agricultural economics

This special issue includes three selected papers presented at the 53rd annual Confer- ence of the Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), held in San Michele all’ Adige/Bolzano on 22–24 September 2016. The theme of the Conference was, “The future of agriculture between globalization and local markets.” The choice of this theme aimed to stimulate a scientific debate on the future of an agriculture that is marked by the dualism of opening global markets and the growing demand for local products linked to the territory and traditions. Indeed, the Conference intended to discuss how the dichotomy of liberalism versus localism involves multiple challenges for the agricul- ture and the food sector.

The OLS estimates of the regression model where VRS super-efficiency scores are regressed against ten variables are reported in Table 4. This model explains a significant portion (about 46 per cent) of the variation in university programmes in agricultural economics. Five of the ten variables have estimated coefficients that are significantly different from zero at a ten per cent level. The coefficient associated with the number of applications per available student place is positive and significant. This could reflect the possibility that the above average quality of students entering highly competitive programs make them easier to teach (i.e., require fewer resources) relative to students with lesser abilities. The coefficient of the enrolment variable is negative and significant, suggesting that technical efficiency increases as the size of program decreases. Given that the model involves VRS scores, this is not an indication of scale inefficiency. It may be a consequence of the better funding levels and thus lower student/staff ratios in some traditional universities like Kiev or Kharkiv, and hence could reflect some program quality differences not captured in the output measures. The other variables that have a significant impact on the university programmes' performance are staff quality and business performance indicators. The positive impact of staff quality (i.e., pensioner ratios) is most likely due to the accumulated knowledge of these senior staff and their publishing abilities. The two business performance indicators have conflicting signs. The funds ratio variable is negative, which supports the notion that business activities result in a diversion of resources away from the core teaching and research activities. However, the positive value of the number of consulting contracts variable goes against this argument. Perhaps these contracts tend to be larger in nature and hence require the hiring of additional staff members to conduct the work. However, this is only supposition. Further analysis of these issues is required before more definitive comments can be made.

E9. YILMAZ, İ., ÖZKAN, B., AKKAYA, F., YILMAZ, S., KUTLAR, İ.,2000. Analysis of Using Chemicals and Fertilizers in Greenhouse Vegetables Growing in Antalya Province. The Fourth National Agricultural Economics Congress, 6-7 September, Tekirdağ, Turkey.

How is rural economics viewed by the agricul- tural economics profession, the land grant system, and by the USDA research and educational estab- lishment? Clearly a great deal of encouragement has been provided to this time. The American Agricul- tural Economics Association has a section on com- munity economics. The USDA has a distinguished record of accomplishment in documenting conditions and economic change in rural places. As one who was present during the formative years of both production economics and resource economics, I believe rural economics now compares favorably with those fields on the basis of critical mass of researchers, problem importance, and conceptual framework. Nevertheless, it is important that the distinctions among these fields be kept in mind when comparisons and evaluations are made. At least for the foreseeable future, rural economics will be more pluralistic. This provides a source of vigor and breadth not only to agricultural economics, but to the land grant-USDA complex as well.

Abstract: In this paper I challenge the theoretical building blocks of agricultural economics and then provide some indication of how the discipline has rectified some of its shortcomings. The introduction of the New Institutional Economics into our discipline has been a major improvement. I have then argued that the challenges facing our profession are so huge that we need to think about further adaptation by making more use of other social sciences such as sociology and anthropology. This could help us understand the major complexities of dealing with the challenge of black economic empowerment in agriculture. This will however, also be necessary for us to adjust our research paradigm. This argument is well articulated by Doyer and Van Rooyen (2001) when they motivated a research method to study agribusiness supply chains. The challenges highlighted that for agricultural economic analysis to capture complex business reality and decisions to explain and predict the institutional and governance structures and optimal resource allocation behaviour of firms, approaches to research that combines positivist and constructivist are the most sensible. The combination of these approaches enables a holistic approach to the research problem. Positivism’s strong explanatory and prediction capabilities are combined with the strong understanding and reconstructive capabilities of the constructivist approach. Throughout this process, qualitative and quantitative data can be used in combination. Since our research work also needs to focus more on structural and institutional issues it seems quite evident that we have to adopt a more eclectic research approach making much more use of case studies. The skills from the other social sciences will desperately be required here to advance our discipline into previously untreated terrain. This is necessary to make sure we make the important contribution to the task of building Africa’s Agriculture.

Employment opportunities tend to increase with an increase in qualifications and experience of the professionals. University employment often appears to be a stepping-stone to employment on better terms of service outside academia, currently the Government of Ethiopia focusing on Agricultural Economics professional than previous time. Many of the graduated students are employed in Regional Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development; the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Higher Educational Institutions, Developmental Bank, Commercial Bank, and other government and non-government organizations. In addition to previous Universities in the country the Government of Ethiopia following its second five- years plan (GTP2) announced to open eleven universities in coming year (2018) which are named as Bonga University, Dambidolo University, Dabaraq University, Injibara University, Jinka University, Kebri Dehar University, Maqdala University, Odabultum University, Raya University, Salale University and Warabe University; in all these Universities the department of Agricultural Economics planned to be opened, this is a good news toward the department and its professionals.

Description of the operational basis in 2005-2010 (eg. research collaboration, joint doctoral training activities) on which the RC was formed (MAX. 2200 characters with spaces): The motivation of forming the AG ECON RC is base on common research interest along different lines of research as well a common training program for doctoral students. The AG ECON as arisen out of originally three separate majors, which today have become two majors (Agricultural Economics and Entrepreneurship, including on-farm diversification). The AG ECON has strong research collaboration within the different parts of the food chain along the following lines of research: 1. Research in Farm Management and Production Economics as well as Entrepreneurship 2. Agricultural Policy 3. Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development in Developing Countries (SARG). These lines of research also interact and give synergy effects. The AG ECON has an established common training program for doctoral students to attain their licentiate and doctoral degrees including a regular doctoral seminar series where doctoral students can present and discuss their research with more experienced teachers and other doctoral students. Active cooperation with MTT Economics in the doctoral training and supervision is also taking place. Cooperation is also done with regard to the Farm Accountancy Database, a precious source of quantitative data annually updated and administered by MTT. Therefore external collaborators from MTT Economics to the AG ECON have been named. Since July 2010 MTT Economics is physically situated in the same building in the Vikki Campus as AG ECON

The concept of sustainable development dates back to the so-called Brundtland Report [9] and has been organised among others, in three main domains (or dimensions) of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental. Since 1987, such a concept has gradually shaped public policies in various sectors, including the agricultural and agro-energy ones. The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, which was introduced at the beginning of the 1960’s, has evolved according to societal changes and demands, especially in terms of its targets and implementation tools. In particular, the target of increasing agricultural productivity (in order to assure food self-sufficiency) has been progressively replaced by measures aimed at fostering agricultural sustainability and environmentally friendly practices in farming. The first notable step of such a process took place with the institution of the “second pillar” of the CAP, aimed at recognizing and rewarding various multi-functional and environmentally friendly practices in farming. Within the second pillar, the most relevant actions to encourage sustainable farming practices are the agri-environmental measures (AEMs henceforth). As the participation in AEMs (and in other measures of the second pillar) is voluntary for farmers, it is crucial to understand what factors encourage their uptake. This aspect has been explored by Defrancesco et al. [10], Bertoni et al. [11], Burton [12], Franzén et al. [13], and Pavlis et al. [14], and compare farm, farmer, and territorial characteristics of all subjects that take part and do not take part toward AEMs. What commonly emerges from these studies is that younger farmers are more inclined towards sustainable farming practices. Furthermore, the adverse selection effect, according to which the lower the adaptation cost to comply with AEMs, the higher is the probability to participate in the scheme, is confirmed. This, in turn, leads to a lack of additionality in the effect of these policies, as the farmers representing the real target of these policies are less likely to participate. Finally, the location of the farm in environmentally sensitive areas does not seem to affect the uptake of AEMs. Such a finding points to a lack of territorial targeting of this kind of intervention. Beyond the participation in environmentally friendly farming practices, it is crucial to assess whether and to what extent the adoption of such actions actually translates into the expected outcomes. In this regard, the agricultural economics research has focused on developing tools and farm-level analyses based on sample survey simulations [15–17] and on ex-post estimations [18–20] on the effects of both farm practices and agricultural policies on sustainability.

The following information is a guide to policies and procedures for graduate study in agricultural economics. The information is intended for use by graduate students, faculty, and staff in agricultural economics. Additional information can be found in the Graduate Handbook (GH), Graduate School calendar for each session, and a Student Guide for those who are expecting to complete degrees in the current session, which are available from the Graduate School. The Graduate Handbook is available on the Web at http://www.k-state.edu/grad/. Graduate forms are also available on the web at this address. A “Checklist For Masters Students” is available at http://www.k.state.edu/grad/gscurrent/guideforms/m- chklst.htm

However, despite recent empirical evidence, a number of gaps remain in this literature. First, the majority of the literature focusing on Ethiopia has focused on the Ethiopian Highlands. As a result, findings may not be transposable to other areas of Ethiopia. Since the Ethiopian Highlands tend to be quite moisture-strained, it may be the case that this reduces the ef- fectiveness of other inputs 1 , thus favouring increasing crop diversity as an alternative. As a result, whether crop diversity yields similar gains across agro-ecological settings is still an open question. Secondly, previous research studying the cereal diversity-productivity link in Agricultural Economics does not convincingly answer why a positive relationship exists. Beyond the marginal effects, few studies have tried to disentangle the underlying mechanism driving this link. This is not a trivial question since policy implications will differ depending on whether the result is driven by one specific crop (a “sampling” effect) or whether it is driven by interactions between cereals (“complementarity” and “facilitation effects”). Previ- ous typically does not test for the possibility that results could be driven by the inclusion of particular high- or low- performing crop/subspecies of a crop. We believe that our empirical specification, explained in section five, partly addresses some of these concerns.

Essays in Agricultural Economics Appendices Francisco Pereira Fontes A thesis submitted to the Department of Geography and Environment of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the d[.]

Feasibility: A recently completed study, supported by Farm Foundation and available at (www.farmfoundation.org/projects/01-63.htm), concluded that there is substantial interest in middle- and low-income countries in receiving graduate courses and graduate degrees in agricultural economics by distance education. Demand was assessed through both personal contacts with universities in middle- and low-income countries (mainly in Africa) and a formal sample survey of similar countries worldwide.

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The definition of sustainability of environment comes from the Burtland Report (1987). According to Pearce and Atkinson’s (1995) understanding, is that the natural resources and man- made capital are complementary to each other in the production process, so that natural resources are creating the limiting factors to increase production, and at the same time, they should be used rationally during the production. By the turn of the millennium, sustainability has a broader interpretation. The new paradigm of agricultural research and development has been built on the interaction of three factors: ecological sustainability, economic efficiency paired with equal opportunities, and mutual assistance of governmental and non-governmental sectors in order to improve the performance and profitability of farming systems. The term "sustainable development" includes the current and long-run sustainable production and the controversies of environmental protection that assurance the right quality of life, and hard-preventable, but rather tolerated conflicts. In the realization serious regional, national, social (and of course, political) interests, momentary, short and long-run visions clash, they often confront. (Chilinsky, 1998; Behnassi et al., 2011; Turek, 2013; Valkó et al., 2013) Social sustainability includes the necessary food production, industrial based energy production, also from the farmer's point of view, compliance with the profitability criteria, and the responsibility of sustaining the environment. (Figure 1) It should be emphasized that both ecological and social sustainability can only be realized if economic sustainability is reached during farming, and also on every level of human needs. So the question for the enterprises (farms) is

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We consider indicators of soil quality and the mean slope of the land within the counties, as these variables are expected to have an influence on land rents. We use three approaches to control for soil quality. The natural soil quality is described by different proxy variables: the soil index (kindly provided by Forschungszentrum Jülich, 2009), a dummy variable for the parent materials of the soils given in the German soil database (BGR, 2007a), and two dummy variables derived from the Digital Soil Map of the World (DSMW) (FAO, 2003). Using zonal statistics, the mean value of the soil index is assigned to each county. For the German soil database and the DSMW, the dominant soil class is assigned to each county; only information on agriculturally managed land, as indicated by the German soil database (BGR, 2007b), is considered. From the German soil database, we select the dummy variable loess, as loess tends to develop into highly productive soils. From the DSMW, we account for the two most frequent soil classes at the county level in Germany: dystric cambisols, representing less productive soils, and orthic luvisols, indicating land with good soil quality. Figure 4.4 (Annex) shows the spatial distribution of soil quality based on the different data sources. All three maps indicate that highly productive soils are located in central and south-eastern Germany; orthic luvisols are additionally found in north-eastern Germany. The variable land slope (expressed as a percentage) is generated based on altitudes given by the SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) digital elevation data (Jarvis et al., 2008) originally produced by NASA. Again, only information on agricultural land (BGR, 2007b) is considered. The resulting grid is used to calculate zonal statistics and assign corresponding mean values to the counties.

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industries, a second best approach of assistance to Australian agricultural and other export and low-cost import competing industries should be adopted. The argument has been cited in many of the Bureau's submissions to the IAC (see BAE 1982e, 1983a, c and d for recent examples) as have the practical difficulties of its implementation. In particular, the Bureau has noted (see, for example, Easter et al. 1982) the problems in identifying those firms which should be compensated and estimating the appropriate amount of compensation. As a result it is difficult to be confident that compensation policies will effect a movement of resources from high to lower cost activities. A corollary of the 'tariff compensation' argument is the 'existence principle'. The latter principle is relevant in situations whereby withdrawal or reduction of an industry's existing assistance is contemplated. Unless it is known that such action is likely to result in a movement of resources from higher to lower cost industries there is a strong efficiency-based case for retaining the industry's existing assistance (see Easter et al. 1982 p. 49).

Abstract: This paper describes the evolution of land reclamation works in Romania, from the second half of the twentieth century and until today. Given that over two thirds of the farmland was affected by unfavorable phenomena, such as frequent drought, waterlogging and soil erosion, the totalitarian political power instituted after the Second World War decided to improve the situation. Priority was given to irrigation facilities because they were expected to substantially increase the agricultural production and yield per hectare, which were among the lowest in Europe. Between 1950 and 1989, by successive programs developed by specialists under political order, over 3 million hectares were equipped for irrigation (ranking the second or the third in Europe); on similar surfaces, there were performed works to combat waterlogging, and over 2.2 million hectares were equipped with facilities for soil erosion control. Given that, in 1950, only 42 thousand hectares were equipped for irrigation, 368 thousand hectares were equipped against waterlogging, and only 2 thousand ha for soil erosion, in the next four decades (1950-1989) there were performed land reclamation works and improvements on more than 8 million hectares. The financial effort, the rush, but also the lack of some measure in some works, such as irrigation, damaged the quality of works, many of them with important missing parts. The faulty operation for which there were insufficient financial resources yielded to

The first applications of the model to economics and international commerce came in the sixties. Tinbergen’s [10] applied Newton's law of the field of economics and earned a Nobel Prize in 1969. Then Poyhonen in 1963, developed a standard form to measure the volume of two-way bilateral trade to explain the trade flows between countries. The model became widely used in international trade to explain the trends of bilateral trade between the countries. It was found that the trade volume between the two countries depends on the GDP and is inversely related to the distance between them [11].