SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Deane, Paul; Malcolm, Bill.

Australian woolgrowers have not adopted price risk management in the last decade. This is despite a concerted effort at various times by participants in the wool industry to encourage growers to use hedging/forward selling. The explanation for the reluctance of woolgrowers to use futures market and forward pricing instruments lies not in market failure but in characteristics of wool producing farm businesses. In particular, the degree of business and financial risk and the interaction between the two helps to explain why woolgrowers do not use futures. In the context of the whole farm system, Australian woolgrowers are behaving as rational managers of wool price risk.

Tipo: Article

Palavras-chave: Price risk management; Motivation for hedging; Business risk; Financial risk; Australian woolgrow; Farm Management.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/122518

Net Benefits from growing lucerne (Medicago sativa) on the Broken Plains of north eastern Victoria

Trapnell, Lindsay N.; Malcolm, Bill.

Clearing of trees and native vegetation over the past 160 years has led to increasing rates of dryland salinization in the Goulburn-Broken Catchment area. In its dryland section, within the Goulburn Highlands, South West Goulburn, and the Broken Highlands subcatchments, hydrologic balance exists. But in the Riverine Plains comprising the Goulburn and Broken Plains sub-catchments, where average annual rainfalls are less than 600 mm per annum, it will be many decades before hydrologic balance is achieved. This study is set in the Broken Plains sub-catchment where over the next 100 years, it is expected that deep drainage of annual rainfall will cause watertables to rise to within two metres of the ground surface. Such rises of groundwater will lead to marked...

Future dairy farming systems in irrigation regions

Palavras-chave: Crop Production/Industries; Environmental Economics and Policy; Farm Management.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/5972

Ho, Christie K.M.; Nesseler, R.; Doyle, Peter T.; Malcolm, Bill.

The dairy industry in northern Victoria has been subject to rapid change in recent years, resulting in great diversity in the irrigated dairy farming systems in the region. Continuing analysis is needed of the various farming systems that may be viable in the future. This study examined possible development options for different farm systems to enable them to maintain financial viability. Four case studies, representative of different farm systems, were used. All four had options to combat the effects of declining terms of trade. However, the option most suitable for one case study may be unsuitable for another farm due to differences in resources, goals or skills. A key outcome of the study was the development of a robust approach to continually analyse...

Tipo: Article

Palavras-chave: Dairy farming systems; Irrigated dairy; Farm Management.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/123142

Economics of extended lactations in dairying

This paper deals with the economic analysis and management implications of extending lactations in specialised dairy cows. The main conclusion from this study is that in the two dairy farm cases that have been investigated in depth, the use of extended lactations to achieve efficient herd reproduction is highly likely to give greater profit than alternative systems that could be implemented. This conclusion holds even after allowing for less than total persistency of cows embarking on extended lactations. The overall outcome of a change from having only 10-month lactations to having some cows in the herd milking for extended lactations is determined by the complex interactions of all of the major input, output, cost and income factors at work in a dairy...

Tipo: Article

Palavras-chave: Extended lactation; Dairy systems; Benefit cost analysis; Farm economics; Farm business management; Farm Management.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/123164

Financing Matters

Farms systems are open to financial systems. Financing matters. Analysis of questions about management of farms is a multi-dimensional task; focusing on economic efficiency only partly does the job. A financial system channeling funds efficiently from the non-farm sector to the farm sector, doing so in many and varied ways that meet the specific and different requirements of farm businesses is the key to a farm sector that is liquid and, as a consequence, makes it possible for farmers to use resources efficiently and to grow their wealth.

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Farm Management; Financial Economics; Risk and Uncertainty.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/100582

Book reviews

Open to Ideas: Information flows from Dairy Directions to Dairy Farmers

McCann, Laura M.J.; Crase, Lin; Wan, Guang Hua; Kingwell, Ross S.; Simmons, Phil; Malcolm, Bill; Satbir, Singh.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/117469

Tarrant, Katherine A.; Malcolm, Bill.

The ‘openness’ of farming systems that is the focus of this paper is ‘open to information’, in particular the way that new information from the farming systems research project, Dairy Directions, flows from research outputs to dairy farmers. Dairy Directions is a multidisciplinary research activity centred on a steering group of interested parties, mostly farmers, scientists and economists, but also drawing on extension agents, natural resource managers, water service providers, community service providers and public policy participants. The core general research question of Dairy Directions is ‘What options do farmers running different dairy farming systems have to achieve their goals in an uncertain future?’ The goals analysed by the project are...

Size and Distribution of Research Benefits in the Australian Dairy Industry

Palavras-chave: Farm Management.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/100717

Liu, Esther; Tarrant, Katherine A.; Ho, Christie K.M.; Malcolm, Bill; Griffith, Garry R..

An equilibrium displacement model of the Australian dairy industry is being developed for estimating the net benefits from dairy research undertaken by DPI Victoria. In this initial version, the dairy industry is represented by a system of aggregate demand and supply relationships for two input sectors, raw milk and milk processing inputs, and three output sectors, export and domestic manufactured milk and domestic fluid milk. Quantities and prices are calibrated in terms of milk equivalents. The vertical and horizontal disaggregation of the industry in the model enables the distribution of benefits from farmers to consumers to be assessed. The results for a 1% hypothetical shift in the supply curve in the farm and processing sectors are presented....

Tipo: Presentation

Palavras-chave: Australian dairy industry; Research evaluation; Equilibrium displacement model; Livestock Production/Industries; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/124326

Financing Matters

Where's the economics? The core discipline of farm management has gone missing!

Farm systems in Australia are open systems. The financial openness of farm systems has implications for managing farms and, thus, implications for analysing farm management decisions and farm performance. In elaborating on this theme, capital investment in agriculture is considered and key ideas about agricultural financing and implications for farm management are identified. Focussing on the economics of farm management analysis, without corresponding equivalent attention to finance, is to do half the job.

Tipo: Article

Palavras-chave: Farm finance; Farm management; Capital investment in agriculture; Farm Management.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/120907

An economic analysis of options for utilising additional land on a high rainfall Gippsland dairy farm

Economic illiteracy is abundant in farm management analysis. Failure to understand that economics is the core discipline of farm-management analysis and failure to apply the whole-farm approach leads to wrong questions being asked and wrong answers being given. The power of economic thinking is in making sense of resource allocation questions in farm systems characterised by much complexity and powerful dynamics. The challenge for those who continue to work in farm management economics is to re-establish theoretically sound farm-management analysis based on economics as the core discipline.

Tipo: Article

Palavras-chave: Farm Management; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/118427

Tarrant, Katherine A.; Armstrong, Dan P.; Ho, Christie K.M.; Wales, W.J.; Malcolm, Bill.

A range of options for utilising additional land on a dairy farm in the high rainfall area of Gippsland were analysed. The aim was to determine if additional land may assist the owners/operators in maintaining or increasing profit in the medium term (5-10 years). Historical trends have been towards fewer, larger, more intensive enterprises, and this project studies the value of additional land in continuing or altering this trend. A case study farm and spreadsheet modelling approach was used to examine these issues. Five different uses for additional land were identified by an expert steering committee, and were compared to the base farm system over a 10-year development period. The results suggest that expanding the milking area by purchasing additional...

Impacts of changing water price and availability on irrigated dairy farms in northern Victoria

Palavras-chave: Farm Management.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/59164

Ho, Christie K.M.; Armstrong, Dan P.; Doyle, Peter T.; Malcolm, Bill.

Farming systems throughout the Murray-Darling Basin are under increasing scrutiny from the perspective of ecological sustainability of farm and catchment systems. In northern Victoria, the dairy industry is a major user of water, and contributes to the environmental issues. Changes in irrigation water price, availability and policy will invariably impact on the viability of dairy farming in this region, but the diversity of dairy farm systems suggests that the impact will vary between farms. Two case study farms, a 'water reliant' farm and a 'fodder reliant' farm, were used to examine economic and social impacts of changes in water price, availability and policy.

Sense and Nonsense in Dairy Farm Management Economic Analysis

Palavras-chave: Dairy; Irrigation; Water; Agribusiness; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/58707

Ferris, Alexandria; Malcolm, Bill.

The standard analytical approaches and methods of farm management economics are simple, sensible and powerful. Still, examples of inappropriate nonsensical, approaches to farm management economics questions proliferate. In this paper, the focus is on some inappropriate, nonsensical, approaches to socalled management analysis of dairy farming operations. Included in the analytical eccentricities which abound are such things as trying to evaluate farm performance and changes but not distinguishing between cash (financial feasibility) and profit (economic efficiency), nor considering the time value of earning of capital invested; trying to estimate the cost of pasture; trying to show to lift productivity on one family farm by having a good hard look at the...

Tipo: Presentation

Palavras-chave: Livestock Production/Industries.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/123803

Old model, new problem: when should you update a model and what happens when you do?

Griffith, Garry R.; Malcolm, Bill; Mounter, Stuart W.; Slattery, Henry.

This paper is a summary of some of the considerations involved in applying an existing model to a new problem, in particular in deciding whether to update or not, and some of the issues involved in interpreting the output from the new application. Thus where you start from does influence where you end up. Both change in total surplus and to a lesser extent the distribution of this change in total surplus across sectors, depends on the price and quantity data which is used to define the initial equilibrium, even if elasticity values are the same. So careful consideration should be given to whether an existing model should be updated because updating a model does matter. The final point to restate is that consumers of pig meat end up being the winners from...

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: New model; Old model; Decision making; Change in total surplus; Updating a model; New technologies; Pork; Industry structure; Industry size; Agribusiness; Agricultural Finance; Environmental Economics and Policy; Farm Management; Industrial Organization; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Livestock Production/Industries; Marketing.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/114420

A benefit cost analysis on management strategies for Queensland Fruit Fly: methods and observations

Harvey, Sallyann; Fisher, Bill; Larson, Kristoffer; Malcolm, Bill.

The Queensland Fruit Fly (QFF) — Bactrocera tryoni — poses a significant threat to horticultural production in Victoria causing losses of fruit and jeopardising access to interstate and international markets. The Victorian Government implements and largely funds an area freedom program to manage QFF. Concern about the record number of outbreaks in 2007-08 and the escalating costs of maintaining the current management regime, led the Victorian Department of Primary Industries to review the program to identify improved strategies for managing QFF. As part of this work, a benefit cost analysis (BCA) of alternative strategies has been conducted. While the BCA method is well established, in general few studies are publicly available for area freedom programs....