Society's attitudes to and preferences for land and landscape

The relationship between society, land and landscape is deeply complex. Attitudes are reflected in behaviour, notably patterns of consumption through recreational activity, as well as in expressed preferences. Society attaches great importance to land. A large proportion of the population engages directly with it, through gardening and involvement in the management of allotments, community gardens and other public spaces. There is increasing evidence of the benefits of such engagement for individuals and communities. Society's attitudes and preferences have traditionally been dominated by expert or professional views, which have evolved over time and now place emphasis on everyday as well as special landscapes, and on urban greenspace and green infrastructure as much as on rural landscapes. The general public also seems to value the countryside as well as parks and green spaces nearer to home. Public attitudes are shaped by a number of different factors. Age, social and economic status, ethnic origin, familiarity, place of upbringing and residence, particularly whether urban or rural, are especially significant. Perhaps most important are environmental value orientations. At present, society seems to be polarised. At one extreme are older, more affluent, better educated, more environmentally aware people, often in social grades AB, who are often the most active users of the countryside and greenspaces. At the other extreme are younger age groups, ethnic minorities, and those who are in the DE social grades, who are often much less engaged. These groups have very different values and attitudes. But most people need to access and enjoy different types of landscape at different times and for different purposes, accessing what has been called a ‘portfolio of places’ that is particular to each person. It is by no means clear how the various factors that influence people's attitudes and preferences will play out in the future. Society may continue to become more detached from nature and landscape, and less caring about its future. Or there could be a rekindling of society's need to engage with the land and an increased desire to ensure that all sectors of society can benefit from green spaces and rural landscapes. This is likely to require interventions through education and campaigns to change attitudes and behaviour. Whether such initiatives can be effective in the face of competing drivers of attitudinal and behavioural change and over what timescale, may well determine how society's relationships with land and landscape evolve over the next 50 years.     

Report of the Managing Editor

Overall, 2002 was a good year for the Journal. Importantly, submissions have recovered from their unusually low level recorded in 2001 and by the end of the year the quality of the printing and production systems had improved considerably. One further aspect of the Society's modernisation, the on‐line availability of the JAE, was established in July and initial indications on its usage are very encouraging, with over 1600 ‘hits’recorded in the first six months of operation. Average editorial response time has fallen to 4.6 months, only a little way short of our 4‐month target for submission turnaround. On the basis of current (2001) data collated by the Institute of Scientific Information, the JAE ranks 1^st, 2^nd, and 1^st in terms of its three citations criteria among the eight journals in the Agricultural Economics and Policy Category. In terms of impact factor, it is 60^th out of 165 economics journals.     

The potential impact of climate change on Taiwan's agriculture

This paper intends to estimate the potential impact of climate change on Taiwan's agricultural sector. Yield response regression models are used to investigate the climate change's impact on 60 crops. A price‐endogenous mathematical programming model is then used to simulate the welfare impacts of yield changes under various climate change scenarios. Results suggest that both warming and climate variations have a significant but non‐monotonic impact on crop yields. Society as a whole would not suffer from warming, but a precipitation increase may be devastating to farmers.     

A Price Analysis of U.S. Agricultural Exports in East Asian Markets

This paper examines the price competition between U.S. agricultural exports and that of its competitors in East Asia. The results show weak price competition in Japan's corn and soybean markets, and no price competition in the wheat market. U.S. cotton exports to Japan face strong price competition. In Hong Kong, U.S. market shares are low, while the demand for its rice, corn, soybeans and cotton is elastic. For South Korea and Taiwan, improved political relationships between China, South Korea, and Taiwan have caused the U.S. to lose market shares to China.     

The informational dimension of real estate development: A case of a “positive non-interventionist” application of the Coase Theorem

Informed by Coase's (1988) idea that state rules can enlarge a market, Rosa's (2006) idea of information as a private good usable as memes, and Yu's (1981) economics of patent pooling, Schuster's (2005) proposition that government can collect and distribute information as an active tool to influence actors, this paper advances the viewpoint that real estate development forms sign structures for adding information that enhances the values of a site under strategically selected property names. The ideal case of Hong Kong's planning and development by contract is used and compared to the practice in Mainland China to demonstrate these ideas with special reference to its open land registration and information systems, which sell important information memes and the names of properties that can be protected by trademark law.     

Estimating the U.S. Import Demand for Melons: A Dynamic Analysis Approach

The United States is one of the world's leading consumers as well as one of the world's leading producers of melons. However, U.S. melons are produced only from May through December. In order to supplement the domestic demand and make melons available year-round, the United States imports melons from Latin American countries. This article analyzes the U.S. demand for imported fresh and frozen melons using monthly data on import volumes and values. A static and a dynamic linear Almost Ideal Demand System are estimated using Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR). The estimated parameters are used to estimate the short- and long-run price and expenditure elasticities.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS PROFESSION IN ENGLAND

An historical sketch of the professionalisation of agricultural economics since the mid-1920s placing special emphasis on the close links between government and universities, the pioneering role of the Ministry of Agriculture's economists during the inter-war years, and their changing post-war status and functions as compared with other economists in Whitehall. Other topics considered include the composition and functions of the Agricultural Economics Society, recent academic trends in agricultural economics, and the implications of the current crisis in economics for the future of the discipline.     

Malawi's Agricultural Development: A Success Story?

At a time when attention was focused on Africa's poor agricultural performance, Malawi demonstrated a capacity not only to feed itself, but to produce a surplus for export. During the periods covered in this paper, its agricultural growth exceeded that of most African countries and compared favorably with 'success stories' on the continent. This research focuses on Malawi's recent performance, with particular attention on trends in the provision of essential agro-support services: credit; extension and farmer training; and input supply and marketing. Trends in these services are examined first at the national level and then at the district level. While overall trends indicate substantial progress, district level data reveal extensive unevenness. Moreover, at the farm level, census data on farmer training and technology utilization show fewer benefits to female operators and smaller farmers. Important elements of developmentally oriented infrastructure and services have been put in place and are functioning better than in most African countries. This is important in terms of longer-term agricultural development prospects. There is ample evidence, however, that Malawi's progress has not spread across different segments of the farm population or Agriculture Development Districts. Both the unevenness and overall progress have been heavily influenced by donor-support.     

China and Taiwan access to the World Trade Organization: implications for U.S. agriculture and trade

This paper investigates the impact of China's and Taiwan's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on U.S. and world agricultural trade by means of a 12-region, 14-sector Computable General Equilibrium model for world trade and production. The simulation results show that integrating China and Taiwan into the global trading system could induce more competition on labor-intensive Products and reduce their prices. It could drive up the demand for capital and skill-intensive manufactured goods, thus further improving industrial countries' terms of trade. The expansion of labor-intensive sectors in China could also induce contraction in agricultural exports from China and increase its net agricultural imports by as much as US$9 billion annually, causing food and agricultural exports from other regions to increase. Total U.S. food and agricultural exports could increase by about US$2.4 billion annually, with the non-grain crop sectors gaining the most. The biggest winner from China's WTO accession is China itself. WTO membership could bring a net welfare gain of about US$30 billion a year for China, a substantial benefit compared with the gains for the USA (US$8.5 billion).     

A Note on the Profitability of Wheat-ethanol-feedlot Production in Alberta

A risk analysis of the economics of alternative wheat supplies to a small ethanol-beef feedlot facility was conducted, based on historical data from an 18-year period (1978–96). Alternatives simulated were Black, Dark Brown and Brown soil zone locations in Alberta growing either Hard Red Spring (HRS) wheat, Canadian Prairie Spring (CPS) wheat or irrigated Soft White (SWW) wheat to supply a 10 ML per year ethanol plant. The plant would use the coproduct of wet distillers grains in the finishing of approximately 14,000 steer calves per year. Three valuation scenarios were considered: selling ethanol at its market price, inclusion of current Alberta tax incentive levels for ethanol sale, and sale of wheat to the Canadian Wheat Board as opposed to sale to an ethanol plant. Ethanol facility and total net revenues were highest for the CPS-Dark Brown soil scenario due to its relatively high ethanol yields per tonne of feedstock, and high grain yields per hectare. An integrated feedstock-ethanol-livestock operation selling ethanol at current subsidy (tax incentives) levels will lose money approximately half to two-thirds of the time over the long run. Without subsidies, an integrated facility would lose money two-thirds to three-quarters of the time. Nous avons réalisé, à partir de données recueillies durant une période de 18 ans (1978 à 1996), une analyse de risque des aspects économiques de diverses provenances de blé pour une petite exploitation éthanol-parc d'engraissement. Les options simulées consistaient en emplacements situés dans les zones de sols noirs, brunfoncé et bruns de I'Alberta, produisant soil du blé roux vitreux deprintemps (BRVP), du blé de printemps des Prairies canadiennes (BPPC) ou du blé blanc tendre (BBT) sous irrigation pour alimenter un atelier d'éthanol d'un volume de fabrication de 10 millions de litres par année. L'atelier hypothétique utiliserait le co-produit des drêches de distillerie humides pour engraisser quelque 14 OOOjeunes bouvillons par année. Trois scénarios de valorisation étaient envisagés: vente de I'éthanol au prix de marché, inclusion des incitatifs fiscaux actuels de I'Alberta pour la vente de I'éthanol et vente du bléà la Commission canadienne du blé par opposition à la vente à un atelier de production d'éthanol. Les revenus nets tirés de I'atelieret les revenus nets totaux les plus élevés de l'exploitation étaient obtenus dans le scénario BPPC-sol brunfoncé en raison des rendements d'éthanol relativement élevés par tonne de blé et des bons rendements grainiers par hectare obtenus dans cette combinaison. Selon les résultats obtenus, un atelier intégré blé-éthanol-parc d'engraissement écoulant son éthanol au niveau de subvention actuel (incitatifs fiscaux), perdrait de I'argen d'environ la moitié aux deux tiers du temps. Sans ces subventions, il ne rentrerait dans ses dépenses qu'unefois sur trois ou unefois sur quatre seulement.     

基于Rotterdam模型的中国热带农产品进口市场格局研究

[目的]为把握热带农产品进口市场格局和供给效率,对中国热带农产品进口的市场竞争关系进行研究。[方法]文章基于1992—2020年中国热带农产品进口贸易数据,以木薯、天然橡胶、咖啡和胡椒为研究对象,运用Rotterdam模型估计测算这4种热带农产品进口市场各来源国的进口需求弹性,实证分析中国热带农产品进口市场格局。[结果]（1）中国热带农产品的进口来源较为集中,对泰国、越南、印度尼西亚、马来西亚等东盟国家的进口依赖程度相对较高;（2）木薯主要来源国之间的竞争性不强,中国对木薯有稳定的进口需求和进口来源地;（3）天然橡胶、咖啡和胡椒的进口来源国之间呈现出不同程度的市场竞争关系;（4）未来中国热带农产品进口需求对东盟国家依赖将进一步加深。[结论]中国应充分把握双边贸易关系,重新审视并完善与东盟国家及地区农业国际合作战略,不断促进热带农产品进口来源地和贸易渠道的多元化,以保障热带农产品贸易安全。     

Congestion and Distribution of Rents in Wheat Export Sector: A Canada–U.S. Cross‐Border Comparison

In Canada, average grain freight rates are regulated via the Maximum Revenue Entitlement (MRE), while on the US side of the border grain rates are subject to very little oversight. We use this natural experiment to explore how the MRE regulation has impacted freight rates and the distribution of rents in the wheat supply chain since 2012. On both sides of the border, when large crops have exceeded the short‐term capacity of grain export channels to move the crop, export basis has increased and reduced producer prices. In locations not subject to barge competition, US grain freight rates are higher than Canadian rates and are bid up further during periods of congestion. In Canada, MRE regulation redistributes rents away from railways toward grain companies and producers. These higher grain handling margins have increased the incentives to build additional port terminal capacity in the post‐CWB single desk environment. Au Canada, les tarifs marchandises moyens des céréales sont règlementés par le Revenu admissible maximal (RAM), tandis qu'aux États‐Unis, les tarifs céréaliers font l'objet de très peu de suivi. Au moyen de cette expérience naturelle, nous explorons l'impact du RAM sur les tarifs marchandises et sur la distribution des rentes dans la chaine d'approvisionnement du blé depuis 2012. Des deux côtés de la frontière, lorsque de vastes cultures ont excédé la capacité à court terme des voies d'exportation céréalières pour distribuer leurs récoltes, le seuil d'exportation augmente et réduit les prix des producteurs. Là où ils ne sont pas assujettis à la compétition de barges, les tarifs marchandises céréaliers américains s'avèrent plus élevés que les tarifs canadiens et se voient encore surenchéris lors de période de congestion. Au Canada, la règlementation du RAM redirige les rentes des compagnies ferroviaires aux entreprises et producteurs céréaliers. Ces marges de manutention plus élevées ont augmenté les incitatifs pour accroître la capacité des ports‐terminaux dans un environnement à pupitre unique, post Commission canadienne du blé.     

The Rise and Decline of Small‐Scale Sugarcane Production in South Africa: A Historical Perspective

South Africa's sugar industry has long been distinguished by its large number of small‐scale sugarcane growers (SSGs) farming on ‘communal’ land and its peculiar privately administered regulatory structure. In recent years, however, the numbers of small‐scale growers have declined precipitously. This paper argues that the relationship between the rise and fall of SSG production and the industry's governing regulatory structure is closer than usually appreciated. The emergence of SSG production in the late 1970s and the 1980s can be traced to industry‐subsidized initiatives, disguised as small‐scale credit, to bring commercially inalienable Bantustan land into cane production with strong miller oversight. From the late 1980s to 1990s, however, the elimination of these subsidies encouraged millers to subcontract support to farmers, while simultaneously instigating an increase in SSG numbers by removing restrictions on grower registration. Although low rainfall is a central proximal factor in the rapid decline of the SSGs in the 2000s, their rapid increase was structurally fragile.     

Examining the Leontief Paradox in U.S. Agricultural Trade

Factor intensity of United States agricultural trade is examined in the context of Leontief's classic paradox using Leontief's method as well as methods developed recently by Leamer and others. Findings indicate that factor endowments are important determinants of U.S. agriculture's comparative advantage in trade as suggested by the Heckscher-Ohlin theory.     

Testing the Integration of U.S.–Canadian Meat and Livestock Markets

Price transmission is a critically important issue that affects market enlargement and the unification of Canadian–U.S. agriculture. This study adopts alternative frameworks to examine the nature of cross‐border integration in selected meat and livestock markets. The aim is to determine the extent to which selected meat and livestock markets transmit price signals across the international border using time‐series data through 2001. Typically, price‐based studies examining market integration across countries ignore important spatial and temporal factors affecting commodity price relationships such as adjustments lags, changes in the value of national currencies, and policy‐induced trade barriers. Here, we account for such factors in our two model specifications. The first model is based upon the law‐of‐one price (LOP) framework and focuses on spatial efficiency. The second analytical framework is the vector autoregressive (VAR) model that highlights the dynamic notion of market connectedness. The LOP analysis permits us to formally test the existence of perfect market integration and complete market segmentation. The VAR analysis enables us to gauge price‐shock transference. Empirical evidence is generated confirming that the two national markets for whole chicken are segmented, a not unsurprising finding given that poultry is a supply managed sector in Canada. The Canadian–U.S. hog‐ and pork‐product markets were found to be more integrated than the Canadian–U.S. steer‐ and beef‐product markets. Evidence is also provided showing that the Canadian–U.S. exchange rate inhibits cross‐border integration in these commodity markets. La transmission des prix est un sujet extrêmement important qui gêne l'expansion des marchés et l'unification de l'agriculture du Canada et des États‐Unis. Dans la présente étude, nous avons utilisé divers cadres d'analyse pour examiner la nature de l'intégration transfrontalière de marchés sélectionnés de la viande et des bestiaux. L'objectif consistait à déterminer l'étendue avec laquelle des marchés sélectionnés de la viande et des bestiaux transmettent des signaux de prix au‐delà des frontières en utilisant des données de séries chronologiques jusqu'en 2001. Généralement, les études de prix qui examinent l'intégration des marchés entre les pays font abstraction de facteurs spatiaux et temporels importants touchant le rapport des prix des produits de base tels que le décalage dans les rajustements, la variation du cours des devises nationales et les obstacles au commerce induits par les politiques. Dans le présent article, nous avons tenu compte de ces facteurs dans les spécifications de deux modèles. Le premier est modèle fondé sur la loi du prix unique qui met l'accent sur l'efficacité spatiale. Le deuxième est un modèle d'autorégression vectorielle (VAR) qui met en évidence la notion dynamique de la connexité des marchés. Le modèle fondé sur la loi du prix unique nous a permis de vérifier l'existence de l'intégration parfaite et de la segmentation totale des marchés. Le modèle d'autorégression vectorielle nous a permis d'évaluer le transfert d'un choc de prix. L'évidence empirique a confirmé que les deux marchés nationaux du poulet entier étaient segmentés, un résultat qui n'est pas sans surprise compte tenu que l'élevage du poulet au Canada est un secteur soumis à la gestion de l'offre. Nous avons trouvé que les marchés canado‐américains des porcs et de la viande porcine étaient plus intégrés que les marchés canado‐américains des bovins et de la viande bovine. L'évidence empirique a également montré que le taux de change entravait l'intégration transfrontalière de ces marchés de produits de base.     

A review of the economic impact of malaria in agricultural development

This paper surveys the linkages between malaria and agriculture, focusing on the economic impacts of the disease. We adopt Negin's (2005) conceptual framework to examine the potential impacts of malaria in the agricultural sector, including both direct and indirect impacts. In addition to health care costs, malaria causes loss of agricultural labor and slows adoption of improved practices in agriculture. Furthermore, some agricultural practices and development interventions are known to facilitate the spread of malaria, exacerbating its impacts. Given the importance of both agriculture and malaria in developing countries, especially in Africa, the interaction between them could be a significant factor in economic growth. The review identifies gaps in past research on this topic. A better understanding of malaria's impact on agricultural productivity, coupled with efforts to strengthen capacity to deal with malaria, would enhance policies and programs aimed at combating malaria and curbing its impacts on agricultural productivity.     

Decentralization in Peru's Agricultural Policy: A Critical Review from 1993 to 1998

In 1983 decentralization was already being described as the latest fashion in development administration and it has been gaining in popularity ever since. This theoretical concept has been embraced world-wide and incorporated into economic and political reform plans. In this paper, the proclaimed desire for decentralization in Peru's public administration is tested by reviewing the example of its agricultural policy and in particular its strategy with regard to public agricultural subsidies. The objectives of the paper are: (1) to illustrate the discrepancies between the theoretical objectives of decentralization and how it is implemented in practice; (2) to analyse the structure of Peru's agricultural support policies, evaluate the process of decentralization in this sector and subsequently identify possible problem areas and make policy recommendations; and (3) using the regionally differentiated public expenditures for the agricultural sector in the period from 1993 to 1998, to cross-check the lip-service paid to decentralizing agricultural policy in Peru.     

NO FEELING FOR “UDDERS”?: A CRITICAL NOTE ON THE REPORT OF THE A.C.T. MILK AUTHORITY*

Fluid milk marketing in Australia is generally associated with an administered system where free market forces are unable to operate due to public intervention. Such interference creates a situation where, as Throsby [6, p. 243] puts it, 'returns to the fluid milk sector are maintained by monopoly pricing and supply control measures which vary from State to State'. The Australian Capital Territory (A.C.T.) is, similarly, not immune to the effects of producer protection. Indeed, it is contended that the implementation of the proposals contained in the A.C.T. Milk Authority Report of March 1974 [3] would have the effect of institutionalizing the power of the dairy industry to act in a manner opposed to the interests of A.C.T. consumers. The basic reason why the interests of consumers are so often put second to those of suppliers is summed up by J.N. Lewis [2, p. 283]: 'A determined close-knit group with strong interests in a particular policy issue can often impose its desires upon an apathetic majority whose interests are weak and diffused'. It is proposed to develop this theme by looking at the history of milk supply in the A.C.T. as a background to an examination of the Report, an appraisal of its contents, the advocacy of an alternative (competitive) solution and an estimation of costs, to consumers, of producer protection.     

Stochastic Biases in Technical Change in U.S. Agriculture: A Bootstrap Approach

Having argued that the modeling of technical change as a smooth deterministic function of time is likely to misrepresent the true nature of technical change, this paper reexamines biased technical change in U.S. agriculture using a system of share equations with unobserved components errors, with technology treated as a stochastic unobserved variable. Employing data to represent the aggregate output and input of the U.S. agricultural sector over the period 1947–94, significant factor biases were found that appear to be linearly independent and do not appear to be smooth and deterministic. Technical change in U.S. agriculture appears to have been biased toward saving expenditure on labor at the expense of expenditure on intermediate inputs, with some small saving on the expenditure on capital inputs over the entire period 1947‐94. The paper also employs a bootstrapping approach in order to obtain finite sample tests with approximately the correct size under less stringent assumptions about the data generating process than assumed by maximum likelihood (ML) based approaches. Using these finite sample values significantly alters the conclusions reached regarding the nature of technical change. Après avoir démontré que la modélisation du changement technique par une fonction lissée déterministe du temps peut ne pas représenter correctement sa vraie nature, cet papier re‐examine le biais du changement technique dans l'agriculture américaine à partir d'un systè d'équations de parts avec des erreurs non observées et une technologie traitée comme une variable stochastique non observée. A partir de données représentant la production et les intrants agrégés dans le secteur agricole américain sur la période 1947–1994, nous constatons que les biais significatifs sont indépendants linéairement et qui ne sont pas des fonctions déterministes lissées du temps. Le changement technique dans l'agriculture américaine est biaisé en faveur des réductions de dépenses de travail aux dépends des dépenses sur les intrants intermédiaires et montre quelques économies sur les dépenses de capital sur la période 1947‐1994. L'emploi des techniques de bootstrapping permet d'obtenir des tests sur échantillons finis avec des hypothèses moins exigeantes que celles imposées par les approches de maximum de vraisemblance. Les conclusions obtenues à partir de ces tests sont significativement différentes que celles obtenues par les méthodes traditionnelles concernant le changement technique.     

Time‐varying Hedge Ratios: A Principal‐agent Approach

We use the classic agency model to derive a time‐varying optimal hedge ratio for low‐frequency time‐series data: the type of data used by crop farmers when deciding about production and about their hedging strategy. Rooted in the classic agency framework, the proposed hedge ratio reflects the context of both the crop farmer's decision and the crop farmer's contractual relationships in the marketing channel. An empirical illustration of the Dutch ware potato sector and its futures market in Amsterdam over the period 1971–2003 reveals that the time‐varying optimal hedge ratio decreased from 0.34 in 1971 to 0.24 in 2003. The hedging effectiveness, according to this ratio, is 39%. These estimates conform better with farmers’ interest in using futures contracts for hedging purposes than the much higher estimates obtained when price risk minimisation is the only objective considered.