Analysing Production Technology and Risk in Organic and Conventional Dutch Arable Farming using Panel Data

This paper compares the production technology and production risk of organic and conventional arable farms in the Netherlands. Just–Pope production functions that explicitly account for output variability are estimated using panel data of Dutch organic and conventional farms. Prior investigation of the data indicates that within variation of output is significantly higher for organic farms, indicating that organic farms face more output variation than conventional farms. The estimation results indicate that in both types of farms, unobserved farm‐specific factors like management skills and soil quality are important in explaining output variability and production risk. The results further indicate that land has the highest elasticity of production for both farm types. Labour and other variable inputs have significant production elasticities in the case of conventional farms and other variable inputs in the case of organic farms. Manure and fertilisers are risk‐increasing inputs on organic farms and risk‐reducing inputs on conventional farms. Other variable inputs and labour are risk increasing on both farm types; capital and land are risk‐reducing inputs.     

Food Competition in World Markets: Some Evidence from a Panel Data Analysis of Top Exporting Countries

This paper investigates the relevance of relative prices and world income as determinants of food exports for the top trading countries in the period 1992–2012 using a panel data framework. We find that price elasticities generally take lower values for processed goods, and the opposite holds for income elasticities. Processed goods are also characterised by an inverse relationship between price elasticities and average unit values. The analysis suggests that both emerging and advanced countries can be expected to increase their export specialisation in processed goods. Furthermore, developed economies can face fierce competition from emerging countries by enhancing the quality content of their processed good exports.     

Estimating Bird Damage to Rice in Africa: Evidence from the Senegal River Valley

Granivorous birds, mainly the Red‐billed Quelea, have subsisted on cereal crops in Africa for centuries and have caused substantial damage. There is, however, limited recent evidence on their impact. We propose an indirect method to estimate bird‐inflicted crop losses by fitting a production function with a damage abatement component and pest intensity slope dummies on a panel database of rice farmers in the Senegal River Valley. This allows us to estimate both bird damage and marginal productivity of bird control at different levels of bird pressure. Annual bird damage is found to average around 13.2% of the potential rice production during the wet seasons of 2003–2007, which translates into an average annual economic loss of 4.7 billion FCFA (€7.1 million). Our results are consistent with farmers’ perceived bird‐inflicted crop losses, averaging 15.2%. More alarmingly, we observe declining marginal productivities of bird control under increasing bird pressure. Farmers indicate that at high bird pressure, the efficacy of traditional bird scaring methods is inadequate, which suggests that predictive (monitoring), preventive (population control) and protective (insurance) measures against massive invasions are more urgent than improving the average efficacy of curative measures (pest control). These findings are especially relevant to farmers and policy‐makers who are currently struggling to implement an ambitious food self‐sufficiency programme in Senegal.     

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.     

Life cycle models of women's body mass index and probability of being obese: Evidence from panel data

The objective of this paper is to develop a multiperiod, finite‐life, life cycle models of household decisions on food, leisure, and health (body mass index [BMI] or being obese) and to estimate econometric versions of these models treating SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) participation as endogenous. A key insight from the economic models is that households allocate their wealth over the multiperiod life cycle to equalize the marginal utility of wealth in each period. The observations for this study are a balanced panel of over 1,600 women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort (NLSY79). We focus on the 20‐year period starting in 1986, when SNAP data first became available. Women of all ages are included in the study because at the beginning of adulthood women cannot accurately predict over their life cycle labor and marriage market and health shocks that can thrust them into an economic position where they would qualify for SNAP. New findings include that a woman's household SNAP participation with or without updating for last periods health status and higher local dairy product prices reduce significantly her BMI and probability of being obese.     

The Elusive Price Premium for Ecolabelled Products: Evidence from Seafood in the UK Market

Ecolabelling is an increasingly important tool used in the promotion of sustainable forestry and fishery products around the world. Whether the consumer is actually paying a price premium for ecolabelled products is of fundamental importance as it indicates a return on the investment of sustainable practices, providing an incentive for producers to undertake such practices. This article seeks to address the question of whether or not an actual premium is being paid by consumers for ecolabelled seafood by conducting a hedonic analysis of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)‐certified frozen processed Alaska pollock products in the London metropolitan area in the UK market using scanner data. Regression results show a statistically significant premium of 14.2%. This implies the presence of market differentiation for sustainable seafood and the potential of the MSC’s fisheries certification programme to generate market incentives for sustainable fisheries practices.