Now showing 1 - 10 of 123
  • Publication
    Variations in regional productivity in Australian wool production
    (Charles Sturt University, AFBM Network, 2012) ; ;
    Fleming, Pauline A
    We estimate total factor productivity in wool production spatially across benchmarked farms in four climatic areas in Eastern Australia. Estimates are decomposed into an environment-technology gap and technical efficiency relative to the production possibilities in each area. The environment-technology gap reflects the regional differences in the environment and variations in production technologies used in the wool enterprise. Significant gaps are found to exist between areas but they are relatively small in magnitude, emphasising the adaptability of the wool enterprise to environmental variability. Technical inefficiencies are also present in all areas but are larger among farmers who do not regularly receive consultancy advice in the benchmarking group. There is little variation in mean total factor productivity between the climatic areas.
  • Publication
    Use of the single factoral terms of trade to analyse agricultural production
    (Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007)
    The aim in this note is to reintroduce the single factoral terms of trade into the policy arena. This economic concept has scarcely been used by analysts or policy makers over the past three decades. It is defined and compared favourably with other terms of trade concepts in terms of their usefulness to agricultural policy makers in Australia. A distinction is made between the single factoral terms of trade from the viewpoint of the farm business and from the viewpoint of the farm household, but only slightly different indices are specified in each case because of the very high positive correlation between farm prices paid and consumer prices. Developing industry-level indices appears to be a more attractive way to proceed given the substantially different rates of growth in total factor productivity (TFP) between agricultural industries. Despite its usefulness, challenges lie ahead in accurately estimating each of the two components of the single factoral terms of trade, the net barter terms of trade and TFP, and the relations between these two components.
  • Publication
    Modelling Synergies and Scope Economies between Farm Enterprises and Ecosystem Outputs in the Agricultural Sector in England and Wales
    (Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES), 2010) ; ;
    Holloway, Garth
    Interest has been growing in the nature of synergies in agroecosystems, prompted in part by growing concerns about the effects of environmental degradation on agricultural productivity and interrelations between agricultural outputs and ecosystem outputs. Most productivity analyses focus on technology, technical inefficiency and scale effects on productivity; yet scope economies derived from synergies can also have substantial effects that are likely to increase in the future. Scope economies take on special importance when farms diversify to halt declining biodiversity and other forms of environmental degradation. We present results of an empirical case study based on panel data on farms in England and Wales. A stochastic input distance function is estimated using Bayesian methods that enable economies of scope to be calculated between pairs of outputs based on the derivatives of the input distance function. Results confirm the presence of scope economies from diversity, providing prima facie evidence that diversity is beneficial in farming systems in England and Wales. But a number of challenges lie ahead to improve the data set and method of measuring scope economies for further substantiation of this evidence. Chief among them is the need to obtain a better measure of ecosystem outputs. The complexity of agroecosystems, with their diverse elements and numerous interactions between elements, presents a major challenge for data collection.
  • Publication
    Industry Clusters and Food Value Chains: Can the Literature on Local Collective Failure be used as a Guide for Assessing and Overcoming Value Chain Failure?
    (University of Melbourne, 2016) ; ; ;
    Grant, Bligh
    In this paper the literature on industry clusters as a response to local collective failure is reviewed as a way of enhancing knowledge about how failure of food value chains to perform efficiently can be analysed and overcome. The conclusion is that there is much in the local collective failure literature that assists in an understanding of, and is consistent with, the concepts of value chain failure, value chain externalities and value chain goods. Four potential areas for enhancing the analysis of value chains by accessing this literature are noted: defining the boundary between chain failure and local collective failure; improving joint action among parties interested in overcoming chain failure; augmenting the processes of knowledge creation and application in value chains; and improving the governance of value chains. The key point is that the ability of local collective or value chain partners to produce chain goods and internalise positive chain externalities depends directly on the nature and intent of the joint action by the partners: will they cooperate or not, and, if they do cooperate, how and to what extent will they do so? These issues of coordination of economic activity and the nature of the relationships between partners go to the heart of governance within both local communities and value chains.
  • Publication
    Adoption and impact of improved cassava varieties: Evidence from Ghana
    Cassava is an important tropical root crop for food security and national economies. In Ghana, the roots are used in popular local cuisines as well as in brewery, bakery, confectionery and plywood industries. A number of high-yielding and disease-resistant varieties are released and promoted to increase productivity and improve rural welfare. The study used a sequential mixed-method approach to identify, among drivers and impediments, the dissemination mechanism with highest impact on the adoption of improved cassava varieties (ICVs) and its intensity. The analyses helped estimate the impact of ICV adoption on productivity and households' livelihood, and to provide evidence of technological, managerial, and environmental gaps between adopters and non-adopters. Data were collected in 2014 from 608 randomly selected cassava-producing households in 14 communities in six districts of the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions. Summary statistics reveal a 25 percent ICV adoption rate. Econometric analyses indicate significant and positive effects on the likelihood of households' ICV adoption for group members, the number of varieties planted, the number of livestock owned and information received mostly through innovation platforms (IPs). Impediments to ICV adoption include the location in the Ashanti region, household size, distances to the nearest tarred road and market, and grey-skin colour of ICVs. Results from propensity score matching and instrumental variable approaches indicate positive impacts of ICV adoption on cassava and whole-farm productivities and on per-capita annual crop income. Adopters appear to incur lower total annual per-capita expenditures and expenditures on food than non-adopters but spend more on children’s education. Bias-corrected stochastic output distance functions and stochastic metafrontier production functions showed strong evidence of technological, managerial, and environmental gaps between adopters and non-adopters in both cassava and whole-farm production. In both cases, adopters were found to operate on higher frontiers and to be more efficient than non-adopters. Adopters also appear to operate in a more favourable 2 production environment than non-adopters. The study provides strong evidence of inefficiency in cassava production for both ICV adopters and non-adopters. Findings imply that policy measures could be taken to increase the 25 percent ICV adoption rate through the establishment of IPs, focusing on households in Brong-Ahafo and those who are group members that integrate livestock-farming with cassava production. ICV adoption is expected to lead to increased productivity through technological change and enhanced efficiency. Moreover, the adoption of ICVs has the potential to increase crop incomes, food security and result in higher investment in children’s education, especially for female-headed households.
  • Publication
    Production relations and technical inefficiency in pistachio farming systems in Kerman Province of Iran
    (AB Academic Publishers, 2007)
    Boshrabadi, Hossein Mehrabi
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    ;
    This paper reports on an analysis of production and technical inefficiency in pistachio farming systems in Iran. A random sample of 233 farmers was selected from the province of Kerman during 2003 and 2004, which is a larger data set with a wider spatial coverage compared with the previous studies on pistachio production. Technical inefficiency indices are computed using a stochastic frontier production function assuming a translog form. The study also reports on productivity and efficiency differences between varieties of pistachio trees and provides estimates of age-yield and density-yield functions. Estimates of mean technical efficiency in 2003 and 2004 are 65.2 and 63.7%, which are not significantly different. The mean technical efficiency scores across both years for plantations of the Kalleh-Ghuchi, Akbari, Fandoghi varieties and for plantations containing a mixture of all three varieties are 65.8, 59.4, 62.4 and 78.7%, respectively. Farmers cultivating the more traditional mixed-variety plantation are more technically efficient than those specializing in one of the three tree varieties. We found a positive relation between technical efficiency and experience, and suggest that extension programmes should be aimed at the less experienced farmers.
  • Publication
    Spatio-Temporal Growth in Livestock Productivity in Pakistan
    (Agricultural University Peshawar, 2012)
    Ellahi, Mahboob
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    ;
    Data on livestock production for four provinces of Pakistan, namely Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) and Balochistan, for the period 1980-81 to 2008-09 were used to examine inter-provincial productivity growth rates. It was noted that the types of livestock products across the provinces are not similar, e.g. livestock is kept mainly for milk purpose in Punjab and Sindh, while in KP and Balochistan it is reared generally for meat. Total factor Productivity (TFP) estimates for livestock are lower than those for crops (Ellahi et al., 2010). Further, KP scored the highest estimate of 0.98% growth in TFP per annum showing its better efficiency than others. Major determinant causing divergence in the growth of livestock TFP is road development, impacting positively in Punjab and Sindh, and opposite of this for KP and Balochistan due to difference in the type of services required. The effect of water resource development has a negative impact on livestock TFP, except for water-scarce Balochistan. The coefficient estimates for animal treatment and vaccination for various provinces are mostly negligible, except partially for Balochistan.
  • Publication
    A Conceptual Note on Scale Economies, Size Economies and Scope Economies in Australian Local Government
    (Routledge, 2006) ;
    The notion that 'bigger is better' has underpinned municipal structural reform policy in Australia and led to its heavy reliance on amalgamation. Several advantages are believed to flow from larger councils, including scale economies and scope economies. However, a surprising feature of the debate over amalgamation is not only the paucity of empirical evidence supporting the idea that 'bigger is cheaper', but also the marked degree of conceptual confusion between size economies, scale economies and scope economies. This article seeks to ameliorate this confusion by carefully distinguishing between these theoretically distinct concepts in the institutional context of Australian local government.
  • Publication
    Is farm benchmarking the new acceptable face of comparative analysis?
    (University of Melbourne, 2006) ;
    Farrell, T
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    Fleming, PA
    In this paper, we assess the potential for rehabilitation of comparative analysis under its new guise of benchmarking. After a brief description of comparative analysis, we discuss the deficiencies that surrounded its fall in reputation: neglect of economic principles, limited scope for action, failure to establish causal relations between farming practices and performance, lack of a holistic approach and failure to take account of production risk. Each of these deficiencies is diagnosed, and it is argued that they can be overcome through the careful selection of farm performance criteria and use of long-established and recent methods of efficiency and productivity analysis.The case is put for widespread application by benchmarkers of recently developed methods of efficiency and productivity analysis. These methods have so far remained almost wholly in the province of research. If successful, their application would enable a benchmarker to examine economic efficiency and its components over many variables by using frontiers to capture the complex relationships between several inputs and several outputs. This form of analysis is useful where farm inputs are not monotonic and where both substitute and complementary relationships exist between them. Examples are provided from benchmarking case studies that show progress has been made in some but not all areas of concern. Regardless of the progress made in methodology, skilled and experienced benchmarkers familiar with the data are needed to interpret and apply results.