Demand for Beef from Cattle Administered Growth Hormones or Fed Genetically Modified Corn: A Comparison of Consumers in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States

We compare consumer valuations of beef ribeye steaks from cattle produced without growth hormones or genetically modified corn in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Results suggest that French consumers place a higher value on beef from cattle that have not been administered added growth hormones than U.S. consumers; however, valuations of non-hormone-treated beef are statistically indistinguishable across Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Results also suggest that European consumers place a much higher value on beef from cattle that have not been fed genetically modified corn than U.S. consumers.     

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.     

World Health Organization Dietary Norms: A Quantitative Evaluation of Potential Consumption Impacts in the United States, United Kingdom, and France

The member countries of the World Health Organization have endorsed its Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity, and Health. We assess the potential consumption impacts of these norms in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom using a mathematical programming approach. We find that adherence would involve large reductions in the consumption of fats and oils accompanying large rises in the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and cereal. Further, in the United Kingdom and the United States, but not France, sugar intakes would have to shrink considerably. Focusing on sub-populations within each country, we find that the least educated, not necessarily the poorest, would have to bear the highest burden of adjustment.     

Quasi- and Simulated-Likelihood Approaches to Censored Demand Systems: Food Consumption by Food Stamp Recipients in the United States

A quasi-maximum-likelihood estimator is proposed and applied to a censored Translog demand system for foods, using a sample of food stamp recipients in the United States. The procedure produces remarkably close parameter and elasticity estimates to those of the simulated-maximum-likelihood procedure. A two-step procedure is also considered but it produces different elasticities. Demands are found to be price elastic for pork and fish but price inelastic for all other food products. Gross complementarity and net substitutability are obvious but these cross-price effects are much less pronounced than own-price and total food expenditure effects.     

Effect of Production Process and Attitudes on the Intent to Buy Sustainable Beef

Abstract

Previous studies on food consumption explore limited dimensions of the sustainable food production process. A model of consumer concern over the agricultural production process was developed to assess the influence of environmental attitudes, product involvement, and brand equity on the intent to buy sustainable beef. Interviews with experts, two focus groups, and a literature review were used to propose a scale for production process concerns. A survey of 725 beef consumers was conducted to test eight hypotheses. Results suggest that product involvement and concerns over the production process are related to attitude towards the environment and intent to buy sustainable beef. Moreover, as a result, the consumer bears a positive attitude towards sustainable consumption and is more likely to buy a sustainable product. Meanwhile, the rejected hypothesis refers to the relationship between brand equity and purchase intention. This new conceptual model may be validated with other food commodities.     

世界主要木本粮食生产和贸易格局变动分析

利用FAOSTAT数据库的相关数据,对近50年世界主要木本粮食生产和贸易变动状况进行分析。研究结果表明:虽然世界主要木本粮食的收获总面积和年总产量均有所增长,但是年产量增长缓慢,且单位面积产量出现下降;中国和中东国家对世界主要木本粮食生产扩张贡献大,日本和意大利等发达国家的木本粮食生产规模缩小;世界主要木本粮食的出口量小,出口增长缓慢,中国的板栗和柿子产量虽很高,但国际竞争力却不强;世界木本粮食的主要进口国变动不大,仍然以日本、法国和美国等发达国家为主。     

Rice Consumption Patterns in Kuwait and Its Future Market

Abstract

With changing demographic patterns in the State of Kuwait, the per capita consumption of rice in Kuwait is decreasing over time. It seems that the Socio-Economic changes taking place in the country have affected the tastes and preferences of the Kuwaities with regard to the consumption of rice versus other competing Western starch dish products such as breads, pastas, and potatoes. This paper tests several hypotheses about the relationship between demographics and rice consumption, and examines rice-related buying and consumption behaviors of Kuwaities. Implications of the findings and recommendations are given. A general marketing strategy is also suggested regarding future implications of rice and rice products within the Kuwaiti society.     

Economics and Prescribed Fire Law in the United States

Prescribed burning is increasingly recognized as a useful but risky land management and conservation tool. Common law relating to prescribed fire is generally predicated on negligence rules. However, virtually all states also have statutory law specifying liability rules or criminal penalties for prescribed burning, and the laws in many states have been changing substantially in recent years. We develop an economic model of the incentive and welfare effects of prescribed burning, where both the burner and potential victims of escaped fires can reduce expected damage with precautionary effort. The model provides implications regarding the comparative advantages of strict liability versus negligence rules. We then examine the characteristics and geographic distribution of prescribed fire liability law in the United States in the context of the model. Specifically, we discuss possible economic underpinnings of the recent emergence of statutes in southeastern states that are more supportive of prescribed fire use, despite its associated risks.     

Consumer Welfare and the Livestock Economy in the United States

This paper analyzes the responsiveness of the U.S. meal and poultry economy to government policies and other exogenous shocks. In particular, it focuses on the measurement of changes to consumer welfare. An explicit econometric model represents the supply of fed beef, non-fed beef, pork, and poultry. The interaction between the livestock and feed grain markets is captured by an econometric model of the supply and demand for corn. Consumers are represented by a complete system of consumer demand equations. The model is used for a partial analysis of the welfare effects of an actual agricultural policy decision – the sale of large quantities of grains to the Soviet Union in the third quarter of 1972. The loss to consumers that is attributable to the increased grain exports did not reach its maximum until the second quarter of 1975. It is estimated that from 1973 to 1975 consumers suffered a reduction of meat consumption that they valued at $4.5 billion (U.S.). Furthermore, the effects of grain exports proved far larger than the losses due to the poor harvests of 1973 and 1974. Finally, attempts to shelter consumers from the effects of the increased corn exports, either by increased beef imports or increased grain price supports, would have had little success in compensating for the welfare loss actually suffered. Ce papier fail ?analvse de la réponse des secleurs de ?économie quant au bétail et à la volatile aux Flats-Unis, leur reponse à la politique gouvernementale et à?aulres coups exterieurs. En particulier, ce papier se concentre sur la mésure des changements au bien-étre des consommateurs. Un modèle économélrique qui est explicite représente ?approvisionnement du boeuf brouiè, du boeuf non-broutè, du pore el de la volatile. Lcar;action réciproque entre le marché de bélail et ie marché de grains est monlré par un modèle economelrique de ?offre et de la demande pour mats. Un système des équations représente la demande des consommateurs. On utilise le modèle pour ohtenir une analyse parlielle des effeis en ce qui concerne le bien-étre des consommateurs par suite ?une décision faite ?une politique agricole – celle de la vente de grandes quantités de grains à?Union soviétique au troisième quartier de ?année 1972. Laperte aux consommateurs qui est imputable aux exportations augmentées de grain n'apas alteinl son maximum jusqu'au deuxième quartier de 1975. On a eslimé que de 1973 à 1975 les consommateurs ont essuyé une réduction de la consommation de viande qu'ils ont evaluée à$4.5 milliard (en dollars des Etats-Unis). En outre, les effeis des exponations de grain se sont révélés bien grands que les effets des moissons maigres de 1973 el 1974. Finalement, des efforts de protéger les consommateurs contre les effets des exportations augmentees de maìs, ou par des importations augmentees de boeufou par augmenter le soutien pour le prix du grain auraient eu peu de succès à remplacer les pertes en fait essuyées.     

Potential Impacts of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) on the Fresh Vegetable and Beef Trade

ABSTRACT

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) negotiations influence the global economic position of both the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.). Agricultural issues are an important part of the negotiation. There have been several analyses of the aggregate impacts of a T-TIP agreement. This report analyzes the commodity impacts on trade for fresh vegetables and beef. Vegetables represent the situation where the U.S. is a growing net importer and the EU has substantial potential for expanding exports to the U.S. in this highly competitive marketplace. Beef represents the situation where sanitary and phytosanitary restrictions on hormone use in production have prohibited consumer choices from being revealed in the marketplace for both the EU and the U.S. The authors provide insight into where the comparative advantages lie in freer trade situations.     

Employing resilience in the United States Forest Service

The concept of resilience has permeated the discourse of many land use and environmental agencies in an attempt to articulate how to develop and implement policies concerned with the social and ecological dimensions of natural disturbances. Several distinct definitions of resilience exist, each with its own concepts, focus and contexts related to land use policy and management. This often makes understanding the inherent objectives of policies and related principles challenging. The United States Forest Service (USFS) is one example where ambiguity and uncertainty surrounding the use of resilience permeates the content of documents in various areas of the agency. The objective of this paper is to investigate how the USFS employs the term resilience as a means to communicate strategies for managing forest lands. We perform a content analysis of 121 USFS documents including budgetary justification reports, research findings (i.e., journal articles, book chapters and technical reports), public releases, and newsletters to analyze both the rise and specific use of the term resilience in the USFS. Our analysis, which is guided by definitions of resilience in the social-ecological systems literature, reveals that the ambiguity surrounding the use of resilience in the academic literature is reflected in the content of USFS documents. However, we also find that often criticized versions of resilience (namely engineering resilience) are minimally employed by the USFS, and instead the agency focuses on the notion of ecological resilience in which natural disturbances are seen as an important component of the landscape. In some cases, the USFS employs notions of social-ecological resilience, however, the extent to which specific components of social-ecological resilience are integrated into management strategies appears minimal. The findings from this study suggest that clarity regarding the type and function of resilience needs to improve in USFS documents, and that the agency should evaluate the existing question in the SES literature of resilience of what to what?     

Strategic Marketing and the Dynamics of Food Consumption

Patterns of food consumption shift as countries develop, incomes increase, and lifestyles change. Strategic marketing in this dynamic environment involves aiming at moving targets. Fortunately, some of these changes in demand for food products can be anticipated by understanding those that have already occurred. We consider changes in consumption over time for selected nations as they have developed and also compare a cross section of countries at different levels of development. Seeking and retaining markets in high-, middle-, or low-income countries requires an appreciation of the stages, dynamics, and nature of heir economic development and the implications for food demand.     

中国扇贝进出口贸易变动趋势研究

论文试图厘清中国在世界扇贝贸易中的地位,系统梳理了4个选定年份在进口均价和出口均价排名中位居前10的经济体,掌握了中国在这些指标排名中的具体位次。研究结果表明：中国扇贝单位养殖产值偏低,养殖效益不容乐观;中国是世界上主要的扇贝进口国和最主要出口国,但进、出口均价普遍偏低;中国在扇贝出口贸易中的地位显然无法与其作为世界上最大的扇贝生产国的地位相匹配。提出保护好环境的同时稳定扇贝产量,提高产品质量,增加行业整体效益,应该作为中国贝类产业未来努力方向。     

美国乡村旅游发展

美国乡村近一个世纪以来一直经历着急剧的变化,这在二战后尤其如此。全球化及美国经济重组使传统的乡村经济活动如农业,林业及煤矿业竞争力下降,乡村旅游就成为乡村经济复苏及经济多样化的一个重要且有效的手段。在参阅相关文献的基础上,概括和分析了美国乡村旅游发展的历程和原因,以及乡村旅游发展对社区的影响等,以期对中国乡村旅游的发展、管理和研究能起到一定的借鉴作用。     

Food Label Regulations in the United States and European Community:

Growing interdependence among the world's food markets presents increased trade and investment opportunities for food firms. Although international trade agreements have recently been negotiated which will likely lead to increased food trade, especially among Western nations, revised product standards and technical regulations used in the course of implementing these agreements have potential to create trade barriers that are less obvious. This paper assesses recent developments in food quality and labeling regulations in the European Community (EC) and United States. The regulatory changes taking place in these large trading partners have the potential to result in trade barriers based on meeting technical standards, especially since the reforms are being pursued independently in each country.