The effects of a subsidy for grassland protection on livestock numbers,grazing intensity,and herders’ income in inner Mongolia

Primary data from 262 pastoral households in Inner Mongolia are analyzed to determine the effects of a subsidy for grassland protection on livestock numbers, grazing intensity, and herders’ income. Econometric models are estimated to determine the effects of the subsidy on each component of the intensity ratio (sheep-equivalent livestock units and grassland). Results suggest the subsidy increased the quantity of grassland controlled by the household. However, the effects on livestock units are mixed, with two of the four studied prefectures (Ordos and Ulanqab) showing a positive response, and two (Hulunbuir and Xilingol) showing a negative response. Inserting the parameter estimates from the livestock, grassland, and income functions into a structural model of grazing intensity, results suggest each 1% increase in subsidy reduces grazing intensity by between 0.168% and 0.532% depending on the prefecture, and increases herders’ income by between 0.144% and 0.670%. By way of comparison, each additional year of education increases herders’ income by 8.7% and reduces grazing intensity by 3.6%. Thus, education is not to be overlooked as a policy tool for achieving conservation goals.     

Open access post-harvest grazing and farmers’ preferences for forage production incentives in Ethiopia

Open access post-harvest in situ grazing is widespread in areas where a mixed crop-livestock system is common. Where this is not discouraged, because livestock is important, conservation agriculture, which depends on keeping the soil surface covered with crop residues is unlikely to be implemented. One way to reduce open access grazing is through restricting communal grazing access to allow rights of exclusion, while simultaneously improving the production of livestock feeds. This paper analyzes farmers’ perceptions about post-harvest free grazing on agricultural lands and identifies incentives that motivate forage production, to help inform forage development and policy. We collected data from randomly selected farm households in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia and used a choice experiment method. We found that a majority of farmers would prefer post-harvest grazing restrictions to the existing reciprocal post-harvest grazing. Farmers also had strong preferences for forage production policy incentives, but the results reveal considerable preference heterogeneity. The study provides policy makers with needed information in formulating policy incentives for smallholder forage production systems.     

Productivity change in Taiwan's farmers' credit unions: a nonparametric risk-adjusted Malmquist approach

This article proposes an extended three‐stage DEA methodology similar to Fried et al. (2002) to improve the measurement of productivity growth when the assumption of free disposability of undesirable output does not apply. A directional distance function is used to construct adjusted Malmquist–Luenberger productivity indexes which simultaneously account for the impacts of undesirable outputs, environmental variables, and statistical noise. Panel data for 263 farmers' credit unions (FCUs) in Taiwan covering the 1998–2000 periods are employed to illustrate the advantages of this method. On average, the productivity of Taiwan's FCUs is found to have deteriorated over the 1998–2000 period. Although an improvement in efficiency has been observed, the major reason for the deterioration is found to be due to the regression of technology.     

Market-based grazing land transfers and customary institutions in the management of rangelands: Two case studies on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Beginning in the early 1990’s, grazing lands once held in common were contracted to individual households in the rangeland regions of China. The resulting fragmentation of rangelands has led to ecological and social problems. As China seeks to address intractable poverty and rangeland degradation, attention has turned to rental, or transfer, of contracted grazing land as a market-based approach to re-aggregating grazing land into larger units that support economies of scale. However, given that many pastoral regions still maintain community customary institutions, what the relationship between market mechanisms and local customary institutions should be in rangeland management needs further analysis. This paper applies comparative case studies of two types of relationships between market mechanisms and customary institutions: (1) market mechanisms that replace customary institutions in the case of Axi village, and (2) market mechanisms that are embedded within customary institutions in Xiareer village. This allows contrast of the impacts of differing approaches on livelihoods, livestock production, and wealth differentiation among pastoral households. We found that there is a higher level of livestock mortality, lower livestock productivity, and higher livestock production cost in Axi Village compared to Xiareer Village. In addition, household asset levels are higher and there is less income differentiation in Xiareer Village. It is concluded that embedding market mechanisms within customary institutions has had notable benefits for the herders of Xiareer Village, because it is a better fit to the coupled pastoral social-ecological system. Based on these findings, we argue that in pastoral communities where the rangeland transfer system for contracted grazing land has not yet been implemented, it is critical to reconsider China’s current policy approach to pay greater attention to the innovative management systems being developed in local regions. Instead of considering market-based approaches as oppositional to traditional institutions, options that derive from the interaction of market-based and customary institutions should be considered.     

牧业制度变迁对草地退化的影响及其路径

草地是牧民基本的生计资产,也是中国北方的生态屏障。然而,严重的草地退化威胁着牧区可持续发展和生态安全。维持高度可变的、脆弱干旱环境中的自然资本是发展绿色经济的要求。本文梳理了20世纪80年代以来草原牧区的主要牧业制度变迁,分析其对草地退化的影响及其路径,以探讨在现行草地经营制度下如何在不减少草地自然资本的情况下发展畜牧业。研究揭示,牧业制度变迁通过"分畜到户-牲畜增加-公地悲剧"、"分草到户/草地确权-草地细碎化-围栏陷阱"以及"三权分置/草地租赁-不完善契约/产权不安全-草地过度利用"三条路径影响草地退化。"交互规模"理论解释了草地细碎化对草地退化的影响机制。本文利用面上调研资料、定点观测数据以及自然试验证据支持了以上假说。研究表明,采用适合地区特点的确权方式、规范草地租赁市场以及减轻草地细碎化从而提高"交互规模",可更好地平衡牧业生产中的"劳动力-草地-牲畜-生产性资产-水资源",促进牧业的可持续发展。     

Designing and evaluating sustainable development pathways for semi‐subsistence crop–livestock systems: lessons from Kenya

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in African agriculture requires a better understanding why high levels of poverty and resource degradation persist in African agriculture despite decades of policy interventions and development projects. In this article, we hypothesize that policies need to account for the key features of the semi‐subsistence crop–livestock systems (CLS) in the region to become effective. The semi‐subsistence CLS are characterized by a high degree of biophysical and economic heterogeneity and a complex, diversified production system involving a combination of subsistence and cash crops with livestock. We investigated the potential for interventions proposed by the Government of Kenya to meet the SDGs by 2030. The analysis uses an integrated modeling approach designed to deal with the key features of these systems. A strategy that stimulates rural development, increases farm size to a sustainable level, and reduces distortions and inefficiencies in input and output markets could lead to a sustainable development pathway and achieve the SDGs for rural households dependent on CLS.     

Does nonagricultural labor relax farmers’ credit constraints? Evidence from longitudinal data for Vietnam

We examine the relationship between participation in nonagricultural labor activities and farming production decisions, focusing on the use of inputs. Using longitudinal data for Vietnam from 1993 to 1998, we find that households engaged in nonagricultural labor spend significantly more on seeds, services, hired labor, and livestock inputs. This is consistent with the hypothesis that nonagricultural labor income relaxes credit constraints to farming.     

Land size and productivity in the livestock sector: evidence from pastoral areas in China

This article explores the relationship between land size and productivity in the livestock sector. Household panel data from pastoral areas in northwestern China were analysed. Results suggest an inverse relationship (IR) between land size and the number of livestock per ha. IR can be largely explained by labour input intensity, which is negatively correlated with land size. We find that household’s labour demand is not separable from household’s labour supply and households’ decisions to rent land and hire labour for grazing are significantly related to the labour–land endowment ratio. These findings are consistent with the Chayanovian explanation that labour input intensity varies with farm size due to unobserved interhousehold variation in shadow wage rates. In addition, participation in the labour market does not significantly influence the IR for the employer, while the practice of land renting reduces, but does not eliminate, the IR for the lease. These findings point towards the potential for using factor markets to optimise pasture‐based livestock production scale, and the need to promote the factor market development to achieve efficiency in resource use.     

Bridging the Gap between Partial and Total Factor Productivity Measures Using Directional Distance Functions

Technical dependencies as well as data constraints limit our ability to allocate inputs across sectors and hence our ability to measure sectoral productivity. We adapt a directional measure of efficiency to the measurement of sector-specific productivity that does not require allocating all inputs across sectors. Applied to the agricultural sector of a group of countries, the results show important differences in livestock and crops productivity growth. Commonly used partial factor productivity measures for livestock and crops tend to overestimate productivity growth in most developing countries while underestimating it in European countries.     

Access to markets,weather risk,and livestock production decisions: Evidence from Ethiopia

Despite several studies showing the effect of access to markets and weather conditions on crop production, we know quite little on whether and how livestock production systems respond to variation in weather risk and access to markets. In this paper, we study whether and how livestock production responds to (access to) markets and varying weather risk. We also explore whether such responses vary across livelihood zones and livestock production systems. We study these research questions using households’ livestock production, ownership, and marketing decisions of households in Ethiopia. We find that households living close to markets are more likely to engage in market-oriented livestock production and use modern livestock inputs. We also find that households exposed to more unpredictable weather are less likely to engage in livestock production for markets, rather they are more likely to engage in livestock production for precautionary savings and insurance. Furthermore, greater rainfall uncertainty influences livestock portfolio allocation toward those which can be easily liquidated while also discouraging investment in modern livestock inputs. However, these responses and patterns vary across livelihood zones and production systems; most of these stylized responses and impacts are more pronounced and significant in the arid and semi-arid lands of Ethiopia, where livestock herding remains a dominant source of livelihood. Those households relying only on livestock production seem more sensitive and responsive to weather risk and weather shocks. The heterogeneity in responses and impacts of weather risk among farming systems and livelihoods highlights the need for more tailored livestock sector policies and interventions.     

Technical efficiency and impact of environmental regulations in farrow-to-finish swine production in Taiwan

This article demonstrates how technical efficiency and the impact of environmental regulations of Taiwanese farrow‐to‐finish swine production can be estimated in the presence of undesirable outputs. The issue of measuring technical efficiencies while considering undesirable outputs has been addressed by past studies. But the proper method of including undesirable outputs has always been a subject of debate. This article develops a data envelopment analysis (DEA)‐based model that includes undesirable outputs. The technologies of desirable output production and undesirable output control are considered simultaneously. This allows one to transform undesirable output into desirable output, whereby a traditional Shephard distance function can be used to measure technical efficiencies. An approach to measuring the impacts due to environmental regulations is then derived. Empirical results show that larger farms are more technically efficient than small‐sized farms, but no clear conclusions can be reached for the measures of regulatory impact among farms with different sizes. On average, the sample farms incurred an opportunity cost due to environmental regulations equivalent to 9.8% of market value. Opportunity costs rise with efficiency.     

Examining the relationship between farm size and productive efficiency: a Bayesian directional distance function approach

Achieving sustainable food security and increased farm income will depend on how efficient production systems are in converting available inputs to produce outputs. Using data from Malawi, we estimate a Bayesian directional technology distance function to examine the relationship between farm size and technical efficiency. Our results support the existence of an inverse relationship between farm size and productive efficiency, where small farms are more efficient than large farms. On average, farms exhibit inefficiency levels of 60%, suggesting that productivity could be improved substantially. Improving productive efficiency and food security will require farms to operate in ways where the size of cultivated area is matched by nonland production inputs such as labor, fertilizer, and improved seeds. The results highlight the need for policies that could incentivize farmers to adopt productivity‐enhancing technologies and, where possible, to allocate excess land to lease markets.     

Pasture taxes and agricultural intensification in southern Mali

This study integrates biophysical simulation data with a farm household model of intertemporal optimization, to investigate changing crop-livestock management practices in the Sudano-Guinean zone of Mali. Over a 15-yr time horizon we find that free grazing on the commons remains more attractive to the representative household than adopting more labor-and capital-intensive confinement systems, but that a relatively low level of pasture tax (around US$3 per livestock unit per year) would be sufficient to induce intensification. Because confinement raises output, the net cost of the tax to the household is only about US$1 per unit per year. Imposing pasture taxes to induce intensification could raise community welfare, if the value of commons resources liberated by reduced grazing pressure exceeds that level.     

Linkages between the farm and nonfarm sectors at the household level in rural Ghana: a consistent stochastic distance function approach

This article explores the effects within households of an expanding rural nonfarm (RNF) sector in Ghana. We ask whether the growing RNF sector allows for economies of diversification within farms, how it affects household input demands, and whether it has measurable effects in overall household production efficiency. We explore the intrahousehold linkages between agricultural and RNF activities, first assuming perfectly competitive input and output markets and then with market failures, in particular missing labor and credit markets. We then measure these linkages using a household level input distance function, finding high levels of inefficiency in Ghanaian farms. Also, there are cost-complementarities between the RNF sector and the agricultural sector, particularly with food crops in which the poorest tend to specialize. The expansion of the RNF sector increases demand for most inputs including agricultural land. Finally, we show that smaller farms tend to be more efficient, and that RNF output is helping the farm household to become more efficient, but the latter result is not robust.     

Growing struggle over rising demand: How land use change and complex farmer-grazier conflicts impact grazing management in the Western Highlands of Cameroon

Continuous population growth and rapid urbanization rates in West and Central Africa are associated with rising demand for fresh vegetables and animal-based products, providing market opportunities for local producers from the surrounding areas. However, in regions such as northwestern Cameroon where pastoral cattle breeding remains an important part of the local livestock sector, competition over dwindling resources with local crop farmers are increasing due to progressive land-use change from natural and traditional grazing areas into agricultural land.In order to determine the main areas of conflict and their interdependencies, we used a multi-temporal land-use classification and a multi-dimensional participatory approach of collecting spatial data from six representative Mbororo cattle herds, equipped with GPS collars. We combined this with 162 map-based interviews with randomly sampled pastoralists on seasonal grazing areas, grazing management, land ownership, and major constraints to herding. This data set was complemented by the perspectives of 40 randomly sampled crop farmers from four major transhumance zones.Both parties identified farmer-grazier conflicts as a serious constraint for their activities in the rainy season (graziers: 23.9 %; farmers: 22.5 %) and particularly in the dry season (36.3 %; 47.2 %). Land tenure issues will be of critical importance in the future as only very few respondents held an official land title, and pastoralists appeared less prepared for land disputes than crop farmers, who more often claimed land ownership through fencing. Therefore, there is an urgent need for developing and implementing alliance farming strategies that are based on dialogue between both interest groups to avoid further escalation within a region already in a conflict-ridden political environment.     

The effect of nonfarm income on investment in Bulgarian family farming

This article documents a relationship between nonfarm income (primarily earnings and pensions) and agricultural investment in Bulgaria, specifically, expenditures on working capital (variable inputs such as feed, seed, and herbicides) and investment in livestock. Among those with positive spending on farm inputs, the estimated elasticity of these expenditures with respect to nonfarm income is 0.14. Nonfarm income also has an effect on the number of households that purchase farm animals, with an estimated elasticity of 0.35. The use of nonfarm income for farm investment is consistent with the presence of credit constraints, as is the fact that less than one percent of farmers report outstanding debts for agricultural purposes. Yet many farm households take out large unsecured loans for other purposes, primarily to cover consumption expenditures, implying that credit is available, but that farmers prefer not to use borrowed funds to finance agricultural investment. This would suggest that increases in the availability of agricultural credit may have little effect on farm outcomes, whereas increases in nondebt-financed sources of liquidity, such as subsidies or transfers, may better stimulate investment.     

Output and input bias effects of U.S. direct payments

This study examines the national effect of U.S. direct payments on the extent and direction of biased technical change on U.S. agriculture. We also assess the economic significance of the estimated bias effects for economic policy modeling endeavors involving a reduction of domestic support payments. A two outputs (livestock and crops) and four inputs (labor, capital, land, and material) translog cost function was estimated from national time series (1948–2011) data. Results indicate that payments do not induce output‐biased technical change. We do find evidence of Hicksian bias that is land using and material input saving attributable to support payments. Global computable general equilibrium simulations suggest that price and output effects of discontinuing direct payments are 1/4 to 1/3 the size once the bias effects are incorporated.     

Impacts of Norwegian Milk Quotas on Output Growth: A Modified Distance Function Approach

Quota regulations that prevent output expansion of farms and reallocation of output between farms can cause lower growth in output and productivity. The aim of this study was to explain the output growth rate of Norwegian dairy farms since 1976, and to decompose it into output, input, socioeconomic and technical change components. Instead of using the standard distance function approach for multi‐output technologies, we use a growth rate formulation, which automatically removes the farm‐specific effects. This formulation also helps to impose non‐negativity constraints on marginal products of inputs (input elasticities), which are often violated for many observations, especially when flexible functional forms are used. The farm‐level panel data cover three periods: before the quota scheme was introduced (1976–1982); the period with the most output‐restricting quota scheme (1983–1996); and the period with a more flexible quota scheme (from 1997 onwards). Results show that the milk quota regulations had a significant constraining effect on output growth, in particular on milk output in the period 1983–1996. Furthermore, the output mix has shifted towards meat production for the average farm. What emerges from this study is that output growth and technical change are negatively influenced by policy aims where productive performance has not been the primary objective, and that there is scope for increased farm growth if the quota regime is liberalised.     

Damage Control Productivity: An Input Damage Abatement Approach

This paper compares the value of the marginal product of three different pesticides from different specifications of the production function. The specifications are the output damage abatement specification proposed by Lichtenberg and Zilberman, a general input damage abatement specification and a traditional production function. These specifications are estimated on panel data of specialised Dutch arable farms over the period 1989–1992, using Generalised Maximum Entropy estimation. Results of the input damage abatement specification show that pesticides have different impacts on individual productive inputs, although statistical evidence is weak. The output damage abatement specification produces statistically more significant relations, but imposes restrictions that are only partly supported by the data. It is also found that estimation of a quadratic traditional production function, that treats damage abatement inputs in the same way as productive inputs, does not lead to over estimation of the value of the marginal product as previous authors have hypothesised.     

Is off-farm income reforming the farm? Evidence from Mexico

Does access to off-farm income complement or compete with agricultural production? This article explores the effect of off-farm income on agricultural production activities, using data from the 2003 Mexico National Rural Household Survey. We first discuss the theoretical conditions under which access to off-farm income may influence production in an agricultural household model. Instrumental-variable (IV) estimation methods are then used to test whether agricultural production activities, technologies, and input use differ between households with and without access to off-farm income. We find that off-farm income has a negative effect on agricultural output and the use of family labor on the farm, but a positive impact on the demand for purchased inputs. There is also a slight efficiency gain in households with access to off-farm income. Findings offer insights into how household production evolves as rural households increasingly engage in off-farm income activities.