Food,farmers, and the future: Investigating prospects of increased food production within a national context

With international food price shocks in 2008 and 2011, food security became a political priority in many countries. In addition, some politicians have recently adopted a more nationalistic stance. Against that background, this paper critically investigates the prospects of increased food production within a national context. We use a small, high-income country, Norway, as an empirical case. In 2012, the government set a goal of increasing agricultural food production by 20% by 2030. We ask: 1) How has food production in Norway developed before and after the goal was set? 2) What plans do farmers have, and what do they regard as the main obstacles to increased production? We apply a mixed method combining public statistics, a survey, and interviews. We analyze four production systems: a) milk; b) grass-based meat; c) combined pig and grain; and d) grain. These systems represent around 80% of the domestically consumed food produced on farms in Norway. Since 2000, aggregate food production has had a slight downward trend with periodic fluctuations. Based on a political economy approach, we identify land and labor as the most limiting factors. Capital is less of a hindrance and offers a potential for increased production. Farmers have modest expectations of increased production, though. This outlook resonates with the strong integration of agriculture into the wider economy, at both micro and macro levels, making it challenging to implement new policies and change farm practices on a broad basis. Increases in some specific products, however, are realistic.     

Land price diffusion across borders – the case of Germany

ABSTRACT

Land market regulations are often justified by the assumption that activities of foreign and non-agricultural investors drive up prices in domestic land markets. However, empirical knowledge about the dynamics of agricultural land prices across borders is sparse. Using the German reunification as a natural experiment, we study the effect of the former inner German border on the dynamics of agricultural land prices in East and West Germany. We apply a land price diffusion model with an error correction specification to analyse spatial agricultural land markets. A novel feature of our model is its ability to distinguish price diffusion within states and across state borders. We provide evidence for a persistent border effect given that the fraction of spatially integrated counties is larger within states than across the former border. Moreover, we observe non-significant error correction terms for many counties along the former border. From a policy perspective, it is striking to realize that even 25 years after German reunification, pronounced land price differences persist. It is quite likely that price diffusion through existing borders within the EU would take even more time given language barriers, different institutional frameworks, and information asymmetries between domestic and foreign market participants.     

论广式糖浆皮月饼生产工艺质量控制

糖浆皮月饼因具有品种繁多、色泽鲜明、可塑性强等特点,受到市场认可.本文阐述了糖浆皮月饼在生产中常见的问题及产生这些问题的影响因素.提出只有加强在糖浆皮月饼生产工艺过程中的质量控制,才能保证糖浆皮月饼的质量.     

Spatiotemporal dynamics of soybean crop in the Matopiba region,Brazil (1990–2015)

Brazil is a world leader in the production and export of grains, particularly soybeans. The newest agricultural frontier in Brazil is the Matopiba region, which is a continuous zone formed by the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia, located mostly within the Cerrado biome. The objective of this study was to analyze the spatiotemporal dynamics of soybean production and yield in the Matopiba region. We analyzed municipality-based planted areas and production data obtained by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics during 1990–2015. Yield was estimated from the production and planted area, and the data were analyzed using global and local Moran indices. The results showed that soybean production in the Matopiba region does not occur randomly. Positive and significant autocorrelation was found at the beginning of the time series among those municipalities located in the west of Bahia. This region influenced the soybean expansion from south to north. Currently, high-production areas are concentrated in two autocorrelated blocks: one in western Bahia and the other in the central Matopiba region. Analysis of spatial autocorrelation involving yield showed a decreasing trend at the end of the time series. The presence of municipalities with high yield surrounded by others with low yield, and vice-versa, were observed. The findings of this study could assist local and regional agricultural planning in the Matopiba region, and support related analyses in other fields of agriculture, the environment, and logistics.     

Structural transformation and productivity growth in India during 1960–2010

In this paper, we examine the role of structural change and sectoral productivity growth in explaining the aggregate productivity of India relative to the United Sates during 1960–2010. We set up a simple two sector general equilibrium model and calibrate it to fit the structural transformation of United States. Our calibrated model for India highlights the relative importance of agricultural productivity growth in explaining its slow process of catching up in terms of aggregate productivity. We show that India could have progressed at a much faster rate and closed a substantial part of its aggregate productivity gap if its agricultural sector had grown at a rate at par with the United States. It is India's relative productivity growth in the non-agricultural sector that explains all the recent success in its closing the aggregate productivity gap with the United States. We also found that an elimination of relative distortion in agriculture in India could result into a modest improvement in the aggregate labour productivity.     

Cultural embeddedness in supply networks

Recent studies on structural and relational embeddedness suggest that favorable position and connections in supply networks benefit a firm. While fruitful, this focus misses the motivations that prompt firms to take economic action in the first place. Understanding cultural embeddedness provides insight into why individuals and firms behave as they do and how their behavior can influence network structure. Contrary to the belief that firms act solely for profit and growth, we note that cultural contents such as values, social issues and political ideologies explain firms’ motives and guide their economic activities. We explore the role of cultural embeddedness through a grounded study of Country Natural Beef, a sustainability-oriented agricultural cooperative in the western United States. This supply network demonstrates strongly competing cultural claims among its members as well as a unique institutionalized culture. Cultural interactions at the node and network levels explain the functioning of and changes to the network. Through interviews, analysis of archival information and direct observation of pivotal events over a period of 5 years, we unpack cultural embeddedness and take an incremental step toward a theory of cultural embeddedness in cooperative supply networks.     

Remote sensing-based detection of agricultural land losses around Greater Cairo since the Egyptian revolution of 2011

Over the last four decades, the loss of agricultural land has been observed in Egypt at high rates. However, the highest rates of losses have occurred since the January 25th revolution in 2011. Greater Cairo (GC), which is the largest metropolitan in Egypt, has witnessed a massive loss of agricultural land since the 2011 revolution. However, until now, no study or official report has revealed the volume of agricultural land losses in this region. This study quantifies agricultural land losses around the GC using Landsat satellite images from 2010 and 2018. Supervised classification was performed using the maximum likelihood algorithm in QGIS software. A post-classification comparison method was applied to detect the land use/land cover changes between the classified images; then, the loss of agricultural land was quantified using Arc GIS software. Visualizations of the gains and losses in agricultural land and the spatial trends of agricultural land losses were created using TerrSet software. The results show that 9600 ha of agricultural land were converted to urban use during 2010–2018, which means that the annual rate of agricultural land loss has tripled and now reaches approximately 1200 ha per year. Decay of executive authority, rapid population growth, real estate market speculation and fragmentation of agricultural land were the main driving factors of agricultural land losses during this period. The results of this research may help decision makers understand the current high rate of agricultural land loss. Hence, appropriate strategies may be adopted to prevent future losses of this valuable land.     

Resource-envy-free and efficient allocations: A new solution for production economies with dedicated factors

I consider the problem of determining an equitable and efficient allocation of resources in production economies with factors which must be dedicated to production and cannot be consumed directly. First, I show that in such economies envy-free and efficient allocations exist under standard assumptions. However, I argue this notion of fairness is unsuitable for the present context. I then introduce a new notion of fairness, which I call resource-envy-freeness. First, I associate with each consumption bundle its resource footprint consisting of the vector of factors used to produce it. I then show that preferences over consumption bundles can be extended to preferences over factor bundles. An allocation is resource-envy-free if no agent prefers another agent’s resource footprint to its own. The analysis of resource-envy-free allocations in production is exactly analogous to the analysis of envy-free allocations in exchange. I establish that resource-envy-free and efficient allocations exist under standard assumptions, and I demonstrate that such allocations are intuitively appealing.     

Relationship between city size and firm productivity – A new interpretation using the Chinese experience

This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between city size and firm productivity by focusing on agglomeration, selection (market competition), and sorting (presence of firms with diverse productivity) effects using Chinese firm-level data for 1998–2013. Contrary to the existing literature, our parametric regression estimates from nearly two million firms show that when the selection effect is controlled, productivity advantage in big cities is reversed. This outcome is explained through a quantile regression showing the existence of left-sided sorting (inefficient firms sort themselves to larger cities) in big cities which is not captured in existing empirical literature. We further find that (1) left-sided sorting is stronger in exporters than non-exporters; (2) is also generated mainly in enterprises with high asset-liability ratios; and (3) selection has a positive effect on firm productivity, suggesting that market competition is key in an explanation of the rapid growth of big cities in China.     

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.