Raising offtake from cattle grazed on natural rangelands in sub-Saharan Africa: a transaction cost economics approach

Farmers in sub‐Saharan Africa are constrained by large transaction costs associated with marketing of their livestock. However, transaction costs are often not taken into account in the analysis of factors hampering the development of livestock marketing in this region. This article empirically measures the influence of transaction costs on the offtake from cattle grazed on natural rangelands in Uganda. The study is based on the monitoring of 696 cattle transactions in three districts of Uganda from August 2004 to August 2005. The estimated models suggest that proportional transaction costs represented by the state of roads, distance to markets, and time taken to reach the market are important variables constraining market participation. In order to raise offtake from the national herd, it is essential to explicitly address these costs. One potential solution is collective action in marketing of livestock in which proportional and fixed transaction costs are reduced and shared among the group members.     

DYNAMIC FARM—LEVEL PLANNING MODEL FOR BEEF FEEDLOT PRODUCTION AND MARKETING

The study is aimed at formulating and empirically applying a dynamic farm-level model for the planning of optimal beef feedlot production and marketing strategies. A dynamic programming (DP) model is used to calculate the optimal feeding schedule (i.e. liveweight gain sequence), market liveweight and stock replacement for a single bull calf over a one-year planning period, taking into account seasonal fluctuations of planning parameters such as beef prices, feeding costs, nutritional requirements, and stock replacement costs and obtainability. The DP model includes a linear programming (LP) subroutine for calculating least-cost feed rations. The planning model is empirically applied using data and assumptions representative offeedlots in the Coastal Plain region of Israel where most feedlot production and marketing decisions are made by ‘rule-of-thumb’ using set liveweight gain sequences, market standards and stock replacement decisions. The empirical findings indicate that the profitability of feedlot production and marketing could be increased by an average of 10% over that obtained from ‘rule-of-thumb’ decision rules.     

Transaction costs in milk marketing: a comparison between Canada and Great Britain

This study measures the magnitude of transaction costs incurred by milk producers in their contractual relations with dairy processors in two different coordination mechanisms: centralized contracting through a marketing board and decentralized bilateral contracting. Interviews and surveys were conducted to estimate transaction costs faced by producers marketing through the Québec milk marketing board in Canada and bilateral contracts in England and Wales in the United Kingdom using the measurement methodology of the cost of exchange. Our results show that the relative magnitude of transaction costs incurred by producers across both settings is quite low, which indicates that both hybrid coordination mechanisms minimize transaction costs in the dairy sector. However, results from the bilateral contracting setting indicate a strong heterogeneity of transaction costs levels among farmers. In that respect, the milk marketing board and its institutional setting would act as a collective insurance, pooling transaction costs and sharing them among producers. Our analysis leads to recommendations on bilateral contracting.     

Variety characteristics and maize adoption in Honduras

This paper summarises research into factors contributing to low levels of adoption of improved maize varieties in Honduras. Empirical analysis was based on an agricultural household model which explicitly incorporates variety characteristics into the household's optimisation process. We considered a multitude of production and consumption characteristics valued by farmers, as well as an array of household socioeconomic characteristics and measures of village‐specific marketing costs. Empirical results indicated that marketing costs and production characteristics are important explanators of variety choice, whereas consumption characteristics are not, and that information deficits may be an important limiting factor to adoption of improved varieties.     

Evolving Marketing Channels for Beef and Lamb in the United Kingdom-

This paper investigates the effects of: (1) recent changes to food safety legislation; (2) increasing consumer concerns over animal welfare; and (3) further market integration in the European Union on British agribusiness firms involved in marketing beef and lamb. It is hypothesized that these changes will alter the transaction costs associated with marketing these products. As a result, there is likely to be a reduction in the number of animals sold for slaughter through traditional auction markets and an increase in direct contracting or strategic alliances between supermarkets and farmers' marketing cooperatives.     

Soil Carbon Sequestration Strategies with Alternative Tillage and Nitrogen Sources under Risk

This study examines the economic potential of using either no-tillage or conventional tillage with either commercial nitrogen or cattle manure to sequester soil in continuous corn production. This research uses stochastic efficiency with respect to a function to determine the preferred production systems under various risk preferences and utility-weighted certainty equivalent risk premiums to determine the carbon credit values needed to motivate adoption of systems, which sequester higher levels of carbon. The results indicate that no-tillage and cattle manure increase carbon sequestration. Carbon credits or government program incentives are not required to entice risk-averse managers to use no-tillage, but are required to encourage manure use as a means of sequestering additional carbon even at historically high nitrogen prices. New environmental rules for confined animal feeding operations may increase the demand for land to apply manure as a primary nutrient source and participation in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Security Program, and a carbon credit market to obtain payments to offset some or all of the costs of manure application.     

交易成本对农户农产品销售方式选择的影响——基于对柑橘种植农户的调查

基于交易成本理论,利用对湖北省宜昌市柑橘种植农户的调查数据,通过建立Logistic模型,本文重点分析了交易成本对农户柑橘销售方式选择的影响。研究结果表明,交易成本是影响农户农产品销售方式选择的重要因素,其中,反映信息成本的是否了解柑橘市场行情变量、反映谈判成本的农户对中间商报价公平程度的看法变量对农户选择自行销售方式有显著的正向影响;反映信息成本的是否通过中间商了解柑橘价格变量、反映谈判成本的自行销售同等级柑橘相比于通过中间商销售的销售价格差异变量、反映执行成本的农户到最近农产品市场的距离变量对农户选择自行销售方式有显著的负向影响;另外,户主受教育程度、家庭是否有成员从事非农产业这两个反映个体特征的变量对农户选择自行销售方式也有显著的影响,且其影响方向为正。     

Modeling Farm Households' Price Responses in the Presence of Transaction Costs and Heterogeneity in Labor Markets

We develop a farm household model to analyze price responses of farm households. This model incorporates various types of transaction costs as well as labor heterogeneity. Nonproportional variable transaction costs or labor heterogeneity imply that production and consumption decisions become nonseparable, even when the household buys or sells labor. An empirical model is estimated using data from Midwest Poland. The results show that nonproportional variable transaction costs and labor heterogeneity significantly influence household behavior. Not all price elasticities, however, change significantly if these are neglected.     

Managerial efficiency under risk for broiler producers in Saudi Arabia

Managerial efficiency for broiler producers m Saudi Arabia is generally difficult lo achieve. High investment costs coupled with relatively high average production costs and the consequent incompetent market prices, have resulted in projects either working at less than full capacity or being shut down completely. The aim here is to determine the most efficient production alternatives (actions) available to managers under business risk considerations. The ordinary stochastic dominance approach was used to solicit the most efficient production alternatives for broilet producing projects of all sizes in the Central Region of Saudi Arabia. For small-and medium-sized projects, the efficient production alternatives concentrated on marketing risk. For large projects, the efficient actions concentrated on both marketing and production risks. For the three sizes of projects, the two production alternatives that proved to be the most efficient, were the one that contains creating morc marketing strategies and the one that adopts good veterinary care systems. On the other hand, the production alternative that deals with selecting good breeds of chicks appeared to be most efficient for small and large projects only.     

资产专用性、专业化生产与农户的市场风险

专业化生产要求的专用性资产投资会增加交易费用、市场风险以及不确定性.农户作为我国农业生产经营的主体单位,家庭分散经营的特点决定了其抵御市场风险的能力有限.本文以广东徐闻"蕉贱伤农"事件为例,分析了农户专业化生产的资产专用性及面临的市场风险,并进一步提出了化解农户专业化生产市场风险的相关建议.     

木材合法性贸易要求对中国木材加工企业的影响及应对——基于江苏、浙江和山东木材企业的调查分析

结合中国木材企业生产和经营特征,认为企业可以采用经过森林FM认证的木材原料和经过合法性认证的木材原料保证木材原料来源合法性,可以进行森林企业产销监管链Co C认证和自建完备的产销履历制度保证产销流程可追溯性。研究结果表明:木材合法性贸易要求会造成企业生产成本上升、生存压力不断加大、盈利空间进一步缩窄,但也能给企业带来销售收入增加的有利影响。     

Expected Utility,Risk, and Marketing Behavior: Theory and Evidence from the Fed Cattle Market

The effect of carcass quality uncertainty on the structure of the slaughter cattle market is investigated. A theoretical extension of the “Theory of Factor Price Disparity” is provided. It is demonstrated that the coexistence of a risk premium wedge between marketing channel (live weight, dressed weight, and grid) pricing mechanisms, in conjunction with varying degrees of producer risk aversion or producer perception of carcass quality uncertainty, contributes to the coexistence of multiple marketing channels. It is also demonstrated that risk and risk preference provide the linkage between carcass quality uncertainty and producer marketing decisions. We demonstrate how this linkage can affect the structure of the fed cattle market and the variability in slaughter volume across marketing channels. We also confirm the linkage between value‐based production techniques that increase seller information on carcass quality and seller increased usage of grid pricing regardless of actual carcass quality. Empirical evidence is provided in support of the supposition that carcass quality uncertainty plays a role in grid market share variability.     

Analysis of a supply-control program under uncertainty and imperfect competition: Chinese cabbage in Taiwan

Researchers have often attributed the farm–wholesale price spread, after adjusting for marketing costs, as compensation for marketing firms' risk bearing. However, price spreads in excess of marketing costs can also be due to marketing firms' exercise of market power. In settings where both imperfect competition and marketer risk aversion are plausible, a modeling framework must be sufficiently general to accommodate both types of behavior. This article develops and estimates such a model in the context of fresh produce marketing and develops the implications for analysis of supply‐control programs. The model is applied to the production and marketing of Chinese cabbage in Taiwan and specifically to the analysis of supply‐control programs implemented in this industry by the Taiwanese government. The empirical results provide little support for the hypothesis that marketing firms exhibit risk averse behavior, but they do show that marketing firms exercise oligopsony power in procurement of the product from farmers, and that this power is positively related to the quantity supplied in each market period. This provides a heretofore unexplored impetus for supply controls intended to raise producer incomes. However, such controls are also rendered less effective by imperfect competition because marketing firms capture part of the benefits from supply reduction.     

Sales location among semi‐subsistence cassava farmers in Benin: a heteroskedastic double selection model

In much of rural Africa, high transaction costs limit farmers’ market participation and thus their potential for income growth. Transaction costs can affect not only whether a farmer sells product but also whether sales occur at the farm gate or at a market. If production behavior is related to a chosen sales location, then analysis of interventions can be improved by explicit consideration of the decision of where to sell. This article develops a double‐selection model that explains consumption and production decisions by semi‐subsistence farmers who first decide whether to be a seller and then whether to sell at the farm gate or at an off‐farm location before deciding on production and consumption. The study tests the validity of this dual‐criteria model against a single‐criterion model in which a grower first decides to be a seller and then decides production, consumption, and sales location simultaneously. The results suggest that the dual‐criteria model provides more information than the single‐criterion model using a sample of cassava producer in Benin.     

Smallholder production structure and rural roads in Africa: the case of Nakuru District, Kenya

Data from a 1998 survey of farming households in Kenya is used to estimate the effects of poor rural road infrastructure (and high market access costs) on the structure of smallholder farm production. Simultaneous estimation of cost and input share equations reveals rational responses by farmers to high access costs. In the expected continued absence of major investments in rural infrastructure in countries such as Kenya, the policy challenge is to identify and catalyse institutional innovations that reduce a range of transaction costs, increase financial liquidity, increase social capital, and reduce risk.     

Farmland Prices in the Presence of Transaction Costs: A Cautionary Note

Explicit consideration of transaction costs is highly relevant for modeling farmland price behavior in a realistic manner. Unfortunately, there are numerous theoretical and empirical difficulties associated with doing so. From a research standpoint, such difficulties greatly increase the likelihood of mistakes in the theoretical derivations and/or in the design and application of empirical methods, thereby undermining the validity of the ensuing findings. This article highlights these issues by discussing the theoretical and empirical pitfalls of two seminal recent articles analyzing farmland prices in the presence of transaction costs.     

论渔业自然资源特性对ITQ制度交易成本的影响

本文在阐述我国海洋捕捞渔业自然资源特性的基础上,通过剖析它对个体可转让配额制度交易成本的影响,提出相应建议:我国单一鱼种产量低的特征会使得渔民在遵守该制度时的守法者成本上升;海洋生物组成复杂多样的特征会使当局确定总可捕量的信息搜寻成本、分配配额的决策成本和执行成本上升,会使渔民因兼捕性增强而需要为完成交易多付固定交易成本、信息搜寻成本和讨价还价成本;资源的地域差异性较大一方面将增加专用资产的投资而增加交易成本,另一方面将降低区域间配额分配难度而降低交易成本;海域的宽阔和海岸带广延性将导致当局的监督成本增加.     

Vertical Coordination in the Swine Industry: A Multi-Country Study

Pork constitutes about 45 percent of the world's total meat consumption. Recent trends indicate that pork consumption is likely to increase in future as well. The international pork industry is undergoing a structural and organizational change as a result of changes in the method of pork production and processing technology. This paper identifies a variety of pressures that are leading to these changes. One of the most important factors is the change in consumer demand patterns. Consumers now demand more specific product characteristics. In case of pork, the specificity of the product includes color and texture of the meat, origin of the meat, labeling information pertaining to nutritional contents, drug and chemical residues, and production methods used. In order to meet all these specific demands and to further reduce production costs, various stages of pork production have started to coordinate in many countries. The extent of vertical coordination varies both within and among the countries. This paper identifies the types of linkages and the methods of transaction(s) used between various stages of pork production in Canada, the Netherlands and the U.S. The paper also identifies the upcoming pressures for change and illustrates the analytical framework developed to compare coordination mechanisms that exist between stages of pork production in the three countries. The paper concludes that industrialization, globalization, and changes in consumer demand and preferences are resulting into massive structural and operational changes in the international pork industry.     

Measuring the impact of road rehabilitation on spatial market efficiency in maize markets in Mozambique

This article analyzes the impact of road rehabilitation on the spatial market efficiency of maize markets in Mozambique. We estimate a modified version of the Parity Bounds Model (PBM) that allows us to test the impact of road rehabilitation on spatial efficiency. This article seeks to contribute to the existing literature in three ways. First, a unique data set, where road rehabilitation episodes between market pairs are identified, is developed. Second, special care is devoted to estimation of transaction costs due to the sensitivity of the PBM model to the quality of transaction costs estimates. Finally, as opposed to most existing literature that focuses on relatively distant markets, the article focuses on spatially closed markets. We find that maize markets tend to be segmented due to high transport costs. Following road rehabilitation, inefficiency and average absolute price differentials tend to decrease, and market pairs have tended to shift toward autarky regimes. Overall, while the results point broadly toward a positive impact of road rehabilitation on spatial efficiency, they are not as strong or as robust as one would like. Large increases in fuel prices likely offset the positive impacts of road rehabilitation on transaction costs, contributing to the increase in the probability of being in an autarky regime.     

Marketing cooperatives and financial structure: a transaction costs economics analysis

The relationship between the financial structure of a marketing cooperative (MC) and the requirement of the domination of control by the members is analysed from a transaction costs perspective. A MC receives less favourable terms on outside equity than a conventional firm because the decision power regarding new investments is not allocated to the providers of these funds. This is a serious threat to the survival of a MC in a market where efficient investments are characterised by an increasing level of asset specificity at the processing stage of production. A MC is predicted to be an efficient organisational form when the level of asset specificity at the processing stage of production is at a low or immediate level compared to the level of asset specificity at the farming stage of production.