The effects of a subsidy for grassland protection on livestock numbers,grazing intensity,and herders’ income in inner Mongolia

Primary data from 262 pastoral households in Inner Mongolia are analyzed to determine the effects of a subsidy for grassland protection on livestock numbers, grazing intensity, and herders’ income. Econometric models are estimated to determine the effects of the subsidy on each component of the intensity ratio (sheep-equivalent livestock units and grassland). Results suggest the subsidy increased the quantity of grassland controlled by the household. However, the effects on livestock units are mixed, with two of the four studied prefectures (Ordos and Ulanqab) showing a positive response, and two (Hulunbuir and Xilingol) showing a negative response. Inserting the parameter estimates from the livestock, grassland, and income functions into a structural model of grazing intensity, results suggest each 1% increase in subsidy reduces grazing intensity by between 0.168% and 0.532% depending on the prefecture, and increases herders’ income by between 0.144% and 0.670%. By way of comparison, each additional year of education increases herders’ income by 8.7% and reduces grazing intensity by 3.6%. Thus, education is not to be overlooked as a policy tool for achieving conservation goals.     

Liberalization of agricultural input markets in Bangladesh: process,impact, and lessons

The study takes a historical perspective to trace the path of evolutionary reforms in agricultural input markets of Bangladesh. It estimates the magnitude of the impact of these reforms on rice production, the most important crop in Bangladesh agriculture. It is estimated that the production of rice could have been 20-32% lower than the level of 1992/1993, depending on the rice price that would have prevailed under alternative scenarios. The 20% credit to market reform relates to a real rice price level 19% higher than the actual 1992/1993 prices. The 32% credit to reform relates to the actual 1992/1943 price levels. The lower contribution of reform (20%) to increased production implies a loss to consumers not accounted for in the production benefit of reform, while the higher contribution (32%) of reform entails no loss to consumers. The bottom-line conclusion is that Bangladesh, without the market reforms described in the paper, would have reverted back to the situation of regular food crisis and high rice prices, as was the case historically. The analysis of the process of reform provides interesting lessons for developing countries. A gradual process based on a well-designed sequencing of various steps of market reform, particularly in the case of fertilizer, was a crucial factor for success. Careful monitoring during the period of transition is another crucial factor that has to be institutionalized in the system. Second generation problems of market reforms, particularly the emergence of an oligopolistic market structure, are possible and warrant a cautionary watch.     

Urban agriculture could provide 15% of food supply to Sydney,Australia, under expanded land use scenarios

Urban agriculture (UA) can be highly productive in terms of yield per unit area, however productivity is limited by available land and high input requirements. We determined how much of the food supply of Sydney, Australia, could be produced through UA by synthesising yield data from 13 UA gardens with information on labour and key material inputs and using spatial analyses to assess available land area. We modelled three scenarios with varying proportions of available land used for food production; 25 %, 50 % or 75 % of domestic yard space along with street verges and unused land (e.g. vacant lots). Around 15 % of Sydney’s total food supply, or its entire vegetable supply, could be produced through UA under the low range scenario, increasing to 34 % under the highest land use scenario. Under the low range scenario, all necessary irrigation water and organic soil amendments could be obtained from local waste streams, though these sources were insufficient to meet the needs of higher range scenarios. Available labour was a limiting factor in all scenarios, with the entire population being insufficient to meet labour needs required to maintain food production under efficiency and labour investment regimes typical of amateur urban gardeners. Establishing a professionalised UA workforce with greater labour efficiency would be required for managing the available land, however this scenario would likely require changes in public attitudes towards use of private land. These social issues, rather than physical limitations, may be the biggest factors preventing cities like Sydney from obtaining a non-trivial proportion of their food supply from UA.     

Floods,food security,and coping strategies: Evidence from Afghanistan

In this paper, we assess the long‐term effect of floods on food security (as measured by calorie and micronutrient consumption) by applying an instrumental variable approach to data from the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment survey. To identify the determinants of this effect, we also estimate how floods affect per capita yearly household income and poverty status. We find that exposure to flooding during a 12‐month period decreased daily calorie consumption by approximately 60 kcal while increasing the probability of iron, vitamin A, and vitamin C deficiency by 11, 12, and 27 percentage points, respectively. Controlling for price shocks and income only marginally reduces this flood effect on food security, suggesting that impaired livelihoods (rather than price hikes) are its primary driver. We further determine that exposure to this natural disaster decreases income by about 3% and makes flood‐affected households about 3 percentage points more likely to be poor. Lastly, we show that experience of floods is strongly and significantly associated with lower diet quality and quantity, and with engaging in consumption smoothing coping strategies, such as buying food on credit and taking loans. These findings underscore the serious direct impact of floods on both diet and effective behavioral responses to such shocks while emphasizing the need for targeted micronutrient supplementation in disaster relief and food aid measures even after the period of natural disaster emergency.     

Food Aid, Food Prices, and Producer Disincentives in Ethiopia

Although the short-term aims of food aid are well conceived, strong concerns have been voiced regarding the long-term impacts of such aid on incentives for agricultural producers in recipient countries. This article examines the statistical link between food aid shipments and food prices in Ethiopia over the period 1996–2006. Monthly data from three markets and three commodities are used to estimate a system of seemingly unrelated regression models for food prices. Results indicate that previous year food aid shipments reduce prices in all producer and consumer markets. These effects, however, appear to be limited to the set of internationally traded commodities that are domestically marketed. A recursive regression procedure is used to identify the food aid threshold at which a negative aid effect emerges. Food aid shipments that constitute less than 10% of domestic production appear to be benign, but shipments above this level show signs of being disruptive to local markets. We use a simple policy simulation to argue that production-sensitive targeting, e.g., conditioning food aid on local food production, would help to circumvent disincentive effects.     

Measuring Interactions among Urbanization, Land Use Regulations, and Public Finance

This article presents a polychotomous choice-selectivity model to estimate the interactions among urbanization, land use regulations, and public finance in five western states (California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington). Land use regulations in these five states reduced the total developed area by an estimated 12.2% from 1982 to 1992, but increased housing prices between 1.3% and 4.7%, depending on the intensity of land use regulations in a county. Land use regulations also reduced public expenditure and property tax in the long run by 5.6% and 8.4%, respectively, but increased public expenditure and property tax in the short run by 9.8% and 12.6%.     

Relationship between urban construction land expansion and population/economic growth in Liaoning Province,China

The rapid expansion of urban construction land will lead to decoupling from the trend of economic development and population growth. A previous study have shown that there is a long-term bidirectional causal relationship between urban land expansion and economic and population growth. To further explore this relationship, we used remote sensing and statistical data combined with center-of-gravity shift index, coordination degree model, Theil index, and Tapio elastic decoupling index. The main results were as follows: (1) The urban construction land expansion in Liaoning Province has obvious geographical location characteristics, and it can be classified in three types: only along the traffic lines expansion, only along the coastline, along the rivers and traffic lines concurrently. (2) The per capita construction land area (PCCLA) is growing rapidly, and by 2015, 13 cities (all except Benxi) of the province exceeded the national standard for PCCLA (120 m²). Three of these cities (Yingkou, Dalian, and Huludao) exceeded the standard by more than 100%. The uncoordinated areas of land and population urbanization spread from coastal areas to central and western areas and finally to the entire province. (3) The correlation between urban construction land expansion and economic growth has changed from weak positive to strong negative decoupling. After 2010, the decoupling index for all cities became negative. In Huludao, Chaoyang, Panjin, Dalian, Shenyang, and Jinzhou, the construction land expansion was more than 3%, coupled with a 1% decrease in non-agricultural GDP. For other cities, the construction land expansion was less than 3% for a 1% decrease in non-agricultural GDP. These results demonstrate that the rapid growth of construction land was related to a negative economic growth. The findings also suggest that under the current pattern of economic growth, it may be difficult to control the expansion of construction land. New construction land should be reasonably planned and managed, and the dependence of economic growth on construction land and speed of population urbanization is a new challenge that should be reexamined by the local government.     

Technical,allocative and economic efficiencies in swine production in Hawaii: a comparison of parametric and nonparametric approaches

Technical, allocative and economic efficiency measures arc derived for a sample of swine producers in Hawaii using the parametric stochastic efficiency decomposition technique and nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA). Efficiency measures obtained from the two frontiei approaches are compared. Firm-specific factors affecting productive efficiencies are also analyzed. Finally, swine producers, potential for reducing cost through improved efficiency is also examined. Under the specification of variable returns to scale (VRS), the mean technical, allocative and economic efficiency indices are 75.9%, 75.8% and 57.1%, respectively, for the parametric approach and 75.9%, 80.3% and 60.3% for DEA; while for the constant returns to scale (CRS) they are 74.5%, 73.9% and 54.7%, respectively, for the parametric approach and 64.3%, 71.4% and 45.7% for DEA. Thus the results from both approaches reveal considerable inefficiencies in swine production in Hawaii. The removal of potential outliers increases the technical efficiencies in the parametric approach anil allocative efficiencies in DEA, but, overall, contrary to popular belief, the results obtained from DEA are found to be more robust than those from the parametric approach. The estimated mean technical and economic efficiencies obtained from the parametric technique are higher than those from DEA for CRS models but quite similar for VRS models, while allocative efficiencies are generally higher in DEA. However, the efficiency rankings of the sample producers based on the two approaches are highly correlated, with the highest correlation being achieved for the technical efficiency rankings under CRS. Based on mean comparison and rank correlation analyses, the return to scale assumption is found to be crucial in assessing the similarities or differences in efficiency measures obtained from the two approaches. Analysis of the role of various firm-specific factors on productive efficiency shows that farm size has strong positive effects on efficiency levels. Similarly, farms producing market hogs arc-more efficient than those producing feeder pigs. Based on these results, by operating at the efficient frontier the sample swine producers would be able to reduce their production costs by 38-46% depending upon the method and returns to scale considered.     

Critical issues suggested by trends in food,population, and the environment to the year 2020

This article reviews the emerging trends in global food supply and demand up to 2020, and discusses policy challenges and obstacles to meeting this demand. Data were obtained from the International Food Policy Research Institute's International Model for Policy Analysis of Commodities and Trade (Rosegrant et al.). The country-specific data pertains to 37 countries and regions and 17 food commodities and prices in the world market. Cereal prices are expected to decline by about 11% by 2020; meat prices may decline by 6%. After 2010, cereal prices are expected to dramatically decline. Cereal demand will change with changes in income and urbanization. Maize and coarse grains will be replaced by wheat and rice. Life style changes may lead to a switch from rice to wheat. Growth in food consumption in developed countries will slow. A projected 82% of growth in global cereal consumption and almost 90% of increased global meat demand will occur in developing countries during 1993-2020. Asia alone will account for 48% of increased cereal consumption and 61% of increased meat consumption. 88% of food production growth will occur in developing countries through increased yields and 94% in developed countries. World trade in cereals will increase from an estimated 185 million metric tons annually to 328 million during 1993-2020. Food security for the poor and child malnutrition will remain unimproved. Yield growth is affected by agricultural research, fertilizer and energy use, land degradation, water scarcity, and bad policy. Water scarcity is the most limiting on yield growth. Malnutrition problems present multiple challenges.     

淡水壳菜对鄱阳湖区双壳类的感染状况调查

2001—11-2002—05的鄱阳湖候鸟保护区淡水壳菜对双壳类的感染情况调查显示,淡水壳菜对双壳类的感染具有普遍性,扭蚌、背瘤丽蚌、洞穴丽蚌、猪耳丽蚌等种类的感染率较高,所有个体的平均感染率为35．3％;不同的个体间,感染强度的变化比较大,所有被感染个体的平均感染强度为6．6;感染强度≥10的个体仅占被感染个体的18．4％;淡水壳菜主要寄生在双壳类的壳顶和进、出水管附近。     

Economic Impacts of Technology,Population Growth And Soil Erosion At Watershed Level: The Case Of the Ginchi in Ethiopia

A dynamic bio‐economic model is used to show that, without technological and policy intervention, soil loss levels, income and nutrition could not be substantially or sustainably improved in a highland area of Ethiopia. Although cash incomes could rise by more than 40% over a twelve‐year planning period, average per ha soil losses could be as high as 31 tonnes per ha. With the adoption of an integrated package of new technologies, however, results show the possibility of an average two‐and‐a‐half‐fold increase in cash incomes and a 28% decline in aggregate erosion levels even with a population growth rate of 2.3%. Moreover, a minimum daily calorie intake of 2000 per adult equivalent could be met from on‐farm production with no significant increases in erosion. However, higher rates of growth in nutritional requirements and population introduce significant strains on the watershed system. From a policy perspective, there is a need for a more secure land tenure policy than currently prevailing to facilitate uptake of the new technology package, and a shift from the current livestock management strategy to one that encourages livestock keeping as a commercial enterprise. It would also imply a shift to a more site‐specific approach to land management.     

Agro-Manufactured Export Prices, Wages and Unemployment

This article estimates the impacts of world agricultural trade liberalization on wages and unemployment in Argentina in the presence of individual labor supply responses and adjustment costs in labor demand. After a 10% increase in agro-manufactured export prices, I find that: ( a ) the employment probability would increase by 1.36 percentage points, matched by a decline in the unemployment probability of 0.75 percentage points and an increase in labor market participation of 0.61 percentage points; ( b ) the unemployment rate would decline by 1.23 percentage points; ( c ) expected wages would increase by 10.3%, mostly due to higher employment probabilities.     

非农就业、经营模式与林业生产效率

基于江西省、湖南省和福建省943户农户的调研数据,运用DEA-Tobit方法测算农户家庭的林业生产效率并分析非农就业和经营模式对农户家庭林业生产效率的影响,采用HLM方法检验经营模式对非农就业与林业生产效率的调节效应。结果表明:江西省、湖南省和福建省3省的农户家庭林业生产效率普遍处于较低水平同时具有较大的提升空间,且存在群组差异性;非农就业对农户家庭的林业生产效率具有显著的负向影响;联户经营可提高农户家庭的林业生产效率,并在非农就业与林业生产效率之间起显著的正向调节作用;年龄、受教育程度、林业培训、林地细碎化程度、林业劳动力投入、林地经营面积、林业补贴和地区差异是影响农户家庭林业生产效率的稳健因素。     

Toward a green revolution in Africa: what would it achieve,and what would it require?

The current global food crisis has reemphasized the costliness of Africa's failure to achieve food security and poverty reduction. The instrument by which other more successful developing countries achieved these outcomes was a “Green Revolution” in agriculture. While previous research has provided largely discursive appraisals of the viability of an African Green Revolution, this article adopts a more rigorous methodology to address that question. First, an economy‐wide multimarket model, augmented with existing poverty–growth elasticities, is developed to assess the likely impacts of a rapid acceleration in food production (of the kind witnessed in previous Green Revolutions) on food prices, consumption and demand, farmer revenue, and poverty. Our results suggest that a rapid growth in staple production, together with more integrated regional markets, would reduce food prices by roughly 20–40% for consumers and 10–20% for producers among the major crops. This translates into a large rise in farm revenues, annual agricultural growth rates of 6.5% or higher, broader income growth and food security, and over 70 million Africans being lifted out of poverty. The article concludes by emphasizing the kinds of fundamental policy actions and resources that would be required for achieving these outcomes.     

内蒙古达赉湖国家级自然保护区狼捕食家畜现状

2004-07～2005-06,在内蒙古达赉湖国家级自然保护区嘎拉达白辛站考察,监测狼的种群波动,并对狼害的情况进行评估;结果表明:自然食物的匮乏导致狼在冬季大量捕食家畜,造成人狼矛盾激化,人类捕杀成为狼致死的主要因素;建议改变目前的放牧方式,重引入当地的一些原生物种,补充狼的自然食物,以缓解狼对家畜的捕食压力。     

Effects of Crop Prices,Nuisance Costs,and Wetland Regulation on Saskatchewan NAWMP Implementation Goals

Current Saskatchewan wetland regulation may be insufficient to meet North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) preservation and restoration goals in a climate of increasing demand for grains and nuisance costs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to ascertain the effects that crop prices, nuisance costs, and alternate wetland regulation have on these goals. An integrated geographic information system and economic farm‐level model that assesses the net present value of drainage projects in the Whitesand River Watershed is employed. If prices eventually reach historical highs observed in the early 1970s, more than 85% of the wetland area in the study area could be drained, making NAWMP goals impossible to achieve. In this scenario, nuisance costs have little effect on drainage outcomes because they are dwarfed by the magnitude of agricultural revenue. If prices remain at the current higher levels observed from 2007 to 2012, the use of a binding permit could help achieve NAWMP goals. In this case, nuisance costs play a large role in determining the drainage of marginal, comparatively larger wetlands. If prices return to the recent lower levels observed from 1999 to 2006, current Saskatchewan regulation is sufficient. In this scenario, agricultural returns are low and nuisance costs are not high enough to cause wetland drainage. Both wetland regulation and nuisance costs can play an important role in agricultural wetland drainage, but that role depends critically upon the price of agricultural products.     

Environmental discounting behaviour of smallholder farmers in Chibombo District,Central Zambia

This study utilised 158 semi structured interviews, three focus group discussions and two key informant interviews to achieve its aim of investigating environmental discounting by smallholder farmers in Chibombo, Zambia. Results suggest that most smallholder farmers were willing to continue using mineral fertilisers in the short to medium term even when they were told there could be potentially negative effects as a result. This result was attributed to the farmers’ experience with neutralising soil acidity through lime application and crop rotations. The proportions of smallholder farmers who would continue using pesticides increased with the period it takes for pesticide induced soil infertility to manifest. The respondents seemed more concerned about effects on the soil that would manifest in five years. Smallholder farmers preferred soil improving practices with short term benefits, and low risk. The proportions of smallholder farmers willing to plant fertiliser trees reduced from 68.5 % when the benefits accrue in five years to about 38 % when said benefits accrue to the next generation. Study recommends that agricultural development interventions should focus on low risk, locally available technologies with shorter term benefits and minimal future costs. Study recommends that agricultural development interventions include innovation of practices with shorter term benefits, minimal future costs and farmer sensitisation on the benefits of sustainable agriculture.     

Migrant remittances,agriculture investment and cropping patterns

We investigate how the receipt and amount of domestic or international transfers influences household decisions regarding farm investment and the selection of capital and labour-intensive crops. We argue that, even though recipient households may use additional income to increase agricultural investment, investment can fall in the short run if labour constraints arising from the migrant member's absence are binding and capital accumulation is suboptimal. Employing a set of endogenous treatment estimates, we test this hypothesis on data from 5636 rural households in Pakistan. Our findings show a substantial difference between recipient and non-recipient households in terms of their economic behaviour. Recipient households make 100% less agricultural investment and generate 82% less production compared to non-recipient households. The estimates are found to be robust when tested with alternate empirical techniques (Heckman Selection and matching). The impact is stronger in the case of households that receive domestic transfers, with 100% less farm investment and 77% less production than non-recipient households. Remittances result in a decrease in production of both capital- and labour-intensive crops, reflecting a decline in overall farm activity. Similar farm investment and cropping patterns are observed relative to the amount of remittances received. The results are robust to different model specifications and estimation procedures.     

A meta-analysis of intercropping in Africa: impacts on crop yield,farmer income,and integrated pest management effects

Poverty and hunger in Africa are prevalent and will increase in absolute terms with population growth and continued land degradation. Therefore, there is a need for sustainable agricultural strategies, such as conservation agriculture (CA) and integrated pest management (IPM). Among CA practices, intercropping holds the promise of providing benefits to smallholders through increased crop yields and income as well as improved resource use. We review intercropping’s effects on crop yield, income, and output of IPM practices in Africa. On average, intercropping increases crop yields by 23% and gross income by 172 USD/ha, but effects vary significantly depending on management practices and agro-ecological factors. There was no evidence that yields and gross income for intercropping treatments increase when leguminous intercropping combinations, minimum/reduced tillage, pesticides, or fertilizers were utilized. Dual use of herbicides and intercropping practices garnered 1442 USD/ha more in gross income and yielded 1422 kg/ha more compared to those in conventionally managed fields, signifying the positive influence supplemental inputs can have on intercropping’s effects. Although IPM practices increased yields by 20%, on average, IPM systems integrated with intercropping yielded 24% less than IPM systems that did not. This meta-analysis indicates that intercropping is an advantageous sustainable agricultural practice, but that its effective implementation would depend on considering other factors such as adequate control of competing vegetation. There is a clear need for more scientific studies which examine intercropping’s role in complex sustainable agricultural systems, in order to understand its effects in differential environmental and socioeconomic situations and to optimize the practice’s transfer and benefits.     

Gender,control, and crop choice in northern Mozambique

Women play an important role in the agricultural production process in developing countries, yet their role in making decisions about what to grow and implications for household welfare remains poorly understood. In this article, I study women's empowerment in northern Mozambique as it relates to agriculture, considering in particular the factors associated with women managing the plots that they nominally control. Women control about 30% of the plots in the data, but only manage about 70% of those plots. Using a unique panel data set, I find that women are more likely to manage plots when households have had historic access to off‐farm labor, typically completed by men. When women manage plots, they tend to grow crops with less complicated production techniques and are less likely to grow the main area cash crop. However, conditional on historic access to off‐farm labor their farm incomes are the same as among men.