THE EROSION OF AGRICULTURAL EXPORTS IN AN OIL ECONOMY: THE CASE OF NIGERIA

After several years of oil production and exports with attendant revenue influx, the sector is yet to make a significant impact in Nigeria's economic growth. Contrary to the hopes and expectations that greeted the oil discovery, the non-oil export sector of the economy, more specifically the agricultural sector, has been declining consistently with further increases in oil exports. This paper is intended to provide an empirical analysis of an aspect of structural change that has taken place in the Nigerian economy. The hypothesis investigated is that an increase in oil exports results in higher relative prices on non-tradeable to tradeable goods and an appreciation of the domestic currency, hence a loss of the competitiveness of the agricultural export sector in the international market. This phenomenon, popularly known as the ‘Dutch disease’, has been vigorously discussed in the United Kingdom, Norway and the Netherlands, has also received much attention from Australian economists in relation to minerals.     

AGRICULTURAL PROCESSING INDUSTRIES IN THE INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOUR*

Agricultural processing industries are sometimes recommended as being particularly suitable for industrialisation programmes in developing countries. In this article, however, it is argued that such a general statement does not appear to be warranted. In a short survey some of the criteria are first discussed by which suitability of agro-processing industries can be judged. It is concluded that the contribution to development objectives of some feasible sub-sectors can easily be overestimated. It also appears that the wide disparity of characteristics of sub-sectors that belong to the category of agricultural processing industries necessitate careful examination of individual sub-sectors before judgement as to their attractiveness for developing countries is pronounced. In order to illustrate this point evaluations of the cocoa and leather industries are briefly discussed.     

AN APPROACH TO UNIVERSITY TEACHING IN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

In our complex industrialised society there can no longer be a clear cut distinction between education and the training for a profession. Pressure from society for highly specialised knowledge and from students for satisfaction of vocational needs has resulted in the greater development of applied subjects. The aim of teaching in Agricultural Economics is to present a variety of subject matter within the framework of cohesive degree structures consistent with an academic discipline, while as far as possible fitting a student for a professional career in the field of Agricultural Economics. In the ever widening range of professional activity a distinction which has relevance to teaching can be made between the practising agricultural economist and the academic agricultural economist. For the former some professional training has to be incorporated in the first degree scheme. The need in industry and government is for economists who are prepared to make direct economic appraisals and the practising economist will therefore be involved in problem solving in a sphere where non-economic consideration have also to be weighed. He can best be fitted for his environment if he is aware of the interaction between economics and other relevant disciplines.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AGRICULTURAL POLICY REFORM IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY AND AUSTRALIA

A political-economy framework is used to explore the differences which have been observed in the pace of agricultural policy reform in the European Community and in Australia. In this framework, policy-making is endogenous in comparison with its exogenous position in applied welfare economics. It is shown that the institutional aspects of the policy process, the power of the farming lobby, and the economic philosophy of governments are important determinants of the extent of income re-distribution and of moves towards the use of more efficient instruments of income redistribution. It is argued that the degree to which politicians are captured by the farming lobby, and the extent to which they support transparency in policy-making, determine whether fundamental reforms are feasible. From this analysis, it is concluded that the pace of reform of the Common Agricultural Policy will continue to lag behind that in Australia.     

安徽矿业经济面临六个战略转变

本文在分析现状的基础上,提出了安徽矿业经济面临的六个战略性转变,即能源开发重点应由煤逐步向煤、气、电转变;矿产资源勘查开发重点应由金属矿产向非金属矿产转变;矿业经营应由粗放型向集约型经营转变;矿业经济应由原料型向产品型转变;矿产资源勘查投资体制向多元化转变;以矿业为主导产业的城市向多元化产业城市转变.     

THE DISINCENTIVE EFFECT OF FOOD-FOR-WORK ON LABOUR SUPPLY AND AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION AND DIVERSIFICATION IN ETHIOPIA

Food-for-work (FFW) as a form of food aid has been criticised for its many disincentive effects. This paper investigates alleged disincentive effects of food-for-work (FFW) on labour supply and agricultural intensification and diversification in one district of Ethiopia, using a ranking exercise and a small survey of farmer opinion. Despite the popularity of FFW as a source of income, careful project design meant that disincentives were largely avoided. In particular, the take-up of FFW was restricted, by a combination of self-targeting and community based administrative rationing; and agricultural intensification and diversification were encouraged directly through extension programmes.     

OUTLIERS IN AGRICULTURE: AN INTERVENTION ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL LAND VALUES

Intervention analysis offers a framework for the identification and modelling of outlying observations in empirical time series. Within this framework, there are two types of outlier; an additive outlier, representing a one-period blip in the series, and an innovational outlier, whose effect is spread over many time periods. Intervention analysis is used here to study an agricultural land price boom of the early 1970s that is generally believed to have been caused by speculative activity, and the statistical results are consonant with that view. The procedure detects an innovational outlier in the land price series at 1972 with dynamic effects that resemble the life cycle of a speculative bubble. It is inferred from these results that speculation added 52 per cent to the rate of growth of land prices in 1972, 19 per cent in 1973 and caused a fall in the rate of change in land prices of 19 per cent in 1974 and 17 per cent in 1975.     

TOWARDS AN AGRICULTURAL CO-OPERATIVE CLASSIFICATION

In 1981 Agricultural Co-operatives in the UK had total sales of £1.9 billion yet the behaviour of firms entitled ‘co-operative’ remains little understood. The paper presents a system for classifying agricultural co-operatives based on their financial structure and the means by which corporate financing is pursued. It is argued that differing co-operatives, irrespective of their function, adopt quite separate and distinct capitalisation philosophies. Two basic types of co-operative are identified—Capital Accumulative Co-operatives and Capital Specific Co-operatives. The latter type can be sub-divided into Capital Extensive Co-operatives and Capital Intensive Co-operatives depending on the level of assets and finance controlled by the organisation. The paper details a number of organisational and operational differences between the co-operative types and suggests that these have important implications where co-operatives become instruments of Government policy.     

THE ANALYSIS OF MEMORY BIAS IN AGRICULTURAL LABOUR DATA COLLECTION: A CASE STUDY OF SMALL FARMERS IN NIGERIA

An analysis is undertaken of daily labour data collected once-per-week for a sample of 129 farm households in Benue State, Nigeria during 1979/80. The purpose of the analysis is to test for the presence of memory bias in these data for which the recall period is up to seven days. The analysis indicates significant between-day differences in hours of agricultural work. This is partly due to the low work input for Sunday but it is also noted that the mean number of hours of agricultural work reported for the day prior to data collection is significantly lower than the means for days further removed from the time of data collection. This finding is taken to be confirmation that a significant level of memory bias exists in the labour data and it is estimated that reported hours of agricultural labour may overstate actual hours of such work by almost 38 per cent.     

LABOUR USE AND LABOUR REQUIREMENTS IN UK AGRICULTURE

Estimates of labour input coefficients for individual agricultural enterprises have many uses for policy-makers, agricultural administrators, farm mangement advisers and academics alike, though they have attracted relatively little attention in the UK in recent years. This article describes a new method for estimating labour input coefficients which enables the estimates to be updated quickly and cheaply using information already available from the annual June Census. Some possible uses of the resulting coefficients including the evaluation of prospective changes in agricultural policy are described.     

AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN JAPAN

Japan is situated at the opposite end of the European continent from Western Europe. Climate, culture and history all differ greatly between the two, as does agriculture. Half of the farmland is devoted to paddy rice, livestock raising is still a new industry and the average farm size is only one hectare. Nevertheless, one would find many similarities in policy. The oversupply of major agricultural products is one of the most serious problems in Japan, whilst slow structural reform is the other, and a declining rural community is undermining the agricultural base. This paper confines itself to an outline of Japanese agricultural policy, without making explicit comparisons with Western Europe.     

AN ADAPTIVE CONTROL APPROACH TO AGRICULTURAL POLICY*

It is postulated that some issues of economic policy in general, and of Australian agricultural policy in particular, may be analysed in the framework of an adaptive control model. Policy making is characterized as a rational, sequential decision-making process under conditions of imperfect knowledge in which forthcoming information may be used to learn about the uncertain terms as decision periods pass. Emphasis is given to the linear-quadratic control problem. The paper provides a review of the formulation of a policy problem in the framework of an adaptive control model and of derived policy strategies. An illustrative example is reported.     

NET INVESTMENT IN AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS

This essay considers investment in agricultural tractors in the UK, and examines and compares econometric models of investment. A net investment series is calculated from quality-adjusted gross investment figures, showing limited negative net investment over time but with substantial variability. Four time-series modelling techniques are compared as representations of the demand for tractors over the period 1964 to 1990; these are the accelerator (clay-clay), neo-classical (putty-putty), expectations augmented neo-classical (putty-clay) and ad hoc models. Model results support the use of an expectations augmented, neo-classical model of net investment in a partial adjustment framework. Future expectations of agricultural policy are considered as a major influence on investment, an aspect that backwards-looking expectations models only partially represent.     

INFORMATION IN AGRICULTURAL PEST CONTROL

This paper develops a decision aid for agricultural producers regarding their pest scouting and spraying activities. The basic issue is how estimates of pest populations are computed and when the operator should act using that information. Scouting for pests, essentially a search operation, can lead to a change in the strategy for applying pesticide. An adaptive-scouting process is developed to unify the spraying and scouting activities. Some results, for the cotton-lygus bug system, are presented.     

AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN WEST GERMANY

Much of the area which at present constitutes the German Federal Republic was, in the past, agriculturally backward. Since 1949, West German agriculture has made considerable technical progress, but still suffers from severe structural problems. These problems of small farm size and fragmentation have their origin in the 18th century, when farmers obtained control of the land without the enclosure movement experienced in Britain, and no serious programme of structural reform was undertaken before 1939. In recent years, West German agriculture has increased production very greatly and at the same time reduced its labour force at an unprecedented rate. Moreover, a substantial programme of structural reform was initiated in the 1950's. As a result, farmers' incomes have risen at roughly the same rate as other incomes. In the last few years, West German agriculture has come under increasing pressure as a result of economic developments and the competition of other Common Market countries. It is clear that a more radical programme of structural reform is needed.