The Current State of the Russian Agricultural Sector

Russia's agriculture produces around 3.7 per cent of the country's GDP, employs 9.2 per cent of the national workforce and contributes around 6 per cent of the country's exports. The sector has shown remarkable resilience in the face of wider economic turbulence. Self‐sufficiency rates for the main agricultural commodities are relatively high. Agricultural exports have grown very significantly since 2000 especially for wheat and meslin (wheat and rye mixture). Meat production has been growing steadily, particularly in the poultry and pork sectors. Whilst the agri‐food sector has great potential to play an even more prominent role in Russia's economy, it suffers from relatively low productivity and an outdated technological base. The main drive for efficiency has come mainly from the relatively large‐scale agricultural firms, who generated more than half of the total value of agricultural output in 2016. Foreign policy instability, including economic sanctions, the devaluation of the national currency and declining economic growth have weakened the sector and caused an increase in the prices of imported goods and equipment. At the same time Russian products have replaced high value‐added imports and Russia's agricultural producers are expanding into new markets.     

New evidence regarding the effects of contract farming on agricultural labor use

Contractual agreements between smallholder farmers and agribusiness companies have gained in importance in many developing countries. While productivity and income effects of contracting in the small farm sector were analyzed in many previous studies, labor market and employment effects are not yet well understood. This is an important research gap, especially against the background of continued population growth and structural transformation. Here, we investigate the effects of two types of contractual agreements between large international processing companies and smallholder farmers on agricultural labor use, household labor allocation, and hired labor demand in Ghana's palm oil sector. We use cross‐sectional survey data and a willingness‐to‐pay approach to control for unobserved heterogeneity between farmers with and without contracts. We find that agricultural labor intensity is substantially reduced through the contracts, because contracting in Ghana is associated with the adoption of labor‐saving procedures and technologies. Simple marketing contracts lead to reallocation of the saved household labor to off‐farm employment, whereas resource‐providing contracts lead to a stronger reallocation of labor within the farming enterprise. Household labor is more affected by labor savings than hired labor.     

New Paths to Capitalist Agricultural Production in Africa: Experiences of Ghanaian Pineapple Producer–Exporters

With the global restructuring of agri‐food markets since the 1980s, an impressive amount of scholarship has examined its impacts in African countries. However, little has been written on the emergence of local medium and large‐scale commercial farmers selling to export companies or controlling their own export marketing arrangements. This article examines Ghanaian commercial farmers producing and exporting fresh pineapples to European markets. This group of pineapple producer–exporters represents a path to capitalist agricultural production that can be conceptualized as capitalism from outside: where capital flows into the countryside, rather than accumulation occurring from above or below within the agrarian economy. The emergence of this form of agrarian capitalism is stimulated by opportunities in new high‐value agricultural export markets, but its stabilization depends on country‐specific characteristics such as rural social structures, property rights and state support. The article documents the conditions of emergence of this new group of Ghanaian capitalist farmers, the period of destabilization caused by increasing international competition that resulted in a small number of large‐scale agribusiness firms surviving, and the challenges that these agribusiness firms faced in stabilizing their capitalist agricultural production.     

AN APPRAISAL OF CONTRACT FARMING

This article reviews the circumstances under which contract farming, as one form of vertical integration, is necessary to secure rapid and efficient co-ordination and adaptability within systems of food production/marketing/distribution. A review of American experience and attitudes indicates that contracting in the U.S.A. has been successful in matching farm production to the needs of consumers more quickly and economically than otherwise would have been possible. Contract terms have generally been ‘fair’ to United States farmers, partly as a result of a strong co-operative system, including a large number of bargaining co-operatives, but also as a result of strong competition between American agri-businesses. American experience and conclusions can be transposed to British circumstances. However, there should be greater publicity and analysis of contract terms, as well as more complete information on the financial performance of the agri-business operations of conglomerates and other multi-product businesses.     

The roles of public sector versus private sector in R&D and technology generation: the case of maize in Asia

This paper reports the findings of a study whose objectives were to compare and contrast the public and private sectors in Asia in terms of their (1) estimated level of investment in maize breeding research; (2) germplasm outputs; and (3) nature and extent of roles played in the maize seed industry. Since the 1960s, yield gains, rather than area expansion, have fuelled increases in maize production in Asia. Yield gains, in turn, have been due to the shift in maize cultivation from mostly open‐pollinated varieties (OPVs) to mostly hybrids. This transition also shifted the locus of modern maize breeding research from government research organisations to private national and multinational seed companies. In countries where both the public and private sectors participated in maize research, private sector research investment far exceeded that of the public sector. With more aggressive marketing programmes, the private sector captured 89% of the Asian maize seed market in the late 1990s. National public seed research agencies (including universities and cooperatives) developed and produced more maize OPVs than hybrids, mass‐produced and distributed seed cheaply, addressed location‐specific production problems, and provided agricultural extension services. The private seed companies developed, produced, sold and promoted their own proprietary hybrids. The reluctance of the private sector, however, to address the needs of marginal maize farmers should encourage the public sector to continue playing an active role in maize research and development (R&D), seed production and modern maize technology dissemination, especially with adequate support from appropriate government policies.     

Agricultural technology and land use futures: The UK case

This paper explores how agricultural technology has interacted with recent land use in the UK and how it might do so in the next 50 years. From 1960 to 1985, farmers successfully used technology to increase the output of crop and animal products per unit of land and particularly of labour. This reduced the number of people employed in agriculture, and promoted larger and more specialised farm enterprises. Between 1985 and 2006, food prices were relatively low, and although labour productivity continued to increase, land productivity remained relatively static. However during this period, farmers started to address the effects of agriculture on reduced water quality and habitat loss.For established agricultural products, technological innovation tends to have an incremental effect, working through genetic improvement, the removal of abiotic and biotic stress (e.g. crop nutrition and protection, irrigation and drainage, and animal nutrition, health and housing) and the substitution of labour. Whereas the first two processes tend to be scale-neutral, the substitution of labour is usually easiest to achieve on larger farms. Other key areas for technological innovation include addressing air, soil and water quality, biodiversity, waste reduction, and information management. Over the next 50 years, large step-changes in land use arising from agricultural technology are predicted to arise from the development of new markets for agricultural products. A strong bioenergy sector will strengthen the links between crop commodity and energy prices and will have a major effect on future land use. Climate change and the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will alter the relative profitability of crop and animal production systems. Lastly, increased public awareness of the links between food, health and the environment could substantially shift the demand for specific agricultural products.Continual improvements in agricultural technology are pivotal to providing society with the flexibility to balance the challenges of improving human well-being with the management of the planet's ecosystem. Increased technological innovation increases the probability that agricultural land can be used for other purposes, but the exact relationship is dependent on trade and environmental policies. The large external effects of agriculture mean that decisions regarding the adoption of future technologies should be taken by farmers working with other stakeholders.     

The Spanish path of agrarian change, 1950–2005: From authoritarian to export‐oriented productivism

The aim of this study is to determine whether the evolution of Spain's agrarian change, between 1950 and 2005, exhibits any features important enough to differentiate it from the common model of developed countries in Western Europe. On the one hand, the Spanish agrarian transformations share the main features of the changes in Western Europe: technological innovation, increased production and productivity, the diminishing importance of the agricultural sector, close integration with the industrial sector, and a high environmental impact. On the other hand, a series of important peculiarities can be observed in Spain's agrarian change: strong expansion of intensive livestock farming; the role of increased irrigation in explaining the transformation of agriculture; policies that offered very little support to the agricultural sector under a dictatorship that denied a voice to farmers; and the prominent role of agriculture in the economy despite its small contribution to GDP.     

河南农民收入的影响因素分析及增收策略研究

河南省作为我国的农业大省,农业人口数量在全省占有相当大的比重,河南省农民的收入水平在一定程度上影响着河南省的整体收入水平,所以增加河南省农民的收入对河南省的整体经济水平有着提升性的作用,但目前河南省农民的收入水平在全国处于较低的水平。文章就河南省农民增收影响因素进行分析,对河南省农民人均纯收入及增长百分比进行统计和计算,并将其与经济较为发达的省份相比较,发现河南省农民收入增长不稳定,且与经济发达地区差距较大。对河南省农民收入构成进行剖析得知,影响河南省农民收入增长的因素主要是家庭经营性收入、工资性收入、财产性收入和转移性收入。并针对这些影响因素提出了完善农村基础设施建设、加快适销对路农产品的生产、促进农业产业化经营、加强对农民的科学素养教育、加强乡镇企业吸纳农民就业、农业发展公司化等一系列有助于河南省农民增收的策略。     

农户生计资本对新型农业社会化服务采纳行为影响研究

目的 文章旨在探讨农户生计资本对新型农业社会化服务采纳行为的影响,从产业链全过程视角下推动农户新型农业社会化服务采纳行为。方法 基于可持续生计分析框架,利用江西省569个农户实地调查微观数据,构建二元Logitics模型实证生计资本对农户新型农业社会化服务采纳行为作用关系。结果 （1）受教育水平、农业劳动力数量、耕地面积、家庭年收入、是否加入合作社、是否担任村干部、获取农业信息渠道数量对产前环节新型农业社会化服务采纳行为具有正向显著影响;（2）农业劳动力数量、耕地面积、家庭年收入、获取农业信息渠道数量对产中环节新型农业社会化服务采纳行为具有正向显著影响;（3）受教育水平、耕地面积、家庭年收入、是否加入合作社、是否担任村干部、获取农业信息渠道数量对产后环节新型农业社会化服务采纳行为具有正向显著影响;（4）耕地块数对新型农业社会化服务全过程采纳行为具有负向显著影响;（5）距离县城公里数、村庄地形、经营方式对农户生产全过程新型农业社会化服务采纳行为均有正向显著影响。结论 据此提出提供再教育培训,引导劳动力回流;推进“小田并大田”与“宜机化”改造;拓宽农户收入渠道,稳步提升家庭收入;创新农民组织功能,拓宽农业信息渠道;优化服务主体布局,发展多种经营模式的对策启示。     

Land use consolidation in Rwanda: The experiences of small-scale farmers in Musanze District,Northern Province

The modernization and intensification of agricultural production in Africa has long been a policy goal, for increased productivity and food security. In 2008, the Rwandan government implemented various land and agricultural reforms to transform Rwandan agriculture from subsistence farming to market-oriented production. Central to this agricultural transformation was the Crop Intensification Programme, intended to increase the agricultural productivity of high-potential food crops and encourage land use consolidation, i.e., the joint cultivation of large areas, which was expected to deliver important economies of scale. This programme has been criticized, for example, for authoritarian implementation, negative effects on food security from sole-cropping a few selected crops, and increasing rural socioeconomic differentiation.This paper analyses the effects of the land use consolidation programme at the household level, as experienced by small-scale farmers in Musanze District in the Northern Province of Rwanda. The paper draws on 45 individual and 22 collective qualitative semi-structured interviews with small-scale farmers and local key informants in five sectors, conducted in 2013 and 2014.The findings show that there is satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and resistance to the programme, especially regarding the selected crops to be cultivated. The programme, including supporting mechanisms, seems to work well for the relatively better-off farmers, who have bigger and scattered land areas, whereas it does not work well for poor farmers with very small plots, which is common in rural Rwanda.     

农牧户融入现代农业生产体系意愿影响因素研究以岷江上游为例

[目的]分析岷江上游地区农牧户融入现代农业生产体系意愿的影响因素及其内部异质性。[方法]文章运用Logit模型,基于岷江上游地农牧户调研数据,选取农牧户认知水平、社会资本、邻里效应等五个方面19个指标分析其对农牧户融入现代农业生产体系意愿的影响。[结果](1)认知水平对农牧户融入现代农业生产体系的意愿有显著的正向影响;这种影响不存在农牧行业异质性。(2)换工行为显著提升了农牧户融入现代农业生产体系的意愿(3)政策环境因素对于提升农牧户融入现代农业生产体系的意愿具有重要影响。[结论](1)提高农牧户对现代农业生产体系的认知水平是促进岷江上游地区农牧户融入现代农业生产体系的根本途径。(2)农牧户的换工行为已经不再是一种简单劳动交换行为,而演变为现代农业生产方式的演示和交流活动。(3)岷江上游地区的现代农业发展战略不能仅仅就农业而谈农业,而要通过教育、医疗和基建等各方面的协同推进,全面增强农牧户对现代生产方式的认知水平,为农牧户融入现代农业生产体系提供基本条件。     

Is the agricultural industry spared from the influence of the Australian carbon tax?

The Australian agricultural sector provides food security for the nation and affects the livelihood of farmers and the development of rural communities. This sector has been uneasy about the Australian carbon tax scheme introduced in July 2012 although the government has exempted the agricultural sector from the scheme. By employing a computable general equilibrium model and an environmentally extended Social Accounting Matrix, this article simulates the effects of different carbon tax policy scenarios. The modeling results show that all agricultural sectors will be affected negatively but to differing degrees. The household compensation policy will improve the performance of the poultry and fishing sectors, while having opposite effects in the other agricultural sectors. The inclusion of the agricultural industry into the carbon tax scheme will lead to a considerable further decrease in output, employment and profitability in the agricultural sector, and a significant further reduction in real GDP, but a much larger emission reduction.     

Conditioning trends shaping the agricultural and rural landscape in Africa

African countries continue to face deepening food crises that have been accentuated by the global food, energy, and financial crises. This situation is part of a long‐term structural problem: decades of under‐investments in agricultural sector and poor policies of support for smallholder farmers who form the bulk of the farming population. The inability of these farmers to achieve a supply response when commodity prices were high and market access was less of a problem suggests that there are multiple sets of binding constraints that continue to limit the potential of agricultural growth to reduce food security and poverty on the continent. This article reviews some of the historical trends that have hampered the performance of the agriculture sector. In addition, it reviews the impacts of more positive trends that could stimulate agricultural growth in Africa that could change the African agricultural landscape. The article however warns that there are more recent global developments and some continental challenges that could prevent or slow agricultural growth. These include the global financial crisis, public sector investments, inequities in global agricultural development policies, rush for agricultural lands by foreign investors, domestic commercial financing markets, climate change, and emerging carbon markets. The article argues that while opportunities for accelerated growth exists for African agriculture, new sets of policy instruments will be needed to support smallholder farmers to access new agricultural technologies, finance, reduce impacts of climate change, and adopt sustainable land use practices that can allow them to benefit from emerging global carbon markets.     

新冠肺炎疫情对苹果产业影响及对策分析

为了有效应对新冠肺炎疫情冲击,推动苹果产业稳定健康发展,产业经济研究室基于987名苹果相产业者的调研数据,从生产、储藏和销售环节系统分析新冠肺炎疫情对苹果产业发展的影响。研究表明:在苹果生产环节对农资、劳动力、苗木供给和果园管理影响较大;在储藏环节涉果企业复工难,贮藏苹果出库率较去年同期大幅下降,贮藏企业、果农面临亏损风险;在苹果销售环节终端市场消费低迷、价格呈低走态势。     

New marketing channels for food quality products in Norway

Marketing is an important and challenging competitive instrument for small-scale quality food producers. Traditional commercial channels may be unprofitable and small-scale food producers often lack access to a highly concentrated retail sector. In this situation a number of strategic alliances between farmers and between farmers and other public and private actors have emerged. The aim of this paper is to discuss and compare initiatives to develop alternative marketing channels for small-scale specialty food producers. The three examples of emerging channels we investigate are (i) the 'new' farmers markets, (ii) retail initiatives where local producers deliver their produce directly to shops, and (iii) companies founded by large cooperatives to market specialty products. Recent research has justified that such initiatives can be conceptualized as hybrid governance structures, i.e. complex structures that entail properties of both market and hierarchy. We pay particular attention to the problem of quality enforcement in emerging marketing channels.     

Agricultural Policy in Tropical Africa: is a Turnaround Possible?

The food crisis in Africa has entered our living rooms through television and the press. Why is per capita agricultural production lower now than at independence in the early 1960s? This article examines the factors responsible and outlines some solutions. Both external and internal factors have converged to create the crisis - low prices to farmers to placate vocal urban consumers, inefficient, high-cost marketing boards, governments' neglect of agriculture in favor of industry, over-valued exchange rates, lack of foreign exchange and increasing debt burdens. Externally the depressed world market decreased demand for Africa's exports and contributed to the stagnation of the economics. Drought, a population growth rate approaching 3%/year and a shortage of human capital added to the crisis.     

The Effects of Direct Payments on Technical Efficiency of Irish Beef Farms: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis

The 2003 Mid‐Term Review of the CAP sought to refocus the EU's farm support policy to foster a more competitive and market‐orientated agricultural sector. The foundation of this reform comprised the introduction of decoupled payments to farmers, replacing the EU's previous system of supports that were directly linked to production of designated crops and livestock. This paper explores the effect of coupled payments and their subsequent replacement by decoupled support, on the technical efficiency of specialist beef farms in Ireland. Given the high reliance of beef farmers in Ireland on CAP payments, the decoupling of payments has been especially important for the sector. A stochastic production frontier is estimated using a panel dataset comprising detailed accountancy data for Irish beef farms between the years 2000 and 2013. Our results indicate that technical efficiency in the beef farming sector has been consistently poor, with an average efficiency score of only 0.53 during the period analysed. However, we found that direct income received in the form of coupled payments had a positive impact on farm efficiency, and that this positive effect was maintained after their replacement with decoupled income support.     

Capital accumulation and the growth of aggregate agricultural production

This report empirically examines the role which capital accumulation plays in the growth of agricultural production potential. The report assumes that the degree to which available technology can be implemented in a nation's agricultural sector depends on accumulated investments that have been made in the sector. Results from estimating aggregate agricultural production functions show the primary importance of rural labor in accounting for agricultural gdp and crop production. Capital accumulation is the dominant explainer of livestock production. Estimation results support the conjecture that capital tends to save scarce land resources (substitute relationship) and use rural labor (complementarity relationship). Output supply elasticities derived from the estimated equations tend to be large. The large elasticities imply that price distortions have had large impacts on resource use and production.     

设施蔬菜绿色生产技术采纳影响因素与经济效益研究——以河北省定兴县为例

[目的]农业资源环境是农业产品质量保障的基础,农业科技创新有力支撑农业产业发展,探究农业绿色生产技术的影响因素与经济效益,对保障农业产业绿色发展,提高农户绿色生产积极性具有重要意义。[方法]文章基于2020年河北省定兴县实地调研所得的219份农户数据,通过二元Logistic模型分析农户采纳绿色生产技术的影响因素,在此基础上运用倾向得分匹配方法研究技术采纳对农户家庭经济效益的作用水平。[结果]（1）虽然定兴县绿色生产技术推广取得一定成效,共有67.58%的农户采纳一种或多种绿色生产技术,但采纳程度有待提高。（2）农户的年龄、受教育程度、大棚类型、是否加入合作社、是否接受技术培训以及政府是否给予指导显著影响农户技术采纳决策。（3）采纳绿色生产技术的农户与未采纳组相比每公顷年均收入增加28.44%;测土配方技术、病虫害绿色防控技术分别带来26.52%和14.90%的增收效应,并分别在1%和5%的水平上显著,节水灌溉技术和废弃物循环利用技术增收效果不显著。[结论]绿色生产技术能显著提高农户收入,因此政府要加强对绿色生产技术的推广,通过技术培训、经济激励、构建技术推广体系等措施提高农户绿色生产...     

Modelling agricultural production of small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa: A case study in western Kenya

Small-scale farmers are known to produce the greater proportion of food consumed in the Third World, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The various national and international agricultural research centres located in these parts of the world have developed agricultural packages which have been proven, at experimental levels, to be highly productive. However, small-scale farmers in these areas continue to produce at levels far below the capacities of these packages as predicted from experimental results. Consequently, these farmers, despite their relatively large number, could not produce enough to feed themselves let alone the general population. To improve the quality of life of these farmers in particular, and the population of the Third World in general, there is a need to study the various factors responsible for low agricultural production at the household level. Models relating production to the various factors need to be formulated to improve our understanding of the functional relationships. This in turn could lead to relevant national and international policies with respect to small-scale farmers in the Third World. In this paper, we develop models to predict production given these factors. For simplicity, the parameters of the models are limited to land size (or herd size), environmental effect and management effect. A statistical examination of our model fitted to a set of survey data on this subject revealed that improving the farmers' management level could greatly enhance their production. Further statistical analysis of the data set showed that the various factors constituting the farmers' management level could broadly be classified into three groups: resources (labour and farm implements), personal characteristics (educational level and age) and external assistance (contact with extension agents/assistance) in that order of importance. We discuss the importance of these findings in the formulation of policies concerning small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.