Is Bt Cotton a Pro‐Poor Technology? A Review and Critique of the Empirical Record

Policy makers, journalists and other commentators have hailed genetically modified (GM) crops as a ‘pro‐poor’ success in the developing world. Their confidence appears to be justified by the encouraging conclusions reached by academic studies on the performance and impacts of GM crops, which seem to provide convincing evidence of substantial benefits for smallholders in developing countries. However, a detailed, critical examination of studies on transgenic, insect‐resistant cotton in China, India and South Africa demonstrates that the technology's impacts have been evaluated and represented in selective and misleading ways. The performance and impacts of GM crops have in fact been highly variable, socio‐economically differentiated and contingent on a range of agronomic, socio‐economic and institutional factors. The shortcomings of the GM crop‐impacts literature have done a disservice to public and policy debates about GM crops in international development and impeded the development of sound, evidence‐based policy.     

Does Choice Context Affect the Results from Incentive‐Compatible Experiments? The Case of Non‐GM and Country‐of‐Origin Premia in Canola Oil

We seek to design and implement a WTP elicitation instrument closely resembling an actual grocery shopping experience. An incentive-compatible choice experiment is used to elicit values for a non-GM attribute and a country-of-origin attribute of Canola oil. The choice context is varied to assess whether revealed-preference choice experiments are affected by choice variety. A median premium for non-GM Canola oil is found to approximate C$0.45 or C$0.62/liter according to the choice variety context; different country-of-origin effects are also found as choice context varies. Hypotheses as to why these significant effects of choice contexts occur are suggested.
Nous cherchons à concevoir et à mettre en application un instrument de révélation de la VDP qui ressemble étroitement aux choix que fait un consommateur lorsqu'il effectue son marché. Nous avons utilisé une méthode expérimentale compatible avec les incitations des participants afin de découvrir la valeur accordée à deux caractéristiques de l'huile de canola: non génétiquement modifiée et étiquetée selon le pays d'origine. La liste des choix est variée afin d'évaluer si les préférences révélées sont influencées par la gamme de choix. La prime médiane de l'huile de canola non génétiquement modifiée est d'environ 0,45 $CAN ou 0,62 $CAN le litre selon les choix proposés. Différents pays d'origine figurent aussi dans cette liste de choix. Nous avons formulé des hypothèses quant aux raisons pour lesquelles la gamme de choix a des effets importants.     

The State of Resource Taxation in Australia: ‘An Inexcusable Folly for the Nation’?

This article discusses the principal claims made for the Resource Rent Tax (RRT) by Garnaut and Clunies-Ross (1975, 1979) relating to its efficiency and potential for generating tax revenue relative to other forms of resource taxation, and also their concern about the greater uncertainty of these revenues. An analysis of the risk-return trade-off associated with a shift from ad valorem royalties to an RRT finds this shift to be worthwhile. Estimates are also provided of the foregone tax revenue from the North West Shelf associated with the use of ad valorem royalties rather than the RRT.     

Does Agricultural Productivity Actually Matter for Food Security in a Landlocked Sub‐Saharan African Country? The Case of Burkina Faso

This paper makes use of a Computable General Equilibrium model to analyze the impact of two agricultural productivity trends on poor households’ food security in Burkina Faso: a negative trend that could arise from many different factors, including land degradation, climate change, and harmful agricultural practices; and a positive trend which may result from enhanced public investment in agriculture, notably in research and development, extension, irrigation, rural roads, rural electrification, and rural education. The results point to a high sensitivity of the poor's consumption to agricultural productivity as well as to stronger impacts on the urban poor than on the rural poor. The current situation is already characterized by severe food insecurity, such that a decline in agricultural productivity is likely to further plunge the urban poor into a deep food crisis. By contrast, positive agricultural productivity trends may help alleviate poverty and food insecurity. Agricultural productivity may indeed affect the poor's food consumption mainly through large changes in agricultural prices and real incomes. Cet article utilise un modèle d’Équilibre Général Calculable pour analyser l'impact des différentes tendances de la productivité agricole sur la sécurité alimentaire des ménages pauvres au Burkina Faso. D'une part, les tendances négatives peuvent résulter de plusieurs facteurs, y compris la dégradation des terres, le changement climatique, et les pratiques agricoles nuisibles. D'autre part, la tendance positive peut résulter de l'investissement public accru dans l'agriculture, notamment dans la recherche et développement, la vulgarisation, l'irrigation, les routes rurales, l′électrification rurale et l′éducation rurale. Les résultats montrent une sensibilité élevée de la consommation des pauvres à la productivité agricole, ainsi que des impacts plus forts sur les populations urbaines pauvres. La situation actuelle est déjà caractérisée par une insécurité alimentaire grave de sorte qu'une baisse de la productivité agricole est susceptible de plonger davantage les pauvres en milieu urbain dans une crise alimentaire profonde. En revanche, la tendance positive sur la productivité agricole peut contribuer à atténuer la pauvreté et l'insécurité alimentaire. La productivité agricole peut en effet affecter la consommation alimentaire des pauvres principalement par le biais de grandes variations des prix agricoles et des revenus réels.     

Evaluation of Agri‐Environmental Programs: Can We Determine If We Grew Forward in an Environmentally Friendly Way?

The environmental elements of the quinquennial agricultural policy frameworks are probably the largest agri‐environmental programs in Canada and have been running for about 15 years. Formal evaluation of their effectiveness has either not been done, or is not available for researchers and policy analysts to compare with other agri‐environmental policy efforts. This address introduces this problem and attempts to examine evaluative approaches using Alberta's Growing Forward 1 and 2 environmental stewardship programs. While this attempt has uncovered significant data issues, there is evidence that program managers targeted funds to areas where water quality risks are of concern. The review also questions the requirement that producers eligible for funding must have an Environmental Farm Plan. After 15 years of having this requirement, I argue that it's time for Alberta's environmental stewardship program to relax this. Les éléments environnementaux des cadres politiques agricoles quinquennaux représentent probablement les plus vastes programmes agroenvironnementaux au Canada et opèrent depuis environ quinze ans. L'évaluation formelle de leur efficacité n'a soit pas été entreprise, ou n'est pas disponible pour les chercheurs et analystes politiques afin qu'ils les comparent à d'autres efforts en matière de politique agroenvironnementale. Cet énoncé présente ce problème et tente d'examiner les approches évaluatives utilisées par les programmes albertains de gérance environnementale Cultivons l'avenir 1 et 2. S'il est vrai que cette tentative a révélé de considérables problèmes de données, des preuves démontrent que les gestionnaires de programmes dirigeaient les fonds vers les régions où la qualité de l'eau est en jeu. L'évaluation s'interroge aussi au sujet de l'exigence selon laquelle les producteurs admissibles au financement doivent présenter un plan agroenvironnemental. Ayant été requise pendant quinze ans, je propose que le programme de gérance environnementale de l'Alberta assouplisse cette exigence.     

Is Input Mix Inefficiency Neglected in Agriculture? A Case Study of Pig‐based Farming Systems in England and Wales

The principal concern of this article is the relative importance of input mix as a source of inefficiency. Emphasis in efficiency analysis studies in agricultural production has historically focused on technical inefficiency as a single concept until methodological advances enabled it to be decomposed into pure technical inefficiency and scale inefficiency. But, this advance was insufficient to identify what we consider to be the major source of inefficiency in agricultural production, namely mix inefficiency. We consider that farm enterprises may be particularly susceptible to input mix inefficiency because of restrictions on movement around the frontier isoquant; delays in the adoption of improved technologies embodied in new vintages of production processes; risk as a source of friction in input allocation decisions; and the potential for inconsistency in simultaneously attempting to reach points of allocative efficiency and mix efficiency in input use. We use non‐parametric methods to calculate a Hicks–Moorsteen productivity index using panel data for a sample of specialised pig producers in England and Wales. This index is then decomposed into measures of technology, technical efficiency, scale efficiency and mix efficiency for an input orientation. Results of the analysis show that the estimated mean mix inefficiency (0.736) was substantially larger than mean technical inefficiency (0.975) and mean scale inefficiency (0.957) over the study period.     

Why do global long‐term scenarios for agriculture differ? An overview of the AgMIP Global Economic Model Intercomparison

Recent studies assessing plausible futures for agricultural markets and global food security have had contradictory outcomes. To advance our understanding of the sources of the differences, 10 global economic models that produce long‐term scenarios were asked to compare a reference scenario with alternate socioeconomic, climate change, and bioenergy scenarios using a common set of key drivers. Several key conclusions emerge from this exercise: First, for a comparison of scenario results to be meaningful, a careful analysis of the interpretation of the relevant model variables is essential. For instance, the use of “real world commodity prices” differs widely across models, and comparing the prices without accounting for their different meanings can lead to misleading results. Second, results suggest that, once some key assumptions are harmonized, the variability in general trends across models declines but remains important. For example, given the common assumptions of the reference scenario, models show average annual rates of changes of real global producer prices for agricultural products on average ranging between ?0.4% and +0.7% between the 2005 base year and 2050. This compares to an average decline of real agricultural prices of 4% p.a. between the 1960s and the 2000s. Several other common trends are shown, for example, relating to key global growth areas for agricultural production and consumption. Third, differences in basic model parameters such as income and price elasticities, sometimes hidden in the way market behavior is modeled, result in significant differences in the details. Fourth, the analysis shows that agro‐economic modelers aiming to inform the agricultural and development policy debate require better data and analysis on both economic behavior and biophysical drivers. More interdisciplinary modeling efforts are required to cross‐fertilize analyses at different scales.     

Will They Stay or Will They Go? Simulating the Dynamics of Single‐Holder Farms in a Dualistic Farm Structure in Slovakia

This paper investigates the dynamic interplay between farm exit and entry of single‐holder farms (SF) in a dualistic farm structure in the Nitra region of the Slovak Republic. Our focus is on economic and noneconomic reasons for farm exit. The impact of varying both the likelihood of succession and the initial farm operator age distributions is studied. An agent‐based simulation model of structural change in agriculture is applied, which brings together farm‐internal and ‐external determinants and creates a set of endogenous adjustment reactions. We show that the stepwise introduction of direct payments of the Common Agricultural Policy in Slovakia has a strong impact on its structural development. In the short‐ to medium‐term, the dualistic farm structure together with a specific age structure of farms still persists as a response to the policy. The phasing‐in of payments persuades SF to stay and potential successors to enter. In the longer run, the initially heterogeneous farm structure becomes increasingly homogeneous toward larger SF. The prevalence of small SF in the medium‐ to long‐term is not necessarily a given. This may lead decision makers to reconsider the role of individual farms in rural development. Dans le présent article, nous avons étudié la relation entre l'entrée en agriculture de fermes à propriétaire unique et leur sortie dans un contexte d'agriculture dualiste dans la région de Nitra, en Slovaquie. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur les raisons économiques et non économiques qui motivent la sortie. Nous avons étudié l'impact liéà la possibilité de relève et à la répartition par âge des agriculteurs. Pour évaluer le changement structurel en agriculture, nous avons utilisé un modèle de simulation multi‐agent qui réunit les facteurs internes et externes et crée un ensemble de réactions d'adaptation endogènes. Nous avons montré que l'introduction progressive des paiements directs accordés dans le cadre de la Politique agricole commune en Slovaquie a des répercussions considérables sur son développement structurel. À court et à moyen termes, l'agriculture dualiste, combinée à la structure de l'âge des exploitations agricoles, demeure une réaction à la politique en place. La mise en place progressive des paiements persuade les exploitations à propriétaire unique de demeurer dans le secteur et encourage les successeurs potentiels à y entrer. À plus long terme, la structure agricole qui était hétérogène au départ devient de plus en plus homogène et compte de plus grandes fermes à propriétaire unique. À court et à moyen termes, la prévalence de petites fermes à propriétaire unique ne va pas nécessairement de soi. Cette situation pourrait amener les décideurs à réexaminer le rôle des exploitations individuelles dans le développement rural.     

Protester or non‐protester: a binary state? On the use (and non‐use) of latent class models to analyse protesting in economic valuation*

In the analysis of stated preferences studies, it is often assumed that protesting is a discretely measured item only occurring among those who are not willing to pay. However, various studies have recently shown that protest beliefs are as well held by respondents who state a positive willingness to pay (WTP). Using latent class (LC) models, we investigate the extent of heterogeneity with respect to protest beliefs among all respondents of two contingent valuation studies. The advantage of LC models is that classes of individuals are endogenously identified and no selection bias is introduced by ad hoc definitions of protesters. Further we investigate whether it is possible to identify a class of non‐protesters. Finding a group of pure non‐protesters could indicate how strongly stated WTP in the whole sample is affected by protest beliefs. For both samples, we find a class with strong protest beliefs but no pure non‐protest class. Overall, our results suggest that LC models might not be the first choice to determine unbiased WTP measures, but they provide valuable insights into the degree of protesting expressed by different groups and corresponding determinants of group membership.     

A thing of the past? Household surveys in a rapidly evolving (agricultural) data landscape: Insights from the LSMS‐ISA

Household surveys, a pivotal component of every country's national statistical system, continue to be criticized and praised in equal manner. While recognizing their limitations, it is clear that certain types of data must continue to be collected through household surveys, preferably in an integrated manner with other data sources. This is particularly true in the agricultural space for which household and farm surveys will be critical both to collect primary data as well as to validate alternative data sources. Recent methodological gains and technological innovations offer a unique opportunity to address many of the shortcomings of agricultural data. In this article, we briefly describe select examples of such methodological and technological changes, drawing from the Living Standards Measurement Study‐Integrated Surveys on Agriculture, a survey program aimed at improving the availability, quality, and relevance of agricultural data in multitopic, multipurpose household surveys.