty are illustrated through examples from the progress of agricultural technology and enhancement of food security.     

ON RISK DEDUCTIONS IN PUBLIC PROJECT APPRAISAL

Project appraisal under uncertainty should, in general, be worked in terms of carefully computed expected or mean values of uncertain elements. The major exceptions are when: (a) project returns are large relative to national income; or (b) project returns are highly correlated with other national income. Approximate procedures have been developed for computing risk adjustments in each of these special cases singly, but here, a more comprehensive procedure is described that encompasses both cases separately and jointly.     

A NOTE ON SOME DIFFICULTIES IN RESPONSE ANALYSIS

Some empirical problems which tend to receive inadequate attention in response analysis are discussed. These include the variation not explained by fitted production functions, the sensitivity of optima and profits to price changes, the cost of developing production functions and the value in using them.     

The Role of Published Materials in Curriculum Development and Implementation for Secondary School Design and Technology in England and Wales

This paper discusses the ways in which teachers exploited a set of curriculum materials published as a vehicle for curriculum innovation, and the relationship between chosen modes of exploitation and teachers’ own perceptions of how the materials had ’added value’ to their teaching. The materials in question were developed by the Nuffield Design and Technology Project (’the Project’) to offer a pedagogy appropriate to the statutory curriculum for secondary school design and technology education in England and Wales (DFE/WO 1995). The Project had sought both to inform the statutory curriculum, and respond to its requirements. An earlier case study (Givens 1997) laid the foundations for the survey that is reported here. This paper focuses on the teaching of pupils aged 11–14. It finds that while most teachers made at least some use of all the various components of the publications, they were selective. While the Study Guide, which carries out a meta-cognitive dialogue with pupils, was generally underused, those teachers who did use it perceived greater value added by the materials as a whole to the quality of pupils’ work, their effectiveness in design and technology and their autonomy. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A NOTE ON DECREASING ABSOLUTE RISK AVERSION AMONG FARMERS IN NEPAL

Attitudes toward risk are explored for a sample of rice growers on small farms in Nepal, in the context of the subjective expected utility maximisation model. Farmers are found to be generally averse to risk, with diverse levels of absolute risk aversion that tend to diminish as wealth increases, both for individuals and in a cross-sectional sense. Relative risk aversion is argued to be the most comparable measure for contrasts of attitudes toward risk.     

STABILISATION AND RISK REDUCTION IN AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURE*

Agricultural producers typically are faced with risk about the yields they will experience and the prices they will receive. Stabilisation schemes can spread risk and thereby reduce the risk faced by individual producers. The risk-reducing capacity of a scheme and the cost of risk reduction depend upon the design of the scheme. In particular, it is important to distinguish between risk and instability. A classification of scheme designs is presented to bring out the effects of various design types. Schemes for the wheat industry are given most attention.     

SUBJECTIVE DISTRIBUTIONS AS ECONOMETRIC RESPONSE DATA

Analysis of actual observations of response processes is a routine procedure in applied econometrics but methods of dealing with purely subjective probability distributions as response 'data' have seemingly not hitherto been worked out. The models and methods developed here go some way to filling this void. They are illustrated by using information from a cross-sectional study of sixty Nepalese small-scale farmers. Means and variances of subjective probability distributions for rice paddy yields under different technologies are related to controlled inputs, such as fertiliser levels, and to relevant socio-economic aspects of farmers themselves, such as technological knowledge and farm size.     

Policy and Management Work within International Agricultural Research

The diversity of players in the field of agricultural (and, more generally, rural) policy and management research is sketched in a global overview of relevant research resources, and the small but important part played by the CGIAR Centres in this is explored, particularly where it has maximum value in terms of international public goods, and for strategic links to other parts of the CGIAR portfolio. The patchy and often slender (and perhaps diminishing in specific cases) capacity of national agricultural policy research and analysis units in the less-developed world to deliver the needed research products is examined.     

Sustaining growth in agriculture: a quantitative review of agricultural research investments

Growth in agriculture depends on many things but one of the most important is investment in agricultural research. Decision making in the agricultural research policy area can only be aided by access to better information. This article overviews a recent endeavor to move policy dialogue beyond merely qualitative impressions towards a process that is underpinned with new and cogent data. The data used have been assembled at ISNAR in a manner designed to make comparisons both over time and between countries more valid than has been the case in the past. The comparisons thus possible reveal considerable diversity both between countries and between broad regional aggregations. Also illuminated here are issues related to the commodity orientation, capital and labor intensity, and size and scope of particular national programs.