Rethinking Organic Farming in the Post‐Socialist Context: Lessons from Bulgaria

On the basis of an in‐depth qualitative study, this article discusses the case of Bulgaria as an example of a new EU Member State that implemented EU organic farming policies in a top‐down process during EU accession. We explore the difficulties in transposing a concept originating in Western Europe to post‐Socialist countries, and particularly ask what this transposing of an alien concept means for long‐term development of the organic sector. We found that the top‐down agenda‐setting for organic farming in Bulgaria resulted in inefficient policies that inhibited an orientation of producers towards the market's needs. Tacit assumptions underlying the concept of organic farming in Western Europe, such as the relevance of social capital could not be sustained in Bulgaria, which added to the challenges of policy implementation. To increase policy efficiency, we recommend a policy process that involves the expertise of all organic sector actors, including organic operators, but also policymakers, organic organisations, consumers and academic experts. Expertise and knowledge requirements are diverse, touching policy, market, collective action and practice‐oriented skills. Integrating these skills could maximise success in finding the best solution for implementing – and adjusting – a foreign concept meaningfully in a particular local context.     

Input Disposability and Efficiency in Dutch Arable Farming

This paper develops a test for disposability of individual inputs based on non‐radial efficiency measures. Furthermore, the paper analyses the impact of congestion on overall technical efficiency for individual inputs. The application uses panel data from Dutch cash crop farms over the period 1989–1992. A significant difference between the efficiency measures under different assumptions on input disposability is detected by a t‐test, indicating that all inputs are weakly disposable. Analysis of the composition of overall technical efficiency reveals that weak disposability constitutes the largest component of inefficiency. Moreover, congested farms on average have a less effective management and operate on a larger, though less efficient, production scale.     

The Post‐Privatization Role of Out‐growers' Associations in Rural Capital Accumulation: Contract Farming of Sugar Cane in Kilombero,Tanzania

Contract farming is widely promoted by multilateral agencies as an engine of economic growth in developing countries. The agencies often stress the need for governments to create strong farmers' organizations that can shoulder the risks associated with contractual relationships with large corporations. However, empirical studies of farmers' organizations in contractual schemes are few and tend to dismiss the performances of these organizations for not measuring up to donor expectations. This paper seeks to offer a more unbiased examination of what farmer's organizations actually do by recounting the development of out‐growers' associations in a contract farming scheme in central Tanzania. The paper explores the new space for social organization and business operations which emerged after privatization in 1998. It is argued that under certain conditions, out‐grower associations occupy a crucial position with regard to classic agrarian questions of land, labour and capital accumulation.     

The Economic Impact of a Foot‐and‐Mouth Disease Outbreak for Ontario's Beef Sector

Biosecurity is an increasingly prominent concern to the Canadian agri‐food sector given heightened public awareness of animal welfare and the continued importance of trade. Due to the potential for large‐scale animal depopulation and uncertain trade flow restrictions, the economic costs and animal welfare implications of disease outbreaks have prompted efforts to control their spread within and across trade boundaries. We build a partial equilibrium model of the beef supply chain in Ontario to examine the welfare impacts of a foot‐and‐mouth disease outbreak inside and outside the province. Somewhat surprisingly, economic impacts for Ontario are not dramatically different between an outbreak within the province versus an outbreak in western Canada: losses total $245 and $217 million, respectively. When the outbreak occurs outside Ontario and provincial zoning is recognized, losses total only $93 million. Restrictions on international and, inter‐ and intra‐provincial movement of livestock and beef products are the main driver of losses. A strength of our model is that we are able to disaggregate these impacts across the various market participants (i.e., producers, processors, retailers, consumers). Retailers and consumers incur little to no losses as imports from the United States easily fill shortages in supply. Production losses from livestock movement restrictions and depopulation are partially offset by higher prices, while processors bear the brunt of the losses due to reduced supply and higher livestock prices. La biosécurité revêt de plus en plus d'importance dans le secteur agroalimentaire canadien en raison de la sensibilisation accrue du public au bien‐être animal et de l'importance soutenue du commerce. Compte tenu de l’éventualité d'un dépeuplement animal à grande échelle et de mesures pouvant restreindre le flux des échanges commerciaux, le coût économique des éclosions de maladies et leurs répercussions sur le bien‐être animal ont stimulé les efforts afin de maîtriser leur propagation tant à l'intérieur qu’à l'extérieur des frontières commerciales. Dans la présente étude, nous avons élaboré un modèle d’équilibre partiel de la chaîne d'approvisionnement du b?uf en Ontario afin d'examiner les répercussions d'une éclosion de fièvre aphteuse à l'intérieur et à l'extérieur de la province. Étonnamment, que l’éclosion survienne en Ontario ou dans l'Ouest canadien, l'impact économique pour l'Ontario ne diffère pas considérablement : les pertes totales étant de 293 millions de dollars (M$) et de 267 M$ respectivement. Lorsque l’éclosion survient à l'extérieur de l'Ontario et que les zones de contrôle provinciales sont déterminées, les pertes totales s’élèvent à 27 M$ seulement. Les restrictions concernant le déplacement du bétail et des produits de b?uf entre pays, entre provinces et à l'intérieur d'une même province constituent les principaux facteurs entrainant des pertes. L'une des forces de notre modèle tient au fait que nous avons été en mesure de désagréger les impacts entre les différents acteurs dans le marché (producteurs, transformateurs, détaillants et consommateurs). Les détaillants et les consommateurs subissent peu ou pas de pertes étant donné que les importations en provenance des États‐Unis comblent facilement les pénuries de l'offre. Du côté des producteurs, les pertes causées par le déplacement et le dépeuplement du bétail sont en partie contrebalancées par des prix élevés, tandis que les transformateurs essuient les pertes les plus lourdes en raison d'une diminution de l'offre et du prix du bétail élevé.     

尼日利亚奥约州作物耕作技术的应用研究

为了促进农业生产，研究人员开发了一些农业技术，这些技术在农民的使用中又表现出不同结果。本文设法对尼日利亚奥约州农民的作物耕作技术的理解和运用进行研究。通过多阶段随机抽样方法（问卷调查），本文选取了120农户对其卡方和皮尔逊积差进行研究，表明没有好处或没有副作用的技术农民也欣然采纳了。化肥使用了68．3％，农场碱残留的处理技术67＋5％，contour bonds使用10％，谷物／豆类套种技术88．3％。 论文运用皮尔逊积差相关系数（PPMC）对非意愿采纳和一些独立变量的关系进行了检验，结果表明获益、采纳、社会参与和与推广机构联系显著，而年龄、农户规模不显著。非意愿采纳和各变量的多元回归结果也表明他们间有显著的关系，最重要的因素是采纳、参加会议频率和禾薯的生产率。     

The Development of Agrarian Capitalism in Post‐Soviet Russia

A core set of criteria have been met, so that it is accurate to speak of an agrarian capitalist system in Russia. The development of agrarian capitalism carries with it increased stratification, which is analysed along five dimensions: earned income, land expansion, use of credit, income from food sales and income from household enterprise. The paper demonstrates increasing differentiation between households, between professional cohorts and within professional cohorts. The data showing stratification within professions suggest that intra‐cohort stratification is driving most of the inter‐cohort stratification. The Russian model of agrarian capitalism and its processes of stratification have yielded a bifurcated countryside in which a thin stratum of ‘super winners’ has emerged. Economic processes have developed beyond simple stratification and have created the basis from which a rudimentary class structure appears to be forming.     

Farm‐specific Adjustment Costs in Dutch Pig Farming

This paper develops a dynamic model of investment under rational expectations, assuming farm‐specific production technologies and adjustment cost structures. The model distinguishes regimes of negative, zero and positive investments and maintains that it is optimal for a farmer not to invest for a range of shadow prices, depending on thresholds for positive and negative investments. The model is applied to a rotating sample of Dutch pig farms over the period 1980–1996. Farm‐specific parameters of the adjustment cost function and production technology are obtained using Generalised Maximum Entropy estimation. Cluster analysis using the farm‐specific adjustment cost parameters indicates that five groups of farms with distinct adjustment cost structures can be identified. A tobit regression analysis is used to explain the impact of different socio‐economic factors on the size of the threshold between positive and negative investments.     

Brexit Impacts on Irish Agri‐food Exports to the UK

The Irish agri‐food sector is particularly exposed to the consequences of the UK's departure from the EU given that the UK is the destination for 37 per cent of its exports. This article discusses the main channels whereby Brexit may impact this trade. They include the impact of possible further depreciation of sterling and the loss of the protected market status that Irish exporters currently enjoy on their sales on the UK market. There is the possibility that tariffs may be imposed on trade flows between the two countries as well as higher trade costs when either exporting to or importing from the UK. There would also be potential disruption of supply chains on the island of Ireland and the particular difficulties of policing the land border between the North and South of Ireland. Solutions to address some of these problems are available, but will take time to negotiate. Even if the worst outcomes can be avoided, Brexit is likely to have significant structural implications for Irish agriculture. The erosion of the value of privileged access to the UK market will require structural adjustments both in terms of market diversification as well as farm‐level production.     

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.     

Profitability and Efficiency of High Nature Value Marginal Farming in England

The UK Brexit vote triggered a new wave of policy developments for a future outside the EU. In this context, we analyse the business performance of English hill and upland farms, characterised by marginal economic conditions but also high nature value (HNV). The analysis aims to help identify farm-level management and policy options for greater economic, environmental and social sustainability. Business performance is measured as technical efficiency and the occurrence and persistence of abnormal profits, estimated through stochastic frontier analysis and static and dynamic panel-data methods. The results help indicate rationales for recent trends including farm enlargement, farm family diversification, and agri-environment scheme entry. The single farm payment is found to be negatively associated with farm technical efficiency while agri-environmental subsidies were positively associated to short-term farm profitability. Farm adaptation and resilience during a period of likely turbulence in external circumstances is discussed in light of these findings, as well as potential parallels with marginal HNV areas across Europe.