Report of the Editor‐in‐Chief

2007 has seen a further increase in submissions to the Journal, with an increasingly international pattern, though no corresponding increase in accepted papers. Response times continue to meet our target of 4 months, with some regrettable lapses. The citation impact factor has slipped a little from last year but continues to be strong relative to our historical performance. Wiley‐Blackwell continue to provide a strong publishing platform, and will soon mount our full archive on‐line in Blackwell Synergy, which is to be merged with Wiley Interscience in January 2009.     

Report of the Editor‐in‐Chief

2009 has seen a further increase in submissions to the Journal, which continue to show an increasingly international pattern, although with no corresponding increase in accepted papers. Response times continue to meet our target of four months, with fewer regrettable lapses, and an improvement in mean time to decision from 2008. The JAE’s citation impact factor has improved to 1.2 in 2008. Wiley‐Blackwell continue to provide a strong publishing platform with the full archive of JAE papers now online.     

Measuring agricultural total factor productivity in China: pattern and drivers over the period of 1978‐2016

The Chinese agricultural sector has experienced a substantial increase in total output since dramatic reforms were introduced in 1978. This paper uses the index method to measure agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) for China’s crop and livestock industries, based on the gross output model from 1978 to 2016. We construct production accounts for the industries using input‐output relationships for the 26 main agricultural commodities and commodity groups, which account for over 90 per cent of the total agricultural inputs and outputs. The results show that China’s agricultural TFP grew at a rate of approximately 2.4 per cent a year before 2009, which is comparable to the main OECD countries and is double the world average. TFP growth accounts for approximately 40 per cent of output growth, suggesting that input growth was the main driver of output growth in the past. However, average productivity growth slowed down after 2009 though it has gradually recovered since 2012. The slowdown reflects the emerging challenges to existing farm production practices in Chinese agriculture, suggesting the need for further institutional reform.     

Report of the Editor‐in‐Chief

Submissions to the Journal continue to show an increasingly international pattern, with the submission rate apparently stabilising after a recent rapid increase. Our response times still mostly meet our target of four months, with some regrettable lapses. The JAE’s citation impact factor has slipped again in 2010, though indications from data on 2011 citations strongly suggest a significant improvement in the 2011 impact factor (due to be published in June 2012). Wiley‐Blackwell continue to provide a strong publishing platform with our full archive generating rapidly increasing numbers of downloads.     

Australia's consumption‐based greenhouse gas emissions

We use data from the World Input‐Output Database in a multiregional input–output model to analyse Australian consumption‐based greenhouse gas emissions for the years 1995 to 2009. We find that the emission content of Australian macroeconomic activity has changed over the 15‐year period. Consumption‐based emissions have been growing faster than production‐based emissions since 2001. We show that emissions embodied in Australian imports are increasingly becoming a significant source of emissions. We investigate emissions in Australian imports and find that increased trade with China contributed substantially to the increase in Australia's consumption emissions. China was the largest exporter of emissions to Australia and accounted for almost half of emissions embodied in Australian imports since 2002. The growth of trade with China coincides with the increase in imported emissions as well as the increase in aggregate consumption emissions. Our results suggest that tracking consumption emissions together with production emissions provides a more complete picture of Australian emissions.     

Consumer Willingness to Pay Price Premiums for Credence Attributes of Livestock Products – A Meta‐Analysis

Livestock products, such as dairy and beef, are increasingly regarded as resource intensive and concerns are raised about animal welfare and environmental sustainability. As a result, consumer awareness of these issues has led to an increasing demand for products with high quality credence attributes (CAs) that cannot be directly experienced or identified. A number of empirical studies have attempted to estimate consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for CAs, which represents the additional value placed on the benefits that they derive from those products. However, there are significant differences in these WTP estimates, mainly because both consumers' perceptions of CAs and the conditions of the studies vary. We conduct a meta‐analysis to examine consumers' WTP for different CAs of livestock products based on a systematic review of relevant studies. Meta‐regression models are used to control for the heterogeneity of WTP estimates and investigate factors that affect the estimation of WTP. Overall 555 estimates derived from 94 papers reporting WTP are included in this study. Meta‐regression results establish the presence of systematic WTP variation associated with types of products, CAs, and locations, though also indicate that WTP is subject to systematic variation associated with study methodology.     

Introduction to the special issue “small farms: decline or persistence?”

This issue of Agricultural Economics contains articles from a seminar entitled “Small Farms: Decline or Persistence?” held at the University of Kent. This issue includes nine papers selected from more than 50 papers presented at the seminar. Articles published use a range of econometric and simulation methods to provide a suite of case studies. Topics studied range from such fundamental issues as what constitutes a small farm to recent trends in the diversification of small farms and their integration into modern globalized food chains. Several papers emphasize the link between agricultural policy development and the future of small farms.     

Short‐ and Long‐Run Policy Evaluation: Support for Grassland‐Based Milk Production in Switzerland

Following the abolition of the milk quota in 2008, farmers in Switzerland strongly increased the use of concentrate feed in milk production. Against this background, the Swiss government introduced the voluntary grassland‐based milk and meat (GMF) programme in 2014, which combines economic incentives with feeding restrictions to reduce the reliance on concentrate feed and increase the use of grass feed. We analyse the economic and ecological impacts of the GMF programme at the farm and at the sector level in the short‐ and long‐run. We use a difference‐in‐differences approach (ex‐post) and an agent‐based simulation model SWISSland (ex‐ante) to construct counterfactual states to evaluate the programme's impacts. We find that the GMF programme reduces the use of concentrate feed and increases the use of grass feed in Swiss milk production. Whereas the programme has a positive effect on economic indicators such as the farm income, we find no effect on ecological indicators such as the N surplus. Our analysis suggests that feeding restrictions on concentrate feed are not enough to achieve a reduction in the N surplus. Additional feeding restrictions on grassland are necessary. Furthermore, the GMF programme has a dampening effect on sectoral milk supply, and leads to a higher milk price.     

Agri‐Environmental Regulations,Policies, and Programs

The literature on the interface between agriculture and the environment is highly diverse. This paper organizes this literature into three categories: regulation; adoption of environmental best management practices (BMPs) by farmers; and conservation programs. Within each category, the main research questions are set forth. After reviewing select papers, suggestions for future research are discussed. Academic research in this area has been impressive, but many issues and research questions remain unanswered. La littérature sur la corrélation entre l’agriculture et l’environnement est très diversifiée. Dans le présent article, nous avons divisé l’ensemble de cette littérature en trois catégories: la réglementation, l’adoption des meilleures pratiques de gestion environnementale de la part des agriculteurs et les programmes de conservation. Pour chaque catégorie, les principales questions de recherche ont étéénoncées. Une fois l’analyse des articles choisis terminée, nous avons examiné les suggestions en matière de recherche future. Bien que la recherche universitaire effectuée sur le sujet soit impressionnante, de nombreux problèmes et de nombreuses questions de recherche demeurent sans réponse.     

Eliciting Willingness‐to‐Pay through Multiple Experimental Procedures: Evidence from Lab‐in‐the‐Field in Rural Ghana

This paper has the objectives of (a) comparing estimated willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) across three elicitation mechanisms (a Becker‐DeGroot‐Marschak [BDM] auction, a kth price auction, and a choice experiment [CE]) and (b) examining how these vary by participation fee. The product under consideration is kenkey made with nutritious maize, biofortified with vitamin A, which gives it a distinct orange color, in contrast to the white and yellow varieties that are traditionally consumed. We use an experiment consisting of 14 treatment arms, conducted in rural Ghana. Our estimation strategy explicitly accounts for the censored (typically at the market price) nature of the bids in the auctions, and the apparently lexicographic choices of several individuals in the CE. We find no evidence of economically meaningful (defined by the minimum currency unit of five pesewas) differences in WTP (although they may be statistically significant) across elicitation mechanisms, or by participation fee, a result that is in contrast to that found in much of the literature. A secondary finding is that the provision of nutrition information positively and significantly affects the marginal WTP for the new maize.     

Report of the Editor‐in‐Chief

Submissions to the Journal continue to increase steadily, with a strong international pattern, while our response times are also improving. The JAE's citation impact factor has declined from the record highs of 2011 & 2012 (1.55 & 1.5) to 0.97. Current data suggest that 2014's score will be little better. Wiley‐Blackwell continue to provide a strong publishing platform with our full archive generating a continuing increase in the number of downloads.     

Report of the Editor‐in‐Chief

Submissions to the Journal continue to increase steadily, with a strong international pattern, while our response times are also improving. The JAE's citation impact factor has recovered to 1.3 in 2014. Current indications are that 2015's score will be similar. Wiley‐Blackwell continue to provide a strong publishing platform with our full archive generating a continuing increase in the number of downloads.     

Contract farming: opportunity cost and trade‐offs

An important literature has established that participation in contract farming leads to higher incomes and has a number of other beneficial effects on the welfare of participating households. Yet no one has looked at the opportunity cost of and the various trade‐offs involved in participating in contract farming. I look at the relationship between participation in contract farming and income from (i) livestock, (ii) labor markets, (iii) nonfarm businesses, and (iv) agricultural sources other than livestock and contract farming and (v) unearned income. Using data from Madagascar, I find that participation in contract farming is associated with a 79% decrease in how much income per capita the average household derives from labor markets and a 47% decrease in how much income per capita it derives from nonfarm businesses, but also with a 51% increase in how much income per capita the average household derives from agricultural sources other than livestock and contract farming, possibly due to technological spillovers. Thus, even though contract farming has been shown to improve welfare in multiple ways in this context, it looks as though those gains come at the cost of an “agricultural involution” on the part of participating households, who seem to turn away from non‐agricultural activities. This has important implications for structural transformation narratives.     

Report of the Editor‐in‐Chief

Submissions to the Journal appear to have stabilised, but continue a strong international pattern. Our response times continue to meet our targets. The JAE's citation impact factor has recovered to 1.5 in 2015 with current indications that 2016's score will be similar. Wiley continue to provide a strong publishing platform with our full archive generating a continuing increase in the number of downloads.     

A Spatio‐temporal Model of Farmland Values

Despite the fact that data on farm sales are invariably collected over both time and space, previous papers have allowed for the presence of either temporal or spatial relationships in the data, but not both. Some papers have also inadvertently assumed that although farmland values are influenced by prices realised by nearby sales, these sales need not necessarily be comparable in terms of their attributes. Using data on sales of farmland obtained through public auctions in England and Wales, this paper examines the consequences of explicitly allowing for the presence of a spatio‐temporal lag in the estimation of hedonic models of farmland value. The results indicate that spatio‐temporally lagged values of the dependent and independent variables contribute significant additional explanatory power. Accounting for spatio‐temporal relationships appears moreover to somewhat alter the perceived size and statistical significance of key farmland attributes.     

Producer‐Controlled Marketing Organizations,Self‐Regulation,and Economic Welfare: Minimum Quality Standards in Agricultural Markets

Many agricultural producer‐controlled marketing organizations (PCMOs) have direct or indirect control over the amount or quality distribution of production marketed by the industry. We analyze the decision of these organizations whether to impose a minimum quality standard (MQS), and the impact of such standards on producer, consumer, and total welfare. An MQS can enhance net welfare because it may correct for deficient production of high‐quality product by the industry in the absence of an MQS, even though an MQS causes the destruction or diversion of low‐quality products. However, any MQS imposed voluntarily by a profit‐maximizing PCMO decreases the welfare of all consumers of the product and is also highly likely to reduce net (producer plus consumer) welfare. De nombreux organismes de commercialisation contrôlés des producteurs agricoles exercent un contrôle direct ou indirect sur la quantité ou la qualité de la production commercialisée par l’industrie. Nous avons analysé l’idée de ces organismes d’imposer ou non une norme de qualité minimale ainsi que les répercussions éventuelles de ce genre de norme sur les producteurs, les consommateurs et le bien‐être total. L’imposition d’une norme de qualité minimale peut contribuer à accroître le bien‐être net puisqu’elle peut pallier la production insuffisante de produits de haute qualité par l’industrie en l’absence d’une norme de qualité minimale, bien qu’elle puisse entraîner la destruction ou le détournement de produits de qualité inférieure. Il n’en demeure pas moins que l’imposition volontaire d’une norme de qualité minimale par un organisme de commercialisation contrôlé des producteurs agricoles qui vise la maximisation des profits diminue le bien‐être de tous les consommateurs du produit et risque aussi de diminuer le bien‐être net (soit celui des producteurs et des consommateurs).     

Report of the Editor‐in‐Chief

Submissions to the Journal continue to increase, with a strong international pattern, while our response times are also improving. The JAE's citation impact factor reached a record high in 2011 at 1.55, with data on 2012 citations suggesting a modest decline in 2012 (due to be published in June 2013). Wiley‐Blackwell continues to provide a strong publishing platform with our full archive generating rapidly increasing numbers of downloads.     

Household‐level Impacts of Dairy Cow Ownership in Coastal Kenya

This study uses heteroskedastic Tobit and Censored Least Absolute Deviations models to examine the impacts of dairy cow ownership on selected outcomes for a sample of 184 households in coastal Kenya. The outcomes examined include gross household cash income, gross non‐agricultural income, consumption of dairy products, time allocated to cattle‐related tasks, number of labourers hired and total wage payments to hired labourers. The number of dairy cows owned has a large and statistically significant impact on household cash income; each cow owned increased income by at least 53% of the mean total income of households without dairy cows. Dairy cow ownership also increases consumption of dairy products by 1.0 litre per week, even though most of the increase in milk production is sold. The number of dairy cows has no significant effect on total labour for cattle‐related tasks. However, in contrast to previous studies, labour allocation to cattle by household members decreases and labour requirements for dairy cows are met primarily by an increase in hired labour. Dairy cow ownership results in relatively modest increases in payments to hired labourers and the number of hired labourers employed. The large positive impacts on income and the substitution of hired for household labour in cattle care suggest that intensification of smallholder dairying can be beneficial as a development strategy in the region if disease and feed constraints are addressed.