Informal barriers and agricultural trade: does monetary integration matter?

EU enlargement and the recent sovereign‐debt crisis of Euro zone countries have revived the debate around the (European Monetary Union) EMU. In this article we ask how informal barriers to agricultural and food trade have changed since the introduction of the common European currency, and whether this evolution can be attributed to monetary integration. We focus on the foreign trade of the 11 EMU founder countries over a nine‐year period covering the creation of the EMU and find a diminishing marginal trade impact of both information and institutional barriers. We find a lower level of trade barriers, but cannot attribute this outcome to the introduction to the Euro.     

Production risk,risk aversion and the determination of risk attitudes among Spanish rice producers

Agricultural production is subject to risk and the attitudes of producers toward risk will influence input choices insofar as these affect production risk. Risk attitudes in turn may be affected by certain socioeconomic characteristics of producers. Using 2004 survey data from a cross‐section of 130 Spanish rice farms, we estimate risk‐aversion coefficients of farmers and investigate the influence of a series of socioeconomic variables on their risk attitudes. Our results show that farmers exhibit risk‐averse behavior and that risk attitudes are related to a series of socioeconomic characteristics. In particular, the belief that the farm will continue after the producer retires is found to increase the degree of risk aversion, while age is found to have nonlinear effects on risk aversion. Off‐farm income, especially from nonagricultural activities, is found to reduce risk aversion. Neither the educational level of the producer nor the presence of dependents on the household is found to have an effect on risk preferences. Regarding the production technology, we find that land, labor, and fitosanitary products are risk‐reducing inputs, whereas capital, seeds, and fertilizer all increase risk.     

Nursing home choice,family bargaining,and optimal policy in a Hotelling economy

We develop a model of family bargaining to study the impact of the distribution of bargaining power within the family on the choice of nursing homes by families, and on the locations and prices chosen by nursing homes in a Hotelling economy. In the baseline (static) model, where the dependent parent cares only about the location of the nursing home, the markup of nursing homes is increasing in the bargaining power of the dependent parent, and nursing homes are located at the extreme periphery. We compare the laissez‐faire with the social optimum (which involves more central locations of nursing homes), and examine its decentralization in first‐best and second‐best settings. We explore the robustness of our results to introducing a bequest motive in a dynamic overlapping generations model, which allows us to study the joint dynamics of wealth accumulation and nursing home prices. If the bequest motive is strong, the markup is decreasing in the bargaining power of the dependent. However, wealth accumulation, by reducing interest rates, raises markup rates and nursing homes prices.     

At‐home meat consumption in China: an empirical study*

The remarkable economic changes occurring within China since 1978 have resulted in a striking alteration in food consumption patterns, and one marked change is the increasing consumption of meat. Given China’s large population, a small percentage change in per capita meat consumption could lead to a dramatic impact on the production and trade of agricultural products. Such changes have major implications for policy makers and food marketers. This paper concentrates on meat consumption patterns in the home in China. A censored linear approximate almost ideal demand system model was employed in the study, and major economic parameters were estimated for different meat items. Data used in this study were collected from two separate consumer surveys – one urban and one rural in 2005.     

To lead or to wait? An application to internationalization strategies under demand uncertainty

We examine the exports versus foreign direct investment (FDI) decision under demand uncertainty for an asymmetric cost duopoly. One of the firms can lead entry before demand realization or retain flexibility enjoying an informational advantage. When the time value of information is small and for sufficiently low investment costs, follow‐the‐leader behavior in FDI arises. Relatively high investment (fixed) costs result in follow‐the‐leader exporting behavior. When the time value of information becomes significant, the potential leader will opt for a wait‐and‐see strategy. For intermediate values of investment costs, the efficient firm invests, while the rival chooses to export.     

Accounting for the Gender Technology Gap Amongst Smallholder Rice Farmers in Northern Ghana

Narrowing the gender technology gap in agricultural production has become a critical policy issue in sub‐Saharan Africa. A better understanding of the gender technology gap is essential for policy formulation and programme planning to ensure equity in resource allocation, and household‐level food security in low and middle income countries, such as Ghana. We employ a metafrontier approach to analyse the differences in the efficiency of male and female farmers, recognising the endogeneity of some of the variables in the inefficiency effects model, in particular the credit constraints of the rice farmers under study. Our findings show that while the rice farms themselves are very similar, average yields for male managed farms tend to be significantly higher than female managed farms reflecting higher seeding and fertiliser application rates on male managed farms. However, there is no significant difference between the genders in either land used for rice or total output per farm household. We find some evidence that relative to the metafrontier, male managed farms are less efficient than female managed farms. The results further show gender technology gap amongst the smallholder rice farmers with females’ technology gap ratio being significantly greater than that of males, with females operating on a production frontier closer to the metafrontier. Policies that provide females more access to productive resources and other agricultural services could assist in the generation of relatively higher output.     

Is fertiliser use inconsistent with expected profit maximization in sub‐Saharan Africa? “Evidence from Nigeria”

This article revisits a conventional wisdom that inorganic fertiliser use across sub‐Saharan Africa is too low. This expectation that more farmers should be using inorganic fertiliser, and at higher rates, implies it is profitable to use rates higher than observed if farmers are rational expected profit maximisers. We obtain consistent estimates of the effects of applied nitrogen on rice production. We find the yield response to applied nitrogen to be low in the main rice growing farming system. Farmer behaviour is not inconsistent with expected profitability which is limited by a low yield response to applied fertiliser, high transportation costs, and low selling prices for rice in rural areas. In particular, we do not find any farmers for whom applied nitrogen is profitable that are not using fertiliser in the study sample for each of our survey years (2010 and 2012).     

Is Oil Palm Expansion a Challenge to Agroecology? Smallholders Practising Industrial Farming in Mexico

Agroecology has become a powerful alternative paradigm for rural development. In contrast to conventional approaches, this paradigm shifts the emphasis from technology and markets to local knowledge, social justice and food sovereignty, to overcome rural poverty and environmental degradation. However, the spread of this approach faces several obstacles. This paper deals with one of these obstacles: the ‘preference’ of smallholders for industrial farming. We specifically analyse the widespread uptake up of oil palm by smallholders in Chiapas. Contrary to agro‐ecological assumptions, oil palm proved favourable to smallholders in Chiapas because of historical and contemporary state–peasant relations and the advantageous economic circumstances within the oil palm sector. Based on this research, we identify four challenges for agroecology: (i) the existence of contradictory interests within the peasantry as a result of social differentiation; (ii) the role of the state in making conventional development models relatively favourable to smallholders; (iii) the prevalence of modernization ideologies in many rural areas; and (iv) the need for this paradigm to acknowledge smallholders' agency also when engaged in industrial farming. These challenges need to be tackled for agroecology to offer viable alternatives in a context of agro‐industrialization.