The Social Welfare Loss from Egg and Poultry Marketing Boards, Revisited

Continuing conflict over supply management warrants another look at its costs. The authors' model combines the traditional welfare triangle with the social welfare loss created when farmers bear the investment risk associated with possible termination of quota protection. The annual net social welfare loss from egg and poultry marketing boards likely exceeds $100 million, with consumers losing more than $500 million. Half the net social welfare loss is the cost of risk bearing. Quota prices imply that farmers expect quota lives to be relatively short. Therefore, changing to short fixed terms might halve the social welfare loss without imposing capital losses on farmers and might facilitate a return to a free market or auctioning new fixed term quotas.     

The Future of Africa's Raw Material Marketing Boards

Tropical Africa's marketing boards-grain boards excluded -used to ship their entire turnover to the industrial countries but since about 1960 they have sold increasing quantities of for instance cotton, oil seeds and tobacco to local factories. This outcome of the industrialization process in Africa has changed the commercial role of many marketing boards. Whereas their selling has been simplified, their financial obligations have increased because they have to hold stocks for a longer period in the interests of the factories. Proposals to abolish them tend to consider the reduced sellin task only, but, unfortunately, ignore the additional financial obligations.     

Social Costs of Supply-Restricting Marketing Boards: Reply

The general thrust of the preceding critical comments by Johnson, Spriggs and Van Kooten is that the costs of the supply-restricting marketing board programs have been over-emphasized. It is suggested that there may not even be any social costs of supply restriction, that even the traditional "deadweight triangle" loss of allocative efficiency might be outweighed by increases in consumers' and producers' surplus associated with increased stability from these programs. This proposition is completely at variance with available empirical evidence from these programs.     

Social Costs of Supply-Restricting Marketing Boards

This article uses the concepts of economic surplus to assess the transfer and social cost effects of the national supply management programs for poultry products. The focus is on analytical and methodological issues and problems of identifying and quantifying these effects. It is apparent that different estimating methods and assumptions lead to considerable differences in the social cost estimates. Nonetheless, short-run losses in allocative efficiency are relatively minor compared to the transfer effects. However, the potential long-run losses in efficiency are substantial.
Cet article utilise les concepts de surplus économiques pour évaluer les effets de transfert et de coúts sociaux dans les programmes hationaux de gestion de I'approvisionnement en volailles. Nous porterons notre attention sur les questions analytiques et méthodologiques et sur les problémes d'identification et de quantification de ces effets. II est évident que des méthoaes devaluation et des hypothéses différentes entraínent des differences considé fOlOrables dans Vestimation des coÜts sociaux. Pourtant, lespertes à court terme dues à une mauvaise distribution sont relativement minimes par rapport aux effets de transfert. Mais les pertes à long terme, pertes potentielles en efficacité sont substantielles.     

A Case Study in the Marketing of Wolf-Friendly Beef

This study examines an effort in New Mexico to establish a niche within the domestic beef market. The beef was marketed under environmental attributes with the slogan Wolf-Friendly. Two environmental groups, Defenders of Wildlife and Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, endorsed the management practices of the ranch producing the beef. A kick-off event for the Wolf-Friendly Beef was held at the Albuquerque Zoo at the onset of the market test. Two retail grocery stores and the zoo participated in a month-long market test. A survey was conducted at the zoo kick-off to determine participants' views on public land use, riparian protection, and predator preservation issues, and consumer willingness to pay for beef products that foster these environmental attributes. Sales and survey data from the market test were analyzed.     

A Comparative Static Analysis of Welfare Impacts of Supply-Restricting Marketing Boards: A Comnent

Van Kooten and Spriggs (VKS) make a useful contribution to our understanding of the basic theory of the firm as applied to quota restrictions on output, at least as far as their short-run analysis is concerned. However, it is the long-run analysis which is more relevant for judging the welfare implications of the policy, and it is here that the VKS analysis is open to question. This comment puts forth an alternative view. In so doing it also draws attention to some of the more important policy implications of the analysis.     

Income and Employment Generation from Agricultural Processing and Marketing: The Case of Soybean in Indonesia

This study aims to illustrate the potential of agricultural processing and marketing activities in generating local income and employment in developing economies, using soybean in Indonesia as a case. The results show that those activities add to rural income and employment at a scale equal or even larger than those generated from farm production itself, indicating their role in alleviating poverty and inequality in the rural sector.     

A Case Study of Tomato Production and Marketing in Kuwait

No abstract available for this article.     

A Comparative Static Analysis of the Welfare Impacts of Supply-Restricting Marketing Boards: Reply

The comment by Harvey and Hubbard (hereafter HH) on our earlier paper concerns the welfare implications of our long-run analysis. They assume a competitive industry where the firms face perfectly elastic supply functions for all factors of production except one. Under such assumptions, they suggest that the area above the long-run supply curve and below a price line can have meaning as a welfare measure. This is in contrast to our paper in which such an area can have no meaning as a welfare measure.     

The Rate of Return to Agricultural Research in a Small Country: The Case of Beef Cattle Research in Canada

The net economic benefits of Canadian federal beef cattle research programs were estimated using the economic surplus approach. The internal rate of return to research expenditure from 1968 to 1984 was found to be 63% at the margin, indicating substantia] underinvestment in technological change. Rates of return indicative of underinvestment were found even when an adjustment was made to research costs to reflect the marginal excess burden of taxation. Most of the benefits of beef cattle research conducted during this time period accrued to Canadian beef producers. Les bénéfices économiques nets des programmes de recherche fédéraux Canadiens sur le boeuf sont estimés en utilisant ?approche du surplus économique. Le taux interne de rendement des défenses de recherche effectuées de 1968 à 1984 est établi à 63%, indiquant un sous-investissement substantiel dans le changement technologique. Même en incluant la perte de bien-être due à ?imposition ?une taxe, ?étude montre un sous-investissement dans la recherche. La plupart des bénéfices de la recherche sur le boeuf effectuée durant cette période ont profité aux producteurs agricoles.     

特色农产品经营中的声誉机制研究

特色农产品是受特定自然条件赋予区别于其他农产品属性的农产品,因特色获得的声誉类似于质量声誉是集体声誉,由特色农产品的共同质量来决定.在我国目前的农地制度、生产经营条件限制下,特色农产品的供给存在明显的寻租行为.借助重复博弈分析表明突出的行为是中间商利用特色农产品的特色声誉进行配销售,最大化自己的投资利益却不断降低特色农产品的质量声誉.根本的原因是农户的分散销售,特色声誉没有明确的完善的质量保证体系,需要引入农民专业合作经济组织扮演特色农产品声誉的所有者,构建质量保证体系.通过经营"特色"、维护"特色"来维持声誉.     

Spatial Organization of Marketing Facilities in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Oilseeds in Sudan

Little attention has been devoted to the study of spatial organization of marketing facilities in developing countries, even though such studies would be most useful for a wide range of marketing problems. The results of such studies could be valuable to private and public decision-makers in developing countries whose policies and decisions determine the number, size and location of marketing facilities. The spatial organization model developed in this paper for application to the oilseeds industry in Sudan demonstrates the relevance of this research technique for developing country studies of marketing facilities. A linear programming transshipment model is utilized to determine the optimal spatial organization of oilseeds in Sudan when the costs of oilseed assembly, processing and distribution of oil and cake to final destinations are considered simultaneously. The optimal spatial organization of oilseed processing plants was determined for six alternative solutions. Model results indicate that the optimal organization of processing plants would be obtained with fewer and larger plants, resulting in lower transportation costs.     

农户流通型专业协会选择的实证分析--以内蒙古开鲁县为例

发展流通型专业协会对提高我国农户的市场竞争力和收入水平具有十分重要的意义。本文通过对内蒙古开鲁县农户的调查,了解当地流通型专业协会的发展情况,对影响农户参与这类协会意愿的因素进行实证分析,找出主要的影响因素并得出相应的结论和建议。     

Agricultural Marketing in Spain

The paper deals with the analysis of marketing in the Spanish agrofood sector. The methodology follows the industrial organization paradigm: structure, conduct and performance. It gives a first analysis of market environment, monetary fiscal policies, and consumer's demand. Market structure shows a dominance of minifundia at farmer and retail level. A concentration process is going on at wholesale and industrial level. Conduct and performance of agrofood marketing are being studied, with special attention to competitiveness and rice evolution. Finally some observations are made on marketing characteristics in some of the traditional food sectors.     

Agricultural Marketing in France

French production is based on a large agricultural area with a large number of farmers. They work with co-operatives which are very near to them and collect their product. Protectionism has led to a disequilibrium with the economic system in this sector. Actual CAP's orientations and the increase in competition, has forced farmers and co-operatives to concentrate and restructure. The number of farmers has decreased while many co-operatives have started to process raw production materials. One goal of the food industry is to become more international. French food industry made a lot of acquisitions abroad but the increasing place of Italians in French companies also has to be noticed. Distribution plays an important role in agricultural marketing where 66% of food products are sold through about ten companies. This market structure allows them to have a favored position. However, it's a very dynamic sector which now faces some difficulties.