Linking technical change to research effort: an examination of aggregation and spillovers effects

We used a disaggregate approach to examine investment efficiency of wheat breeding research in India. India's total research effort comprizes 20 research programs spread across 50 experiment stations. A technology spillover matrix was constructed for both potential and actual spillovers. Spillovers and free‐riding were dominant characteristics of technical change during the period studied. Although the aggregate rate of return to wheat improvement research in India was estimated to be 55%, eight programs were found to have earned a negative rate of return when spillins were taken into account. Research output is concentrated on a few strong programs. The two strongest programs generated 75% of all the technical change benefits, even though they claimed just 22% of research resources. These two programs include a significant degree of overlap, while on the other hand many farmers were not reached by any of the programs – 56 and 78% of rainfed and durum area, respectively, in 1990 was still sown with pre‐1976 varieties.     

Modern variety adoption and risk management in drought prone areas: insights from the sorghum farmers of eastern Ethiopia

Adoption rates of improved or modern varieties (MV) of sorghum in eastern Ethiopia are generally low. Although these MV may represent an effective means of coping with droughts, given their early maturing traits, landraces could prove to be more drought‐tolerant and better adapted to marginal production conditions. Whether MV adoption is a risk reducing technology is very much an empirical question which this article investigates using a unique dataset from eastern Ethiopia in a year of extreme weather conditions. Results show that risk‐factors coupled with access to markets and social capital drive farmers’ decisions to adopt MVs. On the one hand, it appears that farmers use MVs to mitigate moderate risks. On the other hand, farmers who have been most vulnerable to extreme weather events are less likely to use MVs suggesting that MV adoption does not necessarily represent an effective means of coping with drought. Finally, findings show that MV growers are more likely to be affected by sorghum failure once controlling for exogenous production factors.     

The rise and fall of public sector plant breeding in the United Kingdom: a causal chain model of basic and applied research and diffusion

This paper examines the barley and wheat breeding programmes of the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI), which was the most successful public plant breeding institute in the UK, until privatization in 1987. The PBI's shares in barley and wheat seed sales are explained, showing that the success with barley was largely a matter of serendipity, whereas the wheat programme followed a more normal pattern. For wheat, the causal chain, or recursive, model decomposes the well-documented link between research expenditures and increases in agricultural productivity into three stages. These are the effects of R&D expenditures on basic research output, measured by publications, the effect of publications and applied R&D expenditures on trial plot yields, and the diffusion of the trial plot technologies, which raises yields on farms. Applying the model to the FBI's wheat varieties allows estimation of the lag structures. In contrast to the results for aggregate agricultural research, for a single plant breeding programme alone there is a considerable lead time before there is any response, followed by a lag distribution only a few years long. The returns to the R&D investments are calculated from the causal chain model, from single equation estimates and by evaluating the yield advantage of the PBI varieties. All three approaches give consistent results, which show that the returns to barley and wheat alone were sufficient to support the entire PBI budget and still give rates of return to applied research of between 14 and 25%. The return to the basic science expenditures of the John Innes Institute has a lower bound of 17%, but must have been even higher than for the PBI if the other Institutes were taken into account. The paper concludes by commenting on the effects of the privatization of the PBI.     

The influence of management characteristics on the technical efficiency of wheat farmers in eastern England

Technical efficiency of wheat farms in eastern England is measured through the estimation of a stochastic frontier production function using panel data for the 1993–1997 crop years. Variations in the technical efficiency index across production units are explained through a number of managerial and farm characteristic variables following Battese and Coelli (1995) [Empirical Econ. 20, 325–332] and incorporating the spirit of Rougoor et al. (1998) [Agric. Econ. 18, 261–272]. The technical efficiency index across production units ranges from 62 to 98%. The objectives of maximising annual profits and maintaining the environment are positively correlated with, and have the largest influence on, technical efficiency. Moreover, those farmers who seek information, have more years of managerial experience, and have a large farm are also associated with higher levels of technical efficiency. Future studies that seek to explain variation in technical efficiency should include further aspects of the managerial decision‐making process.     

Lead-farmer extension and smallholder valuation of new agricultural technologies in Tanzania

Encouraging the widespread adoption and use of new on-farm technologies is an important part of productivity-led strategies to promote agricultural transformation. While many interventions have been designed to promote adoption through extension and education, little is known about how these efforts influence farmer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for new technologies. We use a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism to elicit farmer WTP for two improved seed varieties and a new seed treatment product, Apron Star, under two different lead-farmer extension treatments in Tanzania: (i) a demonstration plot showcasing the technologies within a village; and (ii) a demonstration plot coupled with distribution of trial packs enabling some farmers to test the technologies on their own land. In the BDM, farmers were presented with six products – the two bean varieties: without Apron Star, with Apron Star already applied, and with a sachet of Apron Star for the farmer to treat the seed him/herself. Our results suggest that neither extension treatment significantly affects WTP for these technologies. However, we find that farmers are willing to pay more for seed that is pre-treated with Apron Star than for seed bundled with a sachet of Apron Star for self-treatment.     

Online,on call: the spread of digitally organised just‐in‐time working and its implications for standard employment models

This article questions whether the dominant policy discourse, in which a normative model of standard employment is counterposed to ‘non‐standard’ or ‘atypical’ employment, enables us to capture the diversity of fluid labour markets in which work is dynamically reshaped in an interaction between different kinds of employment status and work organisation. Drawing on surveys in the UK, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands that investigate work managed via online platforms (‘crowdwork’) and associated practices, it demonstrates that crowdwork represents part of a continuum. Not only do most crowd workers combine work for online platforms with other forms of work or income generation, but also many of the ICT‐related practices associated with crowdwork are widespread across the rest of the labour market where a growing number of workers are ‘logged’. Future research should not just focus on crowdworkers as a special case but on new patterns of work organisation in the regular workforce.     

Environmental strategy in the global banking industry within the varieties of capitalism approach: The moderating role of gender diversity and board members with specific skills

This research sets out to analyse environmental disclosure in the banking industry by considering the varieties of capitalism framework. This approach is concerned with the way companies interact strategically to resolve coordination issues arising from their operations, and it is supported by prior research. This is a fruitful perspective for exploring the association between country‐level factors and disclosure by firms, such as environmental reporting. This research is based on an international sample of countries operating in coordinated market economies (CMEs) and liberal market economies (LMEs). The results obtained show that financial institutions operating in CME countries are involved in more environmental matters than banks domiciled in LME countries. As regards the moderating variables, the evidence shows that women on the boards of banks in CME countries encourage the reporting of environmental information, as predicted. Nonetheless, and contrary to our expectations, members with specific skills on boards within CME cultures do not favour greater disclosure of environmental information compared with those on boards of banks operating in LME contexts.     

Revealing the determinants of wheat yields in the Siberian breadbasket of Russia with Bayesian networks

Higher crop yields are critical to satisfy the rising global food demand. Russia holds untapped potential for increasing agricultural production because current grain yields are often far below the potentially attainable yields. Western Siberia is an important breadbasket in Russia, where wheat yields fall particularly short of their potential. Our goal was to assess the determinants of yield variations among farmers in the province of Altai Krai in Western Siberia. We conducted 67 structured in-person interviews with corporate farm managers and individual farmers about the potential determinants of wheat yields and complemented these data with 149 additional observations obtained from the provincial agricultural extension service. We used Bayesian networks (BNs) to represent the relationships between the explanatory parameters and contemporary wheat yields and to examine qualitative future scenarios of future yields. The results revealed higher yields on larger farms than on medium and small farms. Our results corroborated that the application of fertilizers and herbicides and the implementation of new equipment had large positive impacts on the yields. The scenario of higher future production costs and lower precipitation resulted in a yield reduction from 7.6 dt/ha to 5.3. Overall, our results suggest that policies aimed at increasing wheat yields should concentrate on the education of farmers and encourage higher input applications, particularly for small-scale farms. Additionally, policies should address concurrent challenges, such as a higher drought frequency, through the application of new equipment, seed material and tillage practices.     

碎麦提取物与昆虫信息素提取物混合诱捕多种储粮害虫效果研究

本文通过实验室模拟仓实验,研究了碎麦提取物与锈赤扁谷盗Cryptolestes ferrugineus、、锯谷盗Oryzaephilus surinamensis、赤拟谷盗Tribolium castaneum、玉米象Sitophilus zeamais、米象Sitophilus ory zae、谷蠹Rhyzopertha dominica信息素提取物混合诱捕储粮害虫效果的影响:本实验应用6种储粮害虫信息素提取物与碎麦提取物混合分别对多种储粮害虫进行诱捕,发现当多种害虫共存时,碎麦提取物与害虫信息素提取物混合对同种害虫的诱捕超过了单独使用碎麦提取物或同种害虫的信息素提取物的诱捕效果,而对于其它害虫的诱捕也都有较显著的增强作用。如碎麦提取物与米象信息素提取物混合除了对米象诱捕有增强作用外,对玉米象也有较好的诱捕作用;结果再次证明昆虫信息素结合食物引诱剂对监测害虫,特别是储粮害虫有较好的增效作用。     

Returns to public sector plant breeding in the presence of spill‐ins and private goods: the case of bean research in Michigan

This article illustrates a methodology for assessing economic returns to a publicly funded breeding program in the presence of private sector investments, and spill‐ins from other contemporary public institutions and past research efforts. The approach consists of determining yield gains from bean improvement research; applying these yield gain estimates to measure benefits attributable to different institutional players and time periods; and then assessing the benefit‐cost ratios of investments in a bean improvement program since 1980 by Michigan State University (MSU). The results indicate that investments in MSU's bean breeding program have yielded benefits to costs ratio in the range of 0.7 to 2.2, depending on the attribution rule used to estimate the benefits. The estimated benefit/cost ratios reported in this study are lower‐bound estimates, as they do not account for potential benefits from area planted to MSU varieties outside of Michigan (spillover effects), which was 1.5 times greater than the area planted to MSU‐bred varieties within Michigan in the period 1998–2002. The implications of the increasingly privatized bean seed markets for the role of public sector research in bean improvement research are discussed.