Opportunities and pitfalls for researchers to contribute to the design of evidence-based agricultural policies: lessons from Uganda

Agricultural policies in sub-Saharan Africa have paid insufficient attention to sustainable intensification. In Uganda, agricultural productivity has stagnated with aggregate increases in crop production being attributed to expansion of cultivated land area. To enhance sustainable crop intensification, the Ugandan Government collaborated with stakeholders to develop agricultural policies using an evidence-based approach. Previously, evidence-based decision-making tended to focus on the evidence base rather than evidence and its interactions within the broader policy context. We identify opportunities and pitfalls to strengthen science engagement in agricultural policy design by analysing the types of evidence required, and how it was shared and used during policy development. Qualitative tools captured stakeholders' perspectives of agricultural policies and their status in the policy cycle. Subsequent multi-level studies identified crop growth constraints and quantified yield gaps which were used to compute the economic analyses of policy options that subsequently contributed to sub-national program planning. The study identified a need to generate relevant evidence within a short time 'window' to influence policy design, power influence by different stakeholders and quality of stakeholder interaction. Opportunities for evidence integration surfaced at random phases of policy development due to researchers’ ’embededness’ within co-management and coordination structures.     

分光光度法测定乳粉中胆碱含量的不确定度评定

根据《婴幼儿食品和乳品中胆碱的测定》测定乳粉中胆碱的含量,建立分光光度法测定乳制品中胆碱的不确定度数学模型,通过分析其测定的过程,确定影响结果的不确定度的主要分量来源,进行逐一分析并计算,评定出测量结果的合成标准不确定度和扩展不确定度。通过探讨这类测定方法的不确定度计算方法和步骤,建立一种简单、适用的测量不确定度的评估方法。     

Economic impacts of smallholder farmers’ adoption of drought-tolerant maize varieties

Drought and high temperatures are major threats to sustainable food production and consequently the livelihoods of the majority of Africans who depend on fragile agricultural systems. As a response to these threats, climate-smart agricultural technologies, such as drought-tolerant maize (DTM) varieties, have been developed and promoted on the continent. It is well-known that the adoption of improved technologies generally impacts positively on the wellbeing of adopters. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the impact of any technology or intervention is always an empirical question. Therefore, this study sought to determine the factors that influence the adoption of DTM and subsequently estimate how yield, commercialization intensity, and farm income are affected by adoption. To establish causation, we relied on observations from 200 farm households in the Northern Region of Ghana and estimated an instrumental variable regression. Consistent with findings reported in the literature, we found that DTM adoption is primarily driven by access to seed, extension service, labor availability, and location of farm households. In addition, we found that DTM adoption positively impacts on yield and commercialization intensity. The magnitude of impact is not trivial. For example, the yield of farm households increased by more than 150% (936 kg/ha) following DTM adoption. These results imply that policy-makers and development practitioners must support research and promotion of climate-smart agriculture to improve adoption and welfare indicators, such as yield and commercialization.     

Household responsibility system and China's agricultural Growth revisited: Addressing endogenous institutional change

The rise of the Household Responsibility System has been widely viewed as a significant contribution to China's agricultural growth. However, this empirical conclusion is rested upon a convenient but doubtful presumption that the process of institutional change, also known as decollectivization, is exogenous. We contribute to this literature by explicitly recognizing the endogeneity of institutional changes, and exploit exogenous variations in lagged weather shocks and initial fixed assets for consistent estimation. With improved data on irrigation, mechanization, weather and institutional changes in a provincial panel data during 1970–1987, the results of panel instrumental estimations reveal that the Household Responsibility System had a significantly positive effect on China's agricultural growth, which was larger than indicated by OLS estimates that suffer from adverse selection and attenuation biases.     

苏北地区农业完全成本水价农户承受力调查——基于水源地生态补偿的视角

南水北调东线一期工程江苏段的主要目标是向苏北供水,缓解该地区的农业用水短缺问题。但现行农业水价未考虑水源区的机会成本损失,不利于调动水源区环境保护积极性。论文设计单边界CVM引导技术,估算了苏北农户以提高农业水价的方式对水源区生态补偿的支付意愿。研究发现,苏北农户生态补偿支付意愿为7.63元/亩,但在不同作物种植结构和不同城市存在较大异质性。未来3年内,苏北农业用水每年所提供的生态补偿资金总额在1.526~1.679亿元之间。在发达地区探索构建绿色导向的农业水价体系有利于为其他地区提供先行示范效应。     

Becoming a tree when I will be dead? Why not! Generation X,Y and Z,and innovative green death practices

Within the theoretical field of ethical consumption, the study focuses on consumer behavior and innovative green death practices. While scarcely investigated in the marketing and consumer behavior research domains, at least four main reasons spur to consider the funeral industry as an interesting subject of enquiry: i) the sector boasts of a significant economic relevance; ii) it is extremely impactful from an environmental and social point of view; iii) it is witnessing interesting innovative processes in the direction of social and environmental sustainability; iv) consumer movements are rising all over the world asking for more sustainable death practices. Thus, adopting an augmented version of the theory of planned behavior (TPB), which includes individuals’ environmentally responsible consumption, and egoistic and altruistic environmental concern, the study investigates behavioral intention to adopt innovative green death practices (a green funeral) of people belonging to three different generations: X, Y, and Z. A purposive sample of 627 Italian people participated in an online the survey. Collected data were analyzed adopting an ordinal logit model. The results confirm the TPB predictive power also in the field of green funeral behavioral intention. Furthermore, environmentally responsible consumption and environmental concern – even though only in its altruistic component – positively influence behavioral intention, and generation exerts a moderating effect among the examined constructs. Overall, the research attempts to enrich the literature on ethical consumption by exploring the underinvestigated phenomenon of buying behavior of unsought and end-of-life products, that of green funerals, and provide managerial recommendations to funeral service sellers.     

中国农业竞争力提升视域下的小农户发展

目前我国农业发展面临一个急需破解的重大悖论：如何在发展小农户的基础上提升中国农业竞争力。论文提出中国特色农业竞争力具有三重内涵：以生产竞争力为基本要求，以安全竞争力为战略底线，以市场竞争力为主攻方向。小农户发展对于提升中国农业竞争力有重要作用，这体现于小农户发展有助于提升农业生产竞争力、安全竞争力和市场竞争力并推动提升机制之间联动。因此，提升中国农业竞争力必须促进小农户发展，并且小农户发展有提升农业竞争力的可能性，但当前小农户发展受到内外条件的约束。据此，本文提出以下政策建议：完善政府支持、发挥小农户主体作用、发展和推广农业科技和物质装备以及将小农户融入产业链。     

Impacts of Australia’s free trade agreements on trade in agricultural products: an aggregative and disaggregative analysis

The importance of free trade agreements (FTAs) has been increasing as such agreements help reduce barriers to trade. This paper estimates the agricultural trade creation and export diversion effects of Australia’s free trade agreements (FTAs) at the aggregate and disaggregate levels, using the Poisson pseudo‐maximum‐likelihood (PPML) estimator. It includes 24 of Australia’s major trading partner countries comprising FTA and non‐FTA members and covers 22 years from 1996 to 2017. The heteroscedasticity robust regression error specification test (RESET) confirms the relevance of PPML over the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) estimator. Results showed that China–Australia, Korea–Australia, Australia–USA and Japan–Australia have larger trade creation effects in the agricultural sector. At the commodity level, variation in trade creation effects is estimated from the different trade agreements. Among the selected commodities, the larger effects were generated in trade in sugar and wine by the implementation of the majority of the trade agreements. Overall, the trade creation was greater than the export diversion of the FTAs. The findings of the study have implications for Australia’s future trade agreements.     

RETURNS TO DEBT AND EQUITY IN FARM PRODUCER ORGANIZATIONS

While the capital structure irrelevance proposition is the point of departure in corporate finance, it is unknown if debt‐or‐equity decisions matter to farm producer organizations. To inform decisions of capital acquisition, a panel study is conducted to estimate the relationships of different types of debt (current, long‐term) and equity (allocated, unallocated) to the financial performance of 707 farm producer organizations in the United States during the 2005–2011 period. Using 3,120 observations, the panel analysis indicates net sales in period t is increased by $1.97, $9.59, and $4.01 with an addition of $1 in current debt, allocated equity, or unallocated equity in period t_‐1. Furthermore, the magnitude of the positive relationship of an additional dollar of allocated (unallocated) equity to net income is estimated at $0.32 ($0.14). We thus reject the notion managers and directors of farm producer organizations should decide to use debt or equity with a coin toss.     

Cooperative game analysis of coordination mechanisms under fairness concerns of a green retailer

This study discusses how a green retailer's fairness concerns affect product greenness and profit and explores how to distribute surplus profits under the fairness concerns using cooperative game theory. Research findings indicate that cooperation contributes to increasing channel profits and improving product greenness, but the fairness concerns are detrimental to them. The three proposed coordination mechanisms (SVM, NSM, and TVM) are feasible to ensure coalition stability, but their beneficiaries differ. NSM benefits a manufacturer, while SVM benefits retailers. Additionally, the green retailer's fairness concerns serve as distribution tools to narrow profit gaps between the manufacturer and the green retailer.