On the foundation of agricultural policy research in the United States

This paper identifies three scientific research programs in agricultural economics. The farm management approach (1870-1933), the farm problem approach (1933-1982) and the domestic and global welfare approach (1982-). In respect to agricultural policy research two competitive research programs developed out of the farm crisis of the 1920s. One program argued for government intervention in agriculture. The other argued for stability in the general economy. The former program degenerated during the 1970s because of countervailing empirical evidence and a change in the understanding of positive economics. The latter program stayed progressive by adding the international dimension and by applying welfare economic analysis. Two other important factors influenced the development of agricultural policy. First, the unique institutional set up of the land grant system in which agricultural economics was founded as an applied science with a bias to help farmers. Second, the convergence of agricultural economics towards general economics that shifted the approach from applied to basic.     

Do Formula or Competitive Grant Funds Have Greater Impacts on State Agricultural Productivity?

This article examines the impact of public agricultural research and extension on agricultural total factor productivity at the state level. The objective is to establish whether federal formula or competitive grant funding of agricultural research has a greater impact on state agricultural productivity. A pooled cross-section time-series model of agricultural productivity is fitted to annual data for forty-eight contiguous states over 1970–1999. Our results show that public agricultural research and agricultural extension have statistically significant positive impacts on state agricultural productivity. In addition, Hatch formula funding has a larger impact on agricultural productivity than federal competitive grant funding, and a reallocation of Hatch formula funds to competitive grant funding would lower agricultural productivity. This seems unlikely to be a socially optimal policy. Furthermore, from a cost–benefit perspective, our study shows that the social marginal annualized real rate of return to public resources invested in agricultural research is 49–62%, and to public agricultural extension, the rate is even larger.     

Earmarked: The Political Economy of Agricultural Research Appropriations

Since 1965 a significant portion of the US Department of Agriculture's extramural research budget has been earmarked by Congress for particular research projects. We analyze the process by which a minority of Congress induces the USDA to carry out its budgetary suggestions. We present evidence demonstrating the influence that appropriators possess over the allocation of earmarked grants. Finally, we argue that this program provides an excellent illustration of path-dependence in government policy, and that an understanding of the special grants program may shed light on the decline of science at the USDA and Congress's reluctance to increase agricultural research funding.     

Importance and Need for Rural Development Instruments Under the CAP: A Survey of Farmers' Attitudes in Marginal Areas of Greece

The present work assesses the attitudes towards importance and need for providing agricultural development instruments other than traditional grant aid mechanisms in rural areas. Assistance in marketing farm produce, provision of extension services on new agricultural technology, agricultural training and provision of quality standards are four of the instruments examined. The importance and need for providing these instruments depends upon producers' human capital accumulation and farm characteristics. The analysis indicates that different instruments may apply to different parts of the rural population and thus a flexible, multi-instrument and selective rural development policy may be required.     

Measuring the social costs of suboptimal combinations of policy instruments: A general framework and an example

Since most agricultural programs employ two or more policy instruments simultaneously, it is notable thai little research has attempted to find optimal instrument combinations and no research exists which evaluates the social costs (unrealized benefits) of combining instruments suboptimally. In our paper we report a simple and feasible method to find optimal policy instrument combinations, and we provide the first general, formal approach to measuring the social costs of suboptimal policy instrument combinations. Our approach is illustrated in an analysis for live major U.S. crops (corn, feed grains, wheat, rice, cotton). The simple model we employ for the illustration suggests that except lor the feed grains program, the observed programs combined policy instruments quite suboptimally. We conclude that agricultural economics research now can and should begin placing increased emphasis on studying optimal policy instrument combinations.     

Government Spending, Growth and Poverty in Rural India

Using state-level data for 1970–93, a simultaneous equation model was developed to estimate the direct and indirect effects of different types of government expenditure on rural poverty and productivity growth in India. The results show that in order to reduce rural poverty, the Indian government should give highest priority to additional investments in rural roads and agricultural research. These types of investment not only have much larger poverty impacts per rupee spent than any other government investment, but also generate higher productivity growth. Apart from government spending on education, which has the third largest marginal impact on rural poverty and productivity growth, other investments (including irrigation, soil and water conservation, health, and rural and community development) have only modest impacts on growth and poverty per additional rupee spent.     

基于SSM模型的甘肃省农业综合实力结构分解与类型划分

［目的］以农业生产水平、农业成长水平和农业产出水平为研究变量分析甘肃省农业综合实力发展总体水平和结构性现状。［方法］运用SSM模型,从农业生产水平、农业成长水平和农业产出水平3个维度动态分析和比较2004—2010年和2010—2016年甘肃省农业综合实力结构状况并进行类型划分。［结果］2004—2016年农业成长水平和农业产出水平均为推动甘肃省农业综合实力发展的贡献要素,农业生产水平是主要的制约因素; 甘肃省各地农业综合实力呈现不同程度变化,武威、张掖表现为较大幅度的提升,酒泉、金昌、嘉峪关、兰州则出现一定程度的下降,平凉、临夏、甘南表现为小幅提升,其他地区则表现为不同程度的下降。甘肃省农业综合实力划分为优势发展型、滞后发展型、结构突破型和竞争突破型4类,酒泉一直属于优势发展型,张掖、平凉一直属于结构突破型,金昌、兰州由竞争突破型发展为优势发展型,武威由结构突破型发展为优势发展型,嘉峪关、白银、定西、天水、庆阳由竞争突破型发展为结构突破型,临夏由结构突破型发展为竞争突破型,甘南、陇南由结构突破型发展为滞后发展型。［结论］2004—2016年甘肃省农业综合实力地区差异明显,武威、张掖、酒泉、金昌、嘉峪关、兰州农业综合实力保持全省重心位置; 农业综合实力内部结构差异明显,农业成长水平相较于农业生产水平和农业产出水平对农业综合实力贡献率更高,农业生产水平是主要的制约因素,农业产出水平作为农业成长水平的补充是进一步提升地方农业综合实力的主要动力。针对甘肃省农业综合实力状况提出今后提升建议。     

Measuring research benefits in an imperfect market

In this paper, an imperfect market model is developed for evaluating agricultural research benefits. The main finding is that the increases in societal gain, and the producer's share of this gain, are larger with a monopoly than with a competitive market. The paper argues that if the market for an agricultural input or for a commodity is not competitive, then use of a competitive model for assessing research benefits could lead to understatements of both producer and total benefits.     

A model of the U.S. food system: What are the determinants of the state vulnerabilities to production shocks and supply chain disruptions?

We adapt a Ricardian general equilibrium model to the setting of U.S. domestic agri-food trade to assess states’ vulnerability to adverse production shocks and supply chain disruptions. To this end, we analyze how domestic crop supply chains depend on fundamental state-level comparative advantages—which reflect underlying differences in states’ cost-adjusted productivity levels—and thereby illustrate the capacity of states to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of such disruptions to the U.S. agricultural sector. Based on the theoretical framework and our estimates of the model's structural parameters obtained using data on U.S. production, consumption, and domestic trade in crops, we undertake simulations to characterize the welfare implications of counterfactual scenarios depicting disruptions to (1) states’ agricultural productive capacity, and (2) interstate supply linkages. Our results emphasize that the distributional impacts of domestic supply chain disruptions hinge on individual states’ agricultural productive capacities, and that the ability of states to mitigate the impacts of adverse production shocks through trade relies on the degree to which states are able to substitute local production shortfalls by sourcing crops from other states.     

Setting Efficient Incentives for Agricultural Research: Lessons from Principal-Agent Theory

A conceptual analysis of important issues in the organization and management of academic research is presented. Principal-agent theory is applied to derive optimal compensation schemes for scientists when they differ in ability, risk aversion, cost of effort, and reservation utility, and to show the optimal trade-off between institutional risk and scientists' abilities. Implications for an efficient organization of research are derived, including how scientists' incentives should be structured to elicit optimal research efforts and direction, whether research direction should be centralized or decentralized, and whether the organization of research should be through external competitive grants or program and institutional funding.     

Agriculture, pesticides and the ecosystem

Economists have a good understanding of intra-economic interdependence and a mature methodology of modelling it. Ecologists focus on the complex and sensitive interactions of species in ecosystems. This paper’s objective is to suggest a new micro-foundation of ecosystem analysis based on economic methodology, to integrate the analyses of the ecosystem and the economy and focus on the interface of ecosystem-economy relations. Agriculture forms a major part of this interface. The basic assumption is that in the short run the individual organisms of all species behave as if they optimise their costly offensive and defensive activities given other organisms’ activities (Nash-behaviour).We consider an ecosystem with three species in a unidirectional food chain: buzzards feed on mice, mice feed on grain, and grain feeds on solar energy. A fourth species, humans, also feeds on grain. Humans intervene in the ecosystem in various ways. They can grow grain by using seed, farm labour, pesticides and possibly nature conservation measures to maintain buzzard habitat. Short-run ecosystem equilibrium is characterised, and it is shown, in particular, how this equilibrium depends on farming activities. We then link this ecosystem model to a simple model of an agricultural economy. Both systems are solved for equilibrium simultaneously. From an economic perspective the ecosystem induces positive and negative externalities in agricultural production and in consumer ‘green’ preferences.The inefficiencies of the competitive economy are identified and some possibilities to restore efficiency through corrective taxes or subsidies are briefly discussed. We also outline how short-run equilibria are connected through ecosystem stock-flow relationships. Due to the complexity of the inter-temporal analysis, the resulting ecosystem dynamics cannot be characterised in general analytical terms. It is a topic for future research to study the dynamics in numerical analysis to understand under which conditions the joint ecological and economic system is driven toward a (sustainable) steady state.     

农情遥感监测与服务系统集成研究

综合分析了国内外农业遥感监测系统的技术模式和建设方案,充分调研农业部农情遥感监测业务的需求,同时分析实验室各种现有系统,设计并选择了一种较科学的系统集成方案。系统集成考虑功能、经济、扩展以及稳定等多方面因素,最终选择利用O rac le10.0G建立数据库;利用ArcG IS9.2为地理信息平台,完成空间和属性数据的显示、统计分析以及信息服务等功能需求;利用Erdas8.6为影像数据处理平台,并用其V isual C++开发包进行系统定制与开发。系统的建设以现有"国家级农情遥感监测系统"为基础,进行功能升级和扩展。该系统的建设,将大大提高我国农情业务监测的能力和科学性,是对我国农业遥感技术的一种总结和科学提升。此外,该文还论述了系统建设技术路线的可行性与必要性。     

我国农业产业集群核心企业竞争力影响机制的实证研究

结合国内外企业竞争力的理论研究，在对210家浙江省农业集群核心企业问卷调查的基础上，本文采用探索性因子分析和结构模型(SEM)，对提升农业核心企业竞争力的影响因素进行结构测量和机理分析。研究表明，农业产业集群核心企业竞争力影响因素(需求条件、集群生态、企业素质和社会资源)对核心企业竞争力(包括财务能力、市场能力、学习能...     

Agricultural Research Problems in Small Developing Countries: Case Studies from the South Pacific Island Nations

While research-based technological improvements are an important part of a successful agricultural development strategy, the small South Pacific Island Nations face special difficulties in attaining such innovations because of their particular agricultural production and marketing circumstances and because of diseconomies of small size in research. There is a need to sharpen the focus of national agricultural research efforts on adaptive work, implying both increased international and regional collaboration and the reorientation of national programs to be more receptive to outside ideas and information. It is particularly important to seek a parsimonious research paradigm, involving a broadening of the range of people who contribute to the research process.     

Measuring the impacts of agricultural research on poverty reduction

Policymakers are increasingly calling upon agricultural research managers to consider poverty reduction objectives when making resource allocations. The authors present a simple method to measure the impact of agricultural research on the poor. This method has the advantage that it presents the results in a manner consistent with commonly used measures of poverty. This consistency and focus should facilitate and enhance dialogue between policymakers and research managers when deciding on resource allocations and assessing impacts on poverty reduction. An illustrative application is presented using data from Malawi.     

Women farmers’ participation in the agricultural research process: implications for agricultural sustainability in Ethiopia

Empowering women farmers to participate in agricultural research is a key strategy for sustainable agricultural development. Women empowerment has the potential to improve their roles in agricultural production while enhancing nutrition and food security. Although new agricultural development policies are focusing on improving women engagement in agriculture, there is limited literature on women empowerment in relation to agricultural research. This study used mixed methods to analyse women farmers’ participation in four stages of the agricultural research process – design, testing, dissemination, monitoring and evaluation. Two hundred and thirty individual interviews with women farmers and 16 focus group discussions with men and women farmers were conducted in four Woredas (districts) of Ethiopia. Quantitative data were analysed using binary and multivariate probit models. Qualitative data were analysed using line-by-line coding. The results showed that several empowerment indicator variables significantly (p?≤?.001) influenced women’s participation in different stages of agricultural research. Specifically, input in production decisions, autonomy in plot management, membership to farmer groups, and ability to speak in public enhanced women’s participation in different stages, in addition to access to information and extension services, education and land size. Cultural norms hindered women’s empowerment and engagement in research. To foster sustainable agriculture development, it’s important to integrate holistic and proactive gender perspectives into research strategies to increase women’s participation in farmer research groups, access information and knowledge, have voice and challenge constraining cultural norms and traditions.     

Development Assistance and Exports: The Case of the United States

The relationship of development assistance and exports has been a controversial subject in recent years. U.S. public organizations feel that development assistance, particularly for research, while intended primarily and immediately to encourage economic development in low-income nations, will also help increase the effective demand for agricultural exports. Some commodity-oriented U.S. farm groups, on the other hand, see assistance primarily in terms of leading to increased competition for exports of their product. They would have the U.S.A. provide less international support for agricultural development and they have had some influence. While there has been considerable debate on the subject, this has not yet resulted in the development of an enlightened national policy. The paper attempts to sort out the facts and perceptions that have led to this situation and to provide some policy suggestions. Two important needs are for: (a) greater public understanding, and (b) strengthened domestic research and improved linkages between domestic and international research activities. Paradoxically, the latter point tends to be overlooked by some of the farm groups but is essential if the U.S. is to remain competitive in what is likely to become a more open international market in the future.     

CEREAL SUPPLY POLICY INSTRUMENTS: AN ATTITUDINAL SURVEY AMONG FARMERS IN ENGLAND

Against a background of steadily mounting cereal surpluses in the European Community and a recognition that the cereals sector is a major contributor to the Community's budgetary problems, a survey was carried out of English farmers' attitudes and preferences concerning a range of alternative cereal supply policy instruments. Personal interviews were held with 102 farmers in two contrasting agricultural districts — one an intensive cereal-growing district in eastern England, the other an area of mixed livestock and arable farming in western England. Amongst cereal producers in both areas a quota was the preferred policy instrument; in the east because of the security it offered, but in the west because it was perceived to be the least damaging instrument for the industry as a whole. A price reduction was the preferred option of small livestock farmers in the western area. None of the other instruments — co-responsibility levy, set-aside, nitrogen use restrictions — received much support. Farmers were particularly negative about schemes involving the withdrawal of land from agricultural use.     

Impact of agricultural innovation adoption: a meta‐analysis

The impacts of adopting agricultural innovation and technology are widely examined. This paper synthesises 154 studies, which yielded a total of 600 estimates of the impact of adopting agricultural innovation and technology on production, social and economic outcomes. Using meta‐regression analysis, the empirical results show that the reported impact of adopting agricultural innovation and technology rises significantly over time, notwithstanding a significant publication bias. Whether studies find significant impacts of adopting agricultural innovation and technology depends on the use of experimental research designs, parametric method, endogenous switching regression and region. Our results show a large bias in the literature towards agricultural innovations and technologies that focus on high‐yielding varieties and thus, neglect other forms of complementary innovations and technologies.     

“十一五”我国农产品质量安全发展的条件和趋势分析

文章在总结农产品质量安全发展的新形势的基础上,探讨了WTO对我国农产品质量安全的影响及提高我国农产品国际竞争力的途径,同时对“十一五”安全农产品市场发展的前景与趋势进行了系统的分析,为农产品质量安全的发展指明了方向。