Compensated optimal response under uncertainty in agricultural household models

This study derives the qualitative properties of a household's optimal consumption, family labour, hired labour and non-labour input choices under price and/or output risk through a Slutsky-type compensation without imposing any restriction on risk preference structure or production technology. These compensated responses provide the underpinning for welfare analysis in agricultural household models under risk. The framework for the evaluation of welfare effects of product and factor price interventions in a setting of output and price risk is developed. The paper also outlines an empirical model for estimation of the compensated demand and supply responses and for validation of the paper's analytical results.     

Technical change in Senegal's irrigated rice sector: impact assessment under uncertainty

This paper addresses the prospects for technical change in the irrigated rice sector of Senegal, and measures ex‐ante the economic returns to recent research efforts. In 1994, three new rice varieties were released to farmers in the Senegal River Valley (SRV), the major irrigated rice region in Senegal. The productivity advantage of the new varieties is based primarily on early maturity, which permits double‐cropping. (The seeds are also higher yielding than existing cultivars.) We use a conventional [Akino and Hayami (1975), Am. J. Agric. Econ. 57, 1–10] partial‐equilibrium model adapted to the Senegalese situation, to assess the social benefits of research and compare those to its costs in calculating the internal rate of return (IRR). To account for uncertainty regarding the future values of model variables we use simulation which allows us to generate a distribution of all possible outcomes of the IRR. We find that rice research is almost certain to have a very high payoff over the 1995–2004 period. The expected value of the IRR is calculated to be 121% per year, with a 97.5% probability that it lies above annual capital costs of 18%. ©2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.     

A note on European farmers' preferences under cumulative prospect theory

Explaining farmer decision making using cumulative prospect theory is of increasing importance. We present a systematic review on European farmers' preferences under the cumulative prospect theory framework. We identified 17 studies covering 2324 farmers from 12 European countries. All studies report that (on average) farmers are: (i) risk averse, (ii) loss averse, and (iii) overweight small probabilities and underweight large probabilities. However, there is a large heterogeneity across and within studies. These findings have implications for the analysis and design of policy and insurance.     

Managing conflicting goals in pig farming: farmers' strategies and perspectives on sustainable pig farming in Sweden

Industrial meat production has several negative environmental effects. Governments’ agricultural policies aim for cost efficiency combined with high environmental and animal welfare, which puts farmers in a difficult situation trying to navigate between sometimes contradictory requirements. This paper studies how Swedish pig farmers resolve or cope with conflicting goals in pig farming. We have analysed the regulations governing EU and Swedish pig farming. We have also interviewed five Swedish pig farmers about their views of the different goals of pig farming and strategies for resolving conflicts between the goals of low environmental impact, high animal welfare and enough profitability to continue farming. The greatest divide was between the conventional farmers, who emphasized natural resource efficiency, and the organic farmers who stressed animal welfare, multifunctionality and ecosystem service delivery. We suggest four strategies to contribute to resolving some of the conflicting goals: improve communication about different types of pig farming; use public procurement as a driver towards more sustainable pork production; work towards improving the Common Agricultural Policy, perhaps by implementing payments for ecosystem services or multifunctionality; and finally, decrease the total production of pork to lower the emissions per land unit.     

Family farmers' strategies to develop autonomy through agroecological and solidarity economy practices: The case of BioVida in the Ecuadorian Andes

Considering the global restructuring affecting agrarian landscapes, we build on the concept of autonomy proposed by van der Ploeg and colleagues (but extended and critically complemented) to analyse how family farmers can build this autonomy to face rural capitalist tendencies and maintain their activities and identity. We offer insights from a case study in the Ecuadorian Andes, the BioVida organization that is linked to agroecological and social and solidarity economy movements. Our findings show that family farming autonomy is not being achieved homogeneously for the whole household but must be analysed through an intersectional approach. Furthermore, there are simultaneous processes to achieve different degrees of autonomy and (inter-)dependency, which are co-constitutive along gender and age lines and are conditioned by structural constraints. Therefore, for our case study area, agribusiness and family farming processes and spaces seem to operate co-constitutively rather than antagonistically in practical terms. Agroecology-based achievements so far act as a localized buffer against adversity rather than an emancipative territorial project of autonomy.     

Quantifying the impact of farmers' social networks on the effectiveness of climate change mitigation policies in agriculture

To reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, farmers need to change current farming practices. However, farmers' climate change mitigation behaviour and particularly the role of social and individual characteristics remains poorly understood. Using an agent-based modelling approach, we investigate how knowledge exchange within farmers' social networks affects the adoption of mitigation measures and the effectiveness of a payment per ton of GHG emissions abated. Our simulations are based on census, survey and interview data for 49 Swiss dairy and cattle farms to simulate the effect of social networks on overall GHG reduction and marginal abatement costs. We find that considering social networks increases overall reduction of GHG emissions by 45% at a given payment of 120 Swiss Francs (CHF) per ton of reduced GHG emissions. The per ton payment would have to increase by 380 CHF (i.e., 500 CHF/tCO₂eq) to reach the same overall GHG reduction level without any social network effects. Moreover, marginal abatement costs for emissions are lower when farmers exchange relevant knowledge through social networks. The effectiveness of policy incentives aiming at agricultural climate change mitigation can hence be improved by simultaneously supporting knowledge exchange and opportunities of social learning in farming communities.     

Agrarian change,populism, and a new farmers' movement in 21st century Pakistani Punjab

Activists and scholars have debated whether “agrarian populisms” premised on multiple classes and groups can pursue progressive objectives if exploiters and exploited are in the same movements. In Pakistan, the militant Pakistan Kissan Ittehad emerged in 2012 by uniting different classes of owner-cultivators who are largely not in direct relations of exploitation with each other. We argue that the PKI nevertheless advances the interests of a “second tier” of rural capitalists, who exploit rural labourers, while underplaying the interests of owner-peasant farmers. This divergence of interests has contributed to the fragmentation of PKI along class and political lines, including attempts by peasant farmers to independently organize around issues particular to them. We suggest that progressive agrarian populism must hinge on the interests of rural labourers and peasant farmers and that second-tier capitalist farmers may be tactical allies as they oppose neoliberal globalization. However, rural labourers and peasants are ideologically and organizationally weak, and thus, the possibility of left-wing agrarian populism requires much legwork.     

The state‐contingent approach to production under uncertainty*

The central claim of this paper is that the state‐contingent approach provides the best way to think about all problems in the economics of uncertainty, including problems of consumer choice, the theory of the firm, and principal–agent relationships. This claim is illustrated by recent developments in, and applications of, the state‐contingent approach.     

Environmental impacts of technological change in Bangladesh agriculture: farmers' perceptions, determinants, and effects on resource allocation decisions

This article measures the impact of modern technology adoption in raising farmers' environmental awareness and the impact of farmers' environmental awareness on resource use by utilizing survey data from 21 villages in three agro‐ecological regions of Bangladesh. The econometric analysis is based on the application of the Tobit model explaining farmers' environmental awareness in the first stage and a profit function examining environmental awareness and resource use relationships in the second stage. Results reveal that the “level” and “duration” of involvement with modern technology raises farmers' environmental awareness, and that farmers' environmental awareness reduces resource use including chemicals. Farmers, who are aware of the adverse environmental impacts of modern agricultural technology, use lower amounts of all inputs in order to avoid further environmental damage. Therefore, efforts to raise farmers' environmental awareness are expected to enhance intangible benefits accruing from a relatively less chemical‐intensive environment.     

Designing hunting regulation under population uncertainty and self-reporting

A number of methods exist for estimating the size of animal populations. All methods generate an uncertain estimate of population size, and have different properties, which can be taken into account when designing regulation. We consider hunting regulation when the population size is uncertain and when the self-reported bag is used to estimate the population size. The properties of a population tax and a tax on self-reported bag are analyzed and we begin by considering a baseline situation with full certainty and no use of self-reporting for population size estimation. Here individual hunters self-report a bag on zero and a population tax alone can secure an optimum. Next we show that when facing uncertain population size, a risk-averse hunter will self-report part of the bag to reduce the uncertain population tax payment, making both tax instruments necessary for reaching an optimum. Finally, when self-reported bag is used to estimate population size, we also show that it is optimal for hunters to report a part of the bag and both instruments are again necessary for reaching an optimum.     

Water pricing policies,public decision making and farmers' response: implications for water policy

The problems caused by water scarcity demand important changes in the criteria and objectives of water policies. The agricultural sector in Spain consumes up to 80% of all available hydric resources and the need to increase the efficiency of current uses of water in the agricultural sector is at the core of the country's national water policy. One alternative would be to resort to water pricing policies with the aim of providing incentives to save water consumption although it would inflict a certain degree of income losses to the farmers and raise the revenue collected by the water authorities. The objective of this research is to analyze the effect caused by the application of different water pricing policies on water demand, farmers' income and the revenue collected by the government agency. To undertake this analysis a dynamic mathematical programming model has been built that simulates farmers' behavior and their response to different water pricing scenarios. Empirical application of the model has been carried out in several irrigation districts in Spain covering varied farm regions and river basins. Results show that the effects of alternative pricing policies for irrigation water are strongly dependent on regional, structural and institutional conditions and that changing policies produce distinct consequences within the same region and water district. Thus, equivalent water charges would create widespread effects on water savings, farm income and collected government revenue across regions and districts.     

Measuring producer welfare under output price uncertainty and risk non-neutrality

Procedures to measure the producer welfare effects of changes in an output price distribution under uncertainty are reviewed. Theory and numerical integration methods are combined to show how for any form of Marshallian risk-responsive supply, compensating variation of a change in higher moments of an output price distribution can be derived numerically. The numerical procedure enables measurement of producer welfare effects in the many circumstances in which risk and uncertainty are important elements. The practical ease and potential usefulness of the procedure is illustrated by measuring the producer welfare effects of USA rice policy.     

Economic drought management index to evaluate water institutions’ performance under uncertainty*

Reservoir management and intertemporal water allocation are critical issues in semiarid regions where agriculture has to confront highly variable rainfall patterns. In this paper, we derive and propose an economic drought management index (EDMI) to evaluate water institutions’ performance to cope with drought risk. The EDMI is based on the optimal conditions of a stochastic dynamic optimisation problem that characterises reservoir management. The index's main advantages are its ease of interpretation and breadth of scope, as it incorporates information on hydrological processes, structural constraints, water institutions’ rules, and the economic benefits of water use. An empirical application is developed to assess the institutional rules governing water allocation in two different supply systems in Andalusia (southern Spain).     

Technical change and irreversible investment under risk

A stochastic dynamic model was constructed to analyze investment decisions of an individual farme under risk in the presence of legibilities, embedded technical change and indivisible capital. An analytical solution was obtained and its local behavior studied by numerical methods. Optimal investment is obtained by regulating the difference between the desired and actual capital stocks between two barriers that define an inaction interval. While the desired capital drifts between the barriers, no action is taken. If the desired capital touches the upper barrier, the farmer invests pushing the average efficiency of the actual capital stock up. This in turn raises the desired capital even higher and contracts the inaction interval. If these effects are strong enough, the farmer will invest again until the potential gains of the technological package are exhausted. If the desired capital falls enough, the farmer disinvests, pushing down the average productivity and expanding the inaction interval. Disinvestment continues until it slops either because the inaction interval becomes so wide that it is no longer optimal to disinvest or because the actual capital stock is so small that it is no longer profitable to produce.     

山东省入境旅游消费结构变化及其对国民消费的影响

采用山东省2004-2015年入境旅游和国民经济数据,利用旅游消费结构变动度、旅游消费结构指数和消费弹性系数分析山东省入境旅游消费结构变化及其对国民消费的影响。研究结果表明:山东省入境旅游消费结构呈波动变化,消费结构日趋合理。除了山东省入境旅游客流量对客运总量有稳定的拉动作用外,入境旅游消费对国民消费的拉动作用不稳定。     

农户技术需求优先序及有效供给主体研究

本文利用聚类分析方法,对农户的技术需求偏好进行了优先序排列,对现实中农户所接受相应技术服务的供给主体进行了定量分析,农业技术服务供给主体日益多元化,但政府系统科技服务组织依然发挥了主导作用。在技术需求偏好和技术供给主体日益多元的情况下,由于不同供给主体在提供不同类型技术服务方面各有比较优势,文章最后对农业技术供给过程中的有效供给主体问题进行了理论分析。