Productivity and farm size in Australian agriculture: reinvestigating the returns to scale

A positive relationship between farm size and farm productivity is often considered to be largely due to increasing returns to scale in farm production. However, using farm‐level data for the Australian broadacre industry, we found that constant or mildly decreasing returns to scale is the more typical scenario. In this study, the marginal returns to various farm inputs are compared across farms with different sizes. We found that large farms achieved higher productivity by changing production technology rather than increasing scale alone. The results highlight the disparity between ‘returns to scale’ and ‘returns to size’ in the industry, suggesting that productivity improvement among smaller farms can be made through increasing their ability to access advanced technologies, rather than simply expanding their scale.     

The emergence of urban agriculture: Sydney,Australia

Across the world the phenomenon of urban agriculture (UA) is defining itself after emerging from a mainly grass-roots response, evidenced in the Sydney Metropolitan Region by the Hawkesbury Harvest phenomenon and the Sydney Food Fairness Alliance, to powerful global forces which are negatively and paradoxically impacting on the quality of life of urban and farming communities. In the developed world these major forces include: (1) urban sprawl and its progressive sterilization of agricultural lands; (2) the supermarket dominance of food chains; (3) the fast food industry and associated health problems such as obesity; (4) globalization. The community-based promotion and marketing of local agriculture is causing some governments and public and private organizations throughout the world to recognize UA as a strategic mechanism to enable urban communities to deal with food security in the context of neo-liberalism, climate change, pandemics, natural disasters, human and environmental health, carbon footprint, biosecurity/terrorism, peak oil, waste management, and landscape and natural resource management. This paper explores the history of UA in the Sydney region. It is a narrative that allows for UA in the Greater Sydney Metropolitan area to draw on the experiences of other developed countries where UA is establishing its position.     

The negotiations on agriculture in the Doha Development Agenda Round: current status and future prospects

The paper briefly discusses developments in the negotiationson agriculture in the WTO Doha Development Agenda Round fromJanuary 2000 to September 2005 and identifies the main elementsto be considered when speculating on the outcome of the MinisterialConference in Hong Kong.     

Urban agriculture and sanitation services in Accra,Ghana: the overlooked contribution

While urban agriculture has long been valued for providing food security and nutrition within cities, it contributes to many other urban services that are seldom cited as rationales for protecting or even expanding urban food production. Articulating the actual and possible contributions of urban agriculture to municipal sanitation and health services is critical for sustaining these urban farms and their functions into the future. In the context of the low coverage and performance of wastewater treatment plants in Accra, Ghana, health risk reduction measures implemented on and off farm can substitute to a large extent for this absence of conventional wastewater treatment. We estimate that Accra generates approximately 80,000,000L of wastewater per day, of which urban vegetable farms alone use up to 11,250,000L. By mitigating the health risks for farmers and consumers associated with widespread wastewater irrigation, these urban farms have the potential to significantly contribute to the city's sanitation needs. This could allow partial outsourcing of public health services from treatment plants to the farm, where wastewater is considered an asset instead of a problem. Urban agriculture could also significantly support buffer zone management along streams and rivers, resulting in a reduction of solid waste dumping and environmental pollution, but most importantly an improvement in flood control and related public health challenges. While urban agriculture is not the panacea for addressing these urban challenges, it can significantly contribute to their solution.     

Reflections on technological progress in the agri-food industry: Past,present, and future

Technological advances—for example, from hand milking to robotic milking—are at the heart of economic transformation and have significantly shaped the agri-food industry and economic growth throughout history. A look at the lead article of the first issue (and the first volume, 1952) of the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics (CJAE) 70 years ago reveals an ongoing inquiry within the discipline about how technological progress has shaped how we manage our farms with the implications on aggregate industry productivity and food prices. The topics discussed along these lines in the first issue of the CJAE are still relevant today—for example, challenges with measuring productivity and innovation, diffusion of innovation, technological unemployment, demand for skilled workers, financing innovations, climate change and food security. Science, technology, and innovation for the 21st century hold the potential to foster resilient and sustainable intensification of farm production and productivity growth for the agri-food industry. In this address, I reflect on the past, present, and future impacts of technological innovations and productivity growth on the agri-food industry and discuss the implications for future research, welfare, and policy.     

Ecosystem-based adaptation in cities: An analysis of European urban climate adaptation plans

Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) measures have been increasingly promoted in the literature, as well as in policies and practices, for their environmental and socio-economic co-benefits. The recent scientific literature has shown a growing interest to assess climate adaptation plans at the urban level, in recognition of the important role played by urban areas in addressing climate change challenges. However, little information is available on the combination of these two issues, i.e., the actual inclusion of EbA measures in climate adaptation plans at the urban level. This paper addresses this gap by developing a framework to analyze the treatment of EbA in urban level climate planning, and apply it to a sample of climate adaptation plans in Europe. The framework consists of a classification of EbA measures, and a scoring system to evaluate how well they are reflected in different components of the plans. The results suggest that there is in general good awareness in plans of EbA measures, and of their potential role in addressing climate change challenges. However, their treatment in climate adaptation plans at the urban level often lacks sufficient baseline information, as well as convincing implementation actions. The paper concludes by offering recommendations to improve future practice, in terms of enhancing the baseline information to improve the proposal and design of EbA measures, improving the treatment of co-benefits associated to EbA measures, and strengthening coordination with other planning tools. Possible future development of this works include the integration of the proposed EbA classification, and the analysis of a larger sample of territorial plans.     

Agricultural input subsidies,extension services,and farm labour productivity nexus: Evidence from maize farmers in Tanzania

This paper examines the effect of agricultural input subsidies (AIS) and agricultural extension services (AES) on farm labour productivity in plots planted with maize in Tanzania, using panel data from the National Panel Survey in Tanzania. To control for the endogeneity of the two programmes, a control function and instrumental variable approach is used to estimate the effects of AIS and AES on farm labour productivity. The results show that AIS and AES are significant in raising labour productivity in maize-planted plots. Similarly, AIS and AES are also effective in increasing land productivity in these plots. Moreover, each programme has comparable effects on land productivity and farm labour productivity. These findings imply that public investments in AIS and AES are effective in raising farm productivity.     

Geocultural landscaping: Guidelines and conceptual framework to design future scenarios of exploited lands

The environmental recovery of quarried areas is increasingly a landscaping first-order issue in many countries and relevant lessons can be learned from each case history, depending upon factors such as the terrain nature and landscape consolidation over time. The case of the Tivoli travertine quarries near Rome (Acque Albule Basin, Italy) is addressed with a multidisciplinary approach and analytic data indicating sustainable and resilient future solutions. Geological data are analyzed to know the resources and natural hazards of this territory. Historical landscape analyses are next accomplished to know the cultural heritage and evolution of man-nature interactions. Eventually, the present land use and 3D landscape are considered to know the current setting. This territory is characterized by natural hazards including earthquakes, degassing, subsidence, and river flooding, and by resources such as abundant thermal waters. Historical analyses show the occurrence of a significant cultural heritage including two UNESCO world heritage sites. The present landscape is characterized by deep quarries and unplanned urbanization. The integration of geological data with historical information provides a new knowledge forming a geocultural database that must be taken into consideration for future planning. Based on these results, general landscape and urban guidelines are proposed for the future recovery of this intensively-quarried and -urbanized territory. The main lesson learned from the Tivoli case history is twofold: (1) the integration and feedback between multiple disciplines and professionals (architects and geologists) working together on environmental improvements and (2) the careful view of the past territory and meticulous analysis of existing buildings and urban landscapes are the key to sustainably interpret the future landscape. The main novelty of this lesson is the improvement of the concept of cultural landscape (UNESCO: http://whc.unesco.org/en/culturallandscape/) and its expansion toward geological issues and man-geology/nature interactions. In an urban-saturated territory that is also geologically-worn by human activities (e.g., Acque Albule Basin), restoring guidelines must comply with the partly-new concept of geocultural landscaping, which consists of a sustainable and resilient planning based on the study and understanding of natural-geological hazards, natural and cultural resources, and man-nature relationships over large spaces and long terms (4D). A general conceptual framework for geocultural landscaping is eventually proposed.     

Evolution and future direction of intensified agriculture in the central mid-hills of Nepal

Nepalese mid-hill farmers have shifted from a subsistence-based farming system to an intensified farming system. This paper attempts to describe the evolution of the process of agricultural intensification in the mid-hill region by examining external drivers, trends in fertilizer use, landholding, cropping patterns, irrigation and labour use in the years 1989, 1999 and 2009. Data were obtained by means of structured interviews, focus group discussions, key informant interviews and field observations. The study revealed that modern technology and the involvement of NGOs have facilitated the agricultural intensification process in three ways: (i) by providing access to technology without any financial cost to the farmer, (ii) by increasing the variety and number of crops and encouraging farmers to discontinue crops that had pest problems and (iii) by maximizing the use of chemical fertilizers to increase production. Results showed a significant increase in the application of urea and diammonium phosphate (DAP) and a decrease in the application of farm yard manure (FYM) and muriate of potash from 1989 to 2009 (p < 0.001). The average landholding of 0.76ha in 1989 was reduced to 0.63ha by 2009. The number of crops (rice, maize or millet) cultivated per year increased to at least three crops with the introduction of potatoes and spring rice; however, some crops such as sugarcane and tobacco were not continued as a result of pest problems. Increased nitrogen input could lead to increased N₂O emissions; therefore, a better understanding of nitrogen fertilization and quantification of N₂O emissions from intensified agriculture is urgently needed to assess the possible environmental impact of input intensification.     

Productivity in Indonesian agriculture: Impacts of domestic and international research

Total factor productivity growth contributed 38% of Indonesia's agricultural output growth from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s. This study uses time series data analysed with an error correction mechanism to examine the contribution that Indonesian publicly funded agricultural research made to this outcome, allowing for other possible determinants of productivity growth, including international agricultural research, extension, government price policy and weather. The results imply a 27% real annual rate of return from a marginal increase in Indonesian agricultural research expenditure. Indonesia's public agricultural research explains virtually all of its agricultural total factor productivity growth between 1975 and 2006.     

The effects of agricultural policy on supply and productivity: Evidence from differential changes in distortions

Incentives in agriculture are highly distorted. It has long been argued that these distortions were a key explanation for differences in supply and productivity across countries, but the empirical evidence is limited. We revisit this issue using data on policy distortions across 63 countries for the period 1961–2011. We estimate the effects of differential changes in agricultural distortions across countries on supply and productivity. We highlight concerns in our analysis and previous work about endogeneity that biases the estimated effect downward—countries that lose comparative advantage are likely to increase support for agriculture. We address these concerns by including country and region-time fixed effects, along with a rich set of controls. Overall, we find evidence that enhanced incentives through policy changes can increase the rate of production growth, with about half of the increase due to productivity increases. This result is strongest in Sub-Saharan Africa where anti-agricultural policies on exports were reduced and in Europe where pro-agricultural policies on imports were reduced, driven largely by external pressure. Endogeneity appears to be strongest in Asia where countries have followed the typical pattern of raising support for agriculture during industrialization due to a rising farm-urban income gap.     

生态调节服务产品价值实现的适宜性评价及模式分区 ——以浙江省丽水市为例

研究目的：针对生态调节服务产品价值实现的难点问题,提出生态产品价值实现的适宜性评价技术,为生态产品价值实现模式在国土空间落地提供决策支持。研究方法：利用过程模型方法评价生态调节服务产品的空间分布格局,采用适宜性评价技术分析生态产品开发的适宜性。研究结果：（1）提出了“生态系统服务分类—价值实现途径—适宜性分区”生态产品价值实现的分析框架;（2）从生态系统服务、土地利用和限制因子3个方面建立了生态产品价值实现的适宜性评价指标体系;（3）定量评价了丽水市固碳、释氧、水源涵养、水土保持、污染去除、负氧离子释放、降温调节、增湿调节8种调节服务产品的空间分布格局,生态系统服务表现出空间集聚特征;（4）丽水市生态农业、生态工业、生态康养和生态补偿4种价值实现模式分区面积分别占58%、8%、13%和21%。研究结论：生态调节产品价值实现的适宜性评价和模式分区,将生态产品价值实现机制落实到国土空间上,可为“两山”转化和高质量发展提供决策参考。     

Comparing supply‐side specifications in models of global agriculture and the food system

This article compares the theoretical and functional specification of production in partial equilibrium (PE) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models of the global agricultural and food system included in the AgMIP model comparison study. The two model families differ in their scope—partial versus economy‐wide—and in how they represent technology and the behavior of supply and demand in markets. The CGE models are “deep” structural models in that they explicitly solve the maximization problem of consumers and producers, assuming utility maximization and profit maximization with production/cost functions that include all factor inputs. The PE models divide into two groups on the supply side: (1) “shallow” structural models, which essentially specify area/yield supply functions with no explicit maximization behavior, and (2) “deep” structural models that provide a detailed activity‐analysis specification of technology and explicit optimizing behavior by producers. While the models vary in their specifications of technology, both within and between the PE and CGE families, we consider two stylized theoretical models to compare the behavior of crop yields and supply functions in CGE models with their behavior in shallow structural PE models. We find that the theoretical responsiveness of supply to changes in prices can be similar, depending on parameter choices that define the behavior of implicit supply functions over the domain of applicability defined by the common scenarios used in the AgMIP comparisons. In practice, however, the applied models are more complex and differ in their empirical sensitivity to variations in specification—comparability of results given parameter choices is an empirical question. To illustrate the issues, sensitivity analysis is done with one global CGE model, MAGNET, to indicate how the results vary with different specification of technical change, and how they compare with the results from PE models.     

The research cost of adapting agriculture to climate change: A global analysis to 2050

Investments in agricultural research and development (R&D) made over the next few decades will likely prove critical in offsetting adverse climate change impacts on the global food system. In this study, we offer cost estimates of public R&D-led adaptation to climate change grounded in an explicit framework relating the flow of annual R&D expenditures to building knowledge capital and thereby raising productivity in agriculture. Our research uses a comprehensive collection of historical public agricultural R&D expenditure and a literature review of elasticity estimates linking knowledge stocks to agricultural productivity growth for key world regions. Given climate-driven crop yield projections generated from extreme combinations of crop and global circulation models, we find that offsetting crop yield losses projected by climate and crop models over 2006–2050 would require increased R&D adaptation investments of between $187 billion and $1,384 billion (in 2005 $PPP) if we invest between 2020 and 2040. This is 16–118% higher than global R&D investment if present spending trends continue. Although these costs are significant, worldwide R&D-led climate adaptation could offer favorable economic returns. Moreover, R&D-led adaptation could deliver gains in food security and environmental sustainability by mitigating food price increases and slowing cropland expansion.     

Farmland conversion to non-agricultural uses in the US and Canada: current impacts and concerns for the future

Conversion of farmland to non-agricultural uses presents a challenge to future food production and ecosystem services in US and Canada. Expansions of housing, transportation, industry, retail sales, schools and other developments are driving land out of farming. In the US there is annual conversion of 500,000 ha away from food and fibre production systems. Coupled with 1% annual population increase, this will reduce today's 0.6 ha per person to 0.3 ha by 2050. Canada has more land and smaller population, but farmland losses are occurring in fertile areas near coasts and in level valleys where highest quality land is located. Current rates of increase in agricultural productivity will not compensate for this land loss. Compared to US, there are more specific tools and legislation at the provincial level in Canada that provide opportunities for controlling sprawl. Important in both countries is general lack of awareness and concern about loss of productive farmland, a situation that could be improved through education. Stimulating collective understanding of this growing problem and providing viable solutions could provide the basis for national policy strategies to promote and assure sustainable food systems for the future and enhance the capacity to maintain vital ecosystem services.     

经济发达区土地利用变化与生态服务价值损益研究——以浙江省慈溪市为例

研究目的:以浙江省慈溪市1999—2005年的土地利用详查及更新调查数据,研究该地区土地利用变化及其所引起的生态系统服务价值的变化。研究方法:土地利用类型动态度法、土地利用程度综合指数法、生态系统服务价值当量计算法。研究结果:研究区1999—2005年园地、林地、建设用地呈增加趋势,耕地基本不变,水利设施用地和未利用地呈减少趋势;土地利用程度指数逐年上升;生态系统服务价值却随当地经济的发展逐渐下降。研究结论:今后的土地利用规划一定要严格控制建设用地扩张,提高用地效率,保证经济稳步增长和生态环境质量不断提高。     

Profitability and opportunity of conservation agriculture in acid savannah grasslands of Laos

In north-eastern Laos, the savannah grasslands of the Plain of Jars cover vast areas of potentially cultivable land. However, soil acidity, low inherent fertility, and the absence of alternatives to tillage represent significant constraints to the development of sustainable smallholder agriculture. Our objective was to evaluate the potential for conservation agriculture (CA) to enhance soil productivity and farming system profitability. A three-year rotation of rice/maize/soybean was tested under three fertilization levels and four agricultural systems: one conventional tillage-based (CT) system and three CA systems based on no-tillage with cover crops. After four cropping seasons, our results show that, compared with CT, CA systems led to similar-to-higher grain production, similar-to-higher profits, higher opportunity of livestock system intensification, and higher labour productivity regardless of fertilization levels. While CA represents a relevant alternative to current practices, our results suggest that its contribution to the emergence of a sustainable smallholder agriculture is conditioned by broader institutional transformations, including the enrolment of local manufacturers and traders for deploying no-till implements and seed market channels for cover crops, long-term public support to maintain active research and technical mentoring to farmers, and possibly the integration of ecosystem services in agricultural policy.     

Agricultural decline and sustainable development on mountain areas in Greece: Sustainability assessment of future scenarios

Agricultural decline may pose an important threat to mountain biodiversity but it also constitutes a driving force of socio-economic transformation. The aim of this study is to investigate the implications of alternative agricultural policy scenarios on the sustainable development of Greek mountain areas using a case study approach (Zagori region, Greece). Two agricultural policy scenarios were explored and assessed against a list of sustainability objectives. Causal relationships among drivers of changes and sustainability objectives were explored using Network Analysis. Our analysis has shown that agricultural liberalisation is expected to have devastating effects on the development of the area and it was strongly opposed as an alternative future by the local stakeholders. The analysis of the driver's causal relationship has also revealed that in order to ensure the sustainable development of the area it is necessary to sustain low input extensive farming, to promote mild tourism development and to enhance the operational efficiency of the National Park. Moreover, in order to reconcile agricultural decline, biodiversity and sustainable development, policy-management recommendations must be drawn at multiple administrative levels and complementary policy interventions within and between levels are required. It is thus, important that EU agricultural policies are complemented by national-regional interventions in order to regulate the fragile balance between agriculture and tourism. Finally, this study has shown that the combination of scenario analysis and sustainability assessment can provide an efficient tool to inform management strategies for sustainable development.     

Population pressure,rural-to-rural migration and evolution of land tenure institutions: The case of Uganda

This study examines the evolutionary process of land tenure systems in Uganda from communal to private ownership with a special attention to the role of rural-to-rural migration as a key driving force. By tracing migration patterns using unique longitudinal household survey data containing detailed information on land tenure and migration history, we found that immigrant-dominated communities have a higher incidence of private land ownership even after controlling for population density and market access. We also found that land markets are more active in immigrant-dominated communities and that private land ownership results in higher agricultural productivity.