Did the Thai rice-pledging programme improve the economic performance and viability of rice farming?

This article evaluates impacts of the rice-pledging programme on the economic performance and viability of rice farming in Thailand. It also investigates whether the effects of the programme are heterogeneous across different farm types using the propensity score matching technique to address the self-selection bias in the farm-level data set. We found that the programme enhanced the economic performance less than hoped for. Overall, the programme was estimated to improve the net direct farm income for participating farms by $175.12–$194.82 per hectare. Taking into account the heterogeneous effects of the programme across farm types, we calculated that the greatest effects may be realized by farmers within the small farms subsample, at $404.41–$439.85 per hectare, but only $139.80–$213.36 per hectare for midsize farms, and $138.82–$173.34 per hectare for large farms. With regard to the economic viability of the programme, we discovered that it had an insignificant effect on farm modernization investment initiatives. Thus, future strategies incorporated into the programme that better control increases in production costs, improve small farmers’ access to the programme and require participating farms to spend a portion of the money received on farm modernization may improve long-run benefits of the programme.     

Measuring the effects of preservation on farm profits in a continuous treatment setting

Despite billions of dollars of public appropriations to state purchase of development rights (PDR) programmes, there has been limited evaluation of the effects of these investments on the economic performance of preserved farms. This article estimates dose-response functions to evaluate the effects of enrolment in New Jersey’s PDR programme on farm profitability. The generalized propensity score method in a continuous treatment setting is used to address selection bias arising from voluntary programme participation. Treatment effects are measured across treatment levels to determine whether farm profitability is affected differently across levels of programme participation. Our findings reveal that, relative to unpreserved farms, profit per acre tends to increase along lower treatment levels. The profit per acre of preserved farms in the 1–40% treatment range is, on average, $407 higher than that of unpreserved farms in the full sample. Positive profit differentials averaging between $317 and $472 per acre are also observed in the 1–20%, 1–40% and 1–60% treatment quintiles in the farming occupation sample. We do not observe statistically significant profitability differentials when treatment effects are averaged across all positive treatment values.     

Farm Survival and Growth in Transition Economies: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Hungary

Our conceptual model states that new individual farms may begin at a small, even sub-optimal, scale of production and then those farms that are successful will survive and grow, whereas those that are not will remain small and may ultimately be forced to exit from production. The samples of individual farms analysed throughout this article are drawn from the 1998 Farm Survey in Hungary. Our estimation results show that older and larger farms are more likely to survive, farm growth decreases with farm age when farm size is held constant and that learning considerations are important. Beside these standard results, in transition economies farmers', market and industry characteristics have a significant impact on the survival and growth rates of individual farm enterprises.     

Technical and scale efficiencies of meat goat farms in the USA

This study determines i) scale and technical efficiencies, ii) marginal productive contributions for inputs and outputs and iii) efficiency drivers of meat goat farms in the USA. We estimate an input distance function (IDF) using a stochastic production frontier (SPF) technique. The average technical efficiency (TE) for the USA meat goat whole farm was 0.74. The operator education level, percentage of annual net farm income from the goat operation, regional differences and holding of an off farm job are the efficiency drivers of USA meat goat farms. We find increasing returns to scale (RTS) for USA meat goat farms. Our results suggest that USA meat goat farms can be scale efficient if their optimal size of operation is greater than approximately 64 goats or greater than 40 breeding does. Empirical Monte Carlo (MC) simulation techniques show the consistency of finite-sample properties for the input distance function.     

Conditional cash transfers and female schooling: the impact of the female school stipend programme on public school enrolments in Punjab,Pakistan

Instead of mean-tested Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programmes, some countries have implemented gender-targeted CCTs to explicitly address intra-household disparities in human capital investments. This study focuses on addressing the direct impact of a female school stipend programme in Punjab, Pakistan – Did the intervention increase female enrolment in public schools? To address this question, we draw upon data from the provincial school censuses 2003 and 2005. We estimate the net growth in female enrolments in grade 6–8 in stipend eligible schools. Impact evaluation analysis, including difference-and-difference (DD), triple differencing (DDD) and regression-discontinuity design (RDD), indicate a modest but statistically significant impact of the intervention. The preferred estimator derived from a combination of DDD and RDD empirical strategies suggests that the average programme impact between 2003 and 2005 was an increase of six female students per school in terms of absolute change and an increase of 9% in female enrolment in terms of relative change. A triangulation effort is also undertaken using two rounds of a nationally representative household survey before and after the intervention. Even though the surveys are not representative at the sub-provincial level, the results corroborate evidence of the impact using school census data.     

TECHNOLOGY,POLICY DISTORTIONS,AND THE RISE OF LARGE FARMS

Between 1900 and 2002, mean farm size in the United States tripled; productive resources were increasingly concentrated in large farms. These observations are difficult to explain as results of profit maximization by farmers in a frictionless equilibrium model, given exogenous factor endowment and technology. I show that notable shifts in the farm size distribution coincided with important changes in farm legislation and that farm programs provided larger farms more subsidy per dollar of output produced. These farm‐level distortions are crucial for the increasing dominance of large farms but have little impact on employment and productivity in agriculture.     

Cooperative membership and new technology adoption of family farms: Evidence from China

Various policies have been implemented to encourage the development of family farms and cooperatives in the past decade in China. New technology adoption is a crucial part in promoting the performance of family farms. However, empirical evidence on whether and how cooperatives would facilitate family farms to adopt new technologies remains unclear. To address the gap, this paper examines the impact of family farms’ cooperative membership on new technology adoption (i.e., new varieties, new machinery, new fertilizers, new pesticides, new pest control techniques, new production methods and new management methods). Using novel survey data from 848 family farms in China, and employing both propensity score matching approach and endogenous switching probit model, we find that for family farms, cooperative membership has positive and significant impacts on new technology adoption. When looking into different types of technology, we find that the impacts are larger on the adoption of new methods than new techniques. Moreover, the impacts are larger for family farms with lower operation income and smaller size. The findings provide important insights for policymakers tasked with promoting agricultural technology adoption.     

Evaluating the long-run impact of an innovative anti-poverty programme: evidence using household panel data

Using a four-round panel data set from the first phase of the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction – Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR – TUP) programme of BRAC, we investigate whether a one-off transfer of livestock assets improves well-being of the very poor women in Bangladesh. Programme impact is assessed on a wide range of monetary and nonmonetary measures of well-being using difference-in-difference (DD) as well as matching methods. We find significant positive long-term impact on food security, household savings, assets and participation in microfinance. Participant women are less likely to be in distress occupation and more into self-employment. However, the long-term effect is much smaller for most outcomes when compared to short- and medium-run impacts. We conclude by discussing the significance of the institutional and regional context for the observed time path of estimated programme effect.     

Grain and sunflower on Russian farms in 2001: how efficient is crop production?

An unusually detailed sample of large farms in Rostov, Ivanovo and Nizhny Novgorod regions of Russia in 2001 allows microeconomic examination of the production of grain and sunflower crops on Russian farms. Farms are found to have some excess capital and labour, but not land and other types of capital. New operators are found to be more efficient than other farms thought they do not necessarily produce more output. Neither rural infrastructure, location nor specialisation has a clear impact on farm efficiency. How workers are paid is found to be a potential short‐term method for improving farm efficiency that would not involve major farm restructuring.     

Farming system modelling for agri-environmental policy design: The case of a spatially non-aggregated allocation of conservation measures

This paper addresses the issue of designing policies for habitat conservation on agricultural land. The case under study requires a non-aggregated spatial distribution of the fields to be enrolled in an agri-environmental programme. A spatially explicit mathematical programming farm-based model, which accounts for three spatial levels (field, farm and landscape), is coupled with a relevant spatial pattern index (the Ripley L-function) to analyse the design and implementation of an agri-environmental programme aimed to preserve the Tetrax tetrax in the Plaine de Niort, France. The model is run using a stylised map with heterogeneous soil types and both crop growing and mixed dairy farms. Results show that valuable insights into agri-environmental programme design are gained through a detailed representation of farming system management. The suitable, non-aggregated spatial pattern for T. tetrax conservation is more costly than less-suitable, more aggregated patterns, because it tends to require equal participation of all farms. The policy simulations reveal that the various spatial patterns can be obtained through relatively simple uniform contract structures. An effective contract structure entails a set of two degressive payments which encourages all farms to enrol at least a small share of their land in the program.     

Measuring technical efficiency in the Greek agricultural sector

This paper measures the degree of technical efficiency of Greek farms at discrete points in time. Stochastic frontier production functions are estimated from four annual Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) surveys of the 1992–1995 period. From the results, a measure of technical efficiency is calculated for each farm for each year. The four distributions of technical efficiency values are examined and compared. All four samples show a wide range of farm-specific technical efficiency but efficiency is improving over the period. The paper also presents frontier estimates for small and large farms classified according to economic size. In that case, technical efficiency measures are calculated and their distributions are examined and compared. The results show that large farms are more efficient than small farms. However, efficiency is improving in both size farms over the period. In general, the results of this study indicate that there is substantial scope for improving technical efficiency of Greek farms.     

我国不同规模奶牛场的技术效率及其影响因素分析——基于新分类数据和随机距离函数

运用2004—2008年我国23个主要奶牛养殖省牛奶生产的新分类数据,使用随机距离函数计算了中国牛奶生产的技术效率及其变动趋势。研究结果表明:全国牛奶生产的平均技术效率为78.3%,年均增长速度5.5%,效率的进步特征明显;不同规模奶牛场的技术效率差异显著,适度扩大养殖规模有利于提升效率水平;卫生防疫、饲料投入结构、市场的消费需求和养殖户收益等因素对牛奶生产的技术效率具有显著的正向影响。     

Economic efficiency and downside risk

This article investigates the impact of downside risk on cost and revenue efficiency (RE) for a sample of farms. Downside risk or loss below a certain level of return is a concern regardless of producer risk preferences and thus a suitable measure of risk to use. Downside risk was measured as the weighted summation of net farm income below the amount needed for unpaid labour during the previous 10 years. Cost and RE were estimated using traditional input and output measures, and then re-estimated including each farm’s downside risk. Comparisons were made between the efficient farms with and without downside risk and the average for all farms. As expected, downside risk plays an important role in explaining farm inefficiency. Failure to account for downside risk overstates inefficiency and can lead to unrealistic expectations in potential efficiency improvements.     

Wind turbines and coastal recreation demand

We examine the impact of coastal wind turbines on local coastal tourism and recreation for residents of the northeastern coastal counties in North Carolina. A combination of telephone and web survey data are used to assess the impact of coastal wind farms on trip behavior and site choice. Most of the respondents to our telephone survey claim to support offshore wind energy development, and independent survey data suggest that the observed levels of support may be indicative of the broader population in this region. Overall, we find very little impact of coastal wind turbines on aggregate recreational visitation; loss in annual consumer surplus associated with wide spread wind development in the coastal zone is insignificant at $17 (or about 1.5% of annual consumer surplus). Results suggest that NC local coastal tourists are averse to wind farms in the near-shore zone; average compensating variation for wind farms one mile from the shore is estimated at $55 per household. On average, we find no evidence of aversion to wind farms 4 miles out in the ocean, or for wind farms located in coastal estuaries. For all wind farm scenarios, we find evidence of preference heterogeneity—some respondents find this appealing while others find it aversive.     

Tenure Security and Long‐term Investment on Tenanted Land: Evidence from Colonial Taiwan

We use farm diary data from Taiwan in the 1920s and 1930s to estimate the impacts of a state‐wide tenancy reform on tenants’ investment in the farmland and production outcome. The reform, commencing in 1922, enhanced the tenure security for the tenants by promoting written contracts that extended tenure length from 1 year to 5–6 years, and by establishing government‐sponsored organizations for dispute settlements. Our estimations rely on a difference‐in‐difference framework, where self‐cultivated farms are used as the control group. We find that the reform encouraged tenants to make investments in the irrigation and drainage system of the farms, which is expected to have long‐lasting benefits for production. The improved irrigation/drainage system led to significant efficiency gains for the farms. In contrast, the reform did not affect tenants’ usage of fertilizer much, which benefits production for only a crop season or a year.     

Has the Affordable Care Act increased part-time employment?

We examine the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on part-time employment. Because the ACA’s employer health insurance mandate applies to individuals who work 30 or more hours per week, employers may try to avoid the mandate by cutting workers’ hours below the 30-hour threshold in order to avoid having to provide them with health insurance. Although the employer mandate only went into effect in 2015, many observers have argued that forward-looking employers began to shift towards a part-time workforce well in advance of the mandate. To test this hypothesis, we examine relative shifts across two categories of part-time workers (25–29 hours and 31–35 hours). We find some evidence of a shift from the 31–35-hour category into the 25–29-hour category after the passage of ACA in March 2010. However, that shift is not more pronounced among low-wage workers or among workers in industries and occupations most likely to be affected by the mandate. Thus, there is little evidence that the ACA has caused the shift across hours categories, or led to an increase in part-time employment. However, the ACA could cause a shift towards part-time work in the future as the mandate takes effect.     

US Ethanol Trade Policy: Pollution Reduction or Domestic Protection

To mitigate dependence on fossil fuel and reduce pollution, the US government has undertaken several policies—an import tariff, tax credit, and mandate—to augment domestic ethanol production and increase ethanol in the fuel supply. This study uses a general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of the US ethanol import tariff on welfare by internalizing the externality and incorporating US fuel and ethanol policies and to determine the optimal tariff. The results show that because of the environmental benefits of imported ethanol, the adverse effects of domestic ethanol on the environment, the need for the imported ethanol to boost the blended gasoline production, and the economy‐wide interactions of various markets, the optimal trade policy may call for subsidizing rather than taxing ethanol imports.     

Eco-efficiency of intensification scenarios for milk production in New Zealand

New Zealand (NZ) dairy farms used to be the lowest input and most efficient dairy farms of the world. However, intensification of the traditional pasture-based system has occurred over the last decade and has not always been accompanied by increased efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to produce an updated reference of the eco-efficiency of NZ dairy farm systems and to analyse the implications of intensification on their eco-efficiency. Results for an average NZ dairy farm system were compared with those for three dairy farmlet systems representing a wide range in intensification practices. A low input system (LI) (no N fertiliser, no brought-in feed supplement, stocking rate of 2.3 cows/ha) was compared with an N-fertilised farm system (NF) (170 kg fertiliser-N/ha/year, 3 cows/ha) representing a first level of intensification and with an N-fertilised and maize silage supplemented system (NFMS) (170 kg fertiliser-N/ha/year, 13 t DM maize silage/ha/year, 5.2 cows/ha), representing a possible future intensification option. Their eco-efficiency in terms of milk production and land use was compared using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. NZ dairy farm systems rely on favourable temperate climate conditions and long-term perennial ryegrass/white clover pasture, to achieve eco-efficient milk production and land use compared to European systems. However, intensification of NZ dairy farms was shown to be detrimental to their eco-efficiency in terms both of milk production and land use functions and could greatly reduce their advantage compared to European systems. The eco-efficiency of LI was very high whatever the functional unit which is remarkable from an LCA perspective. NF and NFMS had a similar eco-efficiency except for energy use which corresponded to the most critical hot spot of NFMS. All studied NZ systems presented some areas for improvement where some new technologies available for dairy farms might play a promising role in the future. Finally, it should be highlighted that the comparison with European studies based on the literature available needs validation through a more comprehensive study using harmonised methodology and assumptions across countries.     

Structural Change in Rural Croatia—Is Early Retirement An Option?

Structural change in agriculture, although often connected with social hardship of uncompetitive small-scale farms and a loss of tradition, is inevitable. It is the basis for successful rural development. We discuss whether early retirement schemes (ERS) are a good value for public money in terms of the necessary adaptations of the farming sector in the course of economic development, and if they are an option for the EU candidate country Croatia. In Croatia, the small scale farm structure leads to widely uncompetitive farms. A study on farmers’ socioeconomic situation as well as actual and expected reactions to policy support is based on results of a household survey. The sample includes farm households from two Croatian regions: The peri-urban Zagreb county and the typically rural region of Bjelovar-Bilogora. Despite unfavourable economic conditions and insufficient farm incomes, rural people are often reluctant to give up farming. We present results on the age structure, income and production structure of farms and farmers’ likely reactions on ERS. We discuss incentives which push farmers to leave the farming sector and ask in which direction farm families plan their future. We conclude with a synthesis of the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of early retirement schemes and link them with possible outcomes in the Croatian case.     

Hidden underemployment among Irish farm holders 2002–2011

This article examines the scale of hidden underemployment on Irish farms from 2002 to 2011. We provide a measure of hidden underemployment that is not captured by the national-level statistics. Hidden underemployment can be attributed to a number of factors relating to inadequate employment situations as described at the 16th International Conference of Labour Statisticians such as low productivity, the poor utilization of skills and other factors specific to agriculture. We place particular attention upon the potential role of off-farm labour supply in solving the underemployment problem. We utilize a two-stage residual inclusion model and a random effects probit model to examine the forces behind farm underemployment. We utilize a fixed effects model to examine the factors driving the severity of farm underemployment. Our findings suggest that instances of hidden underemployment increased between 2002 and 2011. Hidden underemployment appears to be a stubborn problem and is related to the absence of off-farm employment, low yield, livestock intensity and smaller than average farm size in the sheep and drystock cattle sectors in particular.