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

Application of a Spatial Water Model in a Chinese Watershed

Political procedures aimed at solving conflicts of agriculture and the environment are becoming increasingly important. In contrast to previous research, property rights solutions are regarded as inappropriate to solve the conflicts between farming and nature conservation due to transaction costs. The political process is considered as a substitute for market transactions in an agri-environment being a public good and advised as an ecological main structure (EMS). The paper addresses the problem by introducing a public manager who is responsible for the provision of an ecological main structure. It applies a political economy model of social bargaining, shows how a tragedy of the commons problem may prevail in field margin provision, and outlines a social...

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Political bargaining model; Ecological main structure; Nature provision; Agricultural and Food Policy; Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/98866

Fang, Lan; Nuppenau, Ernst-August.

China's fast growing economy has brought some environmental problems, especially in water administration. Inefficiencies in irrigation activities have created severe negative effects to the environment of rural communities, and the more serious water shortages hamper food production, too. Major questions at hand are, how to improve water use efficiency, to reduce negative external effects, to optimize water allocation in agriculture, to invest in water saving technologies, and to assure more water for high value added agriculture. This paper investigates the impacts of irrigation technologies and investments in water saving on the rural economy and the environment. By taking into account individual farmers' inclination to adopt modern water-saving...

Bargaining on Ecological Main Structures for Natural Pest Control: Modelling Land Use Regulations as Common Property Management

Palavras-chave: A spatial model; Water use efficiency; Adoption of irrigation technology; Technology; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; C61; Q25; Q56.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/25437

In this paper we argue that the loss of bio-diversity hould be of concern for farmers, though it seems to be of little or no concern to them at the moment. As diversity is a component of nature that controls the growth of pests, a loss of bio-diversity means increased exposure to pests, danger of crop failures and, in the long run, lower average yields and profits. So far farmers buy costly pesticides for compensating the reduction of bio-diversity. We argue that institutional problems are the reason why farmers are not concerned with bio-diversity, and show that under pure private property rights farmers have interest in pesticides and not in bio-diversity as a measure of crop protect because they have perhaps to devote land to the natural eco-system. In...

Biodiversity Conservation through Public Management in Cultural Landscapes: Integrating Economic and Ecological Evaluation of Species by Shadow Prices

Palavras-chave: Common property management; Institution; Crop risk; Bio-diversity; Land Economics/Use; Q28.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/25600

The paper deals with the problem of finding relative values for species in the case of biodiversity conservation in a cultural landscape. We use the concept of shadow prices to derive flexible functional forms that allow us to conduct an interactive and internal valuation process. The paper is organized such as that (1) the theory of shadow price derivation is presented in a framework of programming. (2) We obtain quadratic objective functions for participant in the valuation process. (3) Quasi demand and supply functions are derived from which we can simulate a market. (5) The special role of ecologists as experts and potential managers of a landscape is ad-dressed and (6), or finally, a balanced solution on values, value oriented management, and species...

DYNAMIC CONTROL AS MEASURE TO STABILIZE AGRICULTUTAL MARKETS: On Theory and Options to Correct Cyclical Movements

Palavras-chave: Valuation; Cultural landscape; Species composition and nature provision by farms; Environmental Economics and Policy; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/43608

Environmental payments in conflicting situations between nature provision and cost minimization: a political economy approach

This paper deals with a control theory approach to stabilize cyclical price movements. Firstly, we pursue a welfare economist’s approach, delineating a public objective function derived from consumer and producer surplus as well as trade budget at world market price. Trade is a con¬trol variable and the market price is a state variable. Moreover we assume adaptive formation of price expectation at the producer side. Secondly the control problem is outline and solved by discrete control theory. Thirdly, the paper makes suggestions how to translate the optimal control framework and results into a trade policy of the envisaged country. Finally, limitations are discussed and an outlook for broadening the concept for international concerns is offered.

Tipo: Presentation

Palavras-chave: Dynamic control; Expectations; Cyclical prices; Stabilization policy; Risk and Uncertainty; C54; C61; F61..

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/122467

We will analyze a newly emerging conflict within the second pillar of the rural development policy of the EU: a conflict between those farmers, who want to participate in high nature value agriculture, and farmers, who feel negatively impacted by supporting nature provision. We see a link through competition for land between nature provision in agriculture and cost minimal production of commercial farmers. The idea is to model this conflict using a political bargain approach and make a contribution on how to solve the conflict by innovative institutional arrangements. The power of groups will be analyzed and what governments can do.

How Effective is the Invisible Hand? Agricultural and Food Markets in Central and Eastern Europe

Palavras-chave: Conflict; Political economy; Nature provision; Community/Rural/Urban Development.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/95313

Improving Food Quality through Institutional Innovations: Using a Free‐Rider Approach for Collective Action

Hockmann, Heinrich; Brosig, Stephan; Popp, Jozsef; Wilkin, Jerzy; Juchniewicz, Małgorzta; Milczarek, Dominika; Ferto, Imre; Forgacs, Csaba; Juhasz, Aniko; Kurthy, Gyongyi; Hein, Piret; Hobbs, Jill E.; Nuppenau, Ernst-August; Brümmer, Bernhard; Zorya, Sergiy; Bakucs, Lajos Zoltan; Bojnec, Stefan; Svetlov, Nikolai M.; Hurrelmann, Annette; Maack, Kai; Hanf, Jon Henrich; Glauben, Thomas; Herzfeld, Thomas; Wang, Xiaobing; Balint, Borbala; Lerman, Zvi; Shagaida, Natalya; Benner, Eckhard; Wandel, Jurgen; Nivievskyi, Oleg; Kuhn, Arnim.

Since the seminal work of Adam Smith, markets have been considered an efficient tool for co-ordinating the behaviour of economic agents. The basic characteristic of a market economy is that the complex system of interaction among individuals is not centrally coordinated. Under the assumption of profit and utility maximisation (and a whole set of assumptions about the institutional framework), relative prices and their change over time provide the signals that guide, like an invisible hand, the allocation of resources, i.e., the structure of production and the intensity of input use in the various production processes. They do this by co-ordinating the activities of economic agents, i.e., of resource owners, producers, intermediaries, traders, and...

Tipo: Book

Palavras-chave: Agribusiness; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Industrial Organization; International Development; Labor and Human Capital; Land Economics/Use; Political Economy.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/93018

This paper outlines how a team work approach, recently suggested in institutional economics to overcome the problem of externalities, can be used to promote better food quality. Cost sharing as “team work” is considered a novel institution to improve food quality by giving incentives to overcome the public good character of quality. We translate the approach from negative to positive externalities. Hereby: (1) We make a reference to the current state of the discussion on how food quality depends on efforts of a food industry to get a better image and discuss how much need there is to improve quality. (2) An outline of a mathematical approach of a “team work” is presented in the provision of quality as a positive externality and (3) the approach is adapted...

Linking Crop Rotation and Fertility Management by a Transition Matrix: Spatial and Dynamic Aspects in Programming of Ecosystem Service

Palavras-chave: Food quality; Team; Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Production Economics; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/100460

This paper deals with crop rotation as a method to pest control and soil fertility from an economic point of view. In the past farmers created complex rotations to benefit from processes like natural pest control, recycling of organics, pollination and water retention. Cropping orders utilizing small fields to accommodate long lists of crop sequences were a major feature of agriculture. Today we are faced with large fields and monoculture. Usually, attempts to recognize economic benefits from rotation through modelling are meagre because of complexity. We address the issue of complexity as well as spatial and dynamics aspects of long run benefits by suggesting feasible types of modelling crop rotations (dynamic optimization). A newly introduced transfer...

Modelling economies of scale, energy use and farm size to reduce GHG: On contrasting "High-Tec"-agriculture with labour intensive farming

Palavras-chave: Crop rotation modelling; Spatially explicit and dynamic programming; Crop Production/Industries; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/114600

Questions on farm structures (such as superiority of large farms) are typically linked to economies of scale. Economies of scale are normally a matter of investments in energy consuming technologies (large machinery). In contrast there is the issue of remaining prevalence of labour intensive, small farms (meant to be inferior); but which are less energy intensive. We see a revival in theoretical and policy debates on pathways of agricultural development concerning energy use. We analyse, how one can develop an approach that includes incentives to save energy and produce less GHG, and develop a framework of coexistence of farm types.

ON THE INCLUSION OF NATURE AND ITS DYNAMICS IN FARMERS' OBJECTIVE FUNCTIONS FOR ECO-SYSTEM SERVICES PROVISION: A NEW STRATEGY IN BIO-ECONOMIC MODELING

Palavras-chave: Green house gas emission; Farm structure; Policy modelling; Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/60912

Because objectives influence behavior, there should be thoughtfulness of economists on stating objective functions. In contrast, most farm economists work with the assertion that farmers maximize income. A major question is, are there alternatives? It is the aim of this paper to get a deeper insight into deliberations on objective functions. We go beyond income maximization and show how a probabilistic approach on life-styles provides better insight. We suggest the use of probabilities, humans face if they do not know the status in which they live. Labor intensive and nature providing farming is contrasted with intensive, eco-system service extracting farming and put into a dynamic bio-economic approach. Life-styles occur with probability π and (1-π). The...

Preservation of Bio-Diversity, Heterogeneity of Farm Practices and Payments for Cultural Landscapes under Inhomogeneous Natural Conditions

Palavras-chave: Farm Management; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; Risk and Uncertainty.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/6653

The paper explores the question of diversity in agricultural practice as related to bio-diversity and landscape appearance. It starts with the observation that, in the past, diverse natural conditions have considerably impacted on adapted modes of agricultural production, more than today, and that previously performed farm practices were strongly affiliated with specific natural conditions. These practices positively contributed to a motified, diverse and man-made environment which is frequently considered a beautiful landscape. This has changed dramatically. Particularly, where the European countryside is regarded a natural heritage, today, the public seems to be worried about modern farm practices. After the adoption of modern techniques, farmers prefer...

Public Preferences, Statutory Regulations and Bargaining in Field Margin Provision for Ecological Main Structures

Palavras-chave: Bio-diversity; Natural conditions; Diversity in farming; Payments for nature; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2002

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/24937

Reforming and Promotion Local Agricultural Markets: A Research Approach

Political procedures aimed at solving conflicts are becoming popular in agri-environmental economics. They are considered as substitutes for market transactions. Ecological lobbying groups put pressure on politicians to enforce ecological main structures, while farmers oppose them. Undefined property rights pose problems and statutory regulations are discussed. The paper applies a political economy model of social bargaining to the provision of an ecological main structure. It shows how a tragedy of the commons problem may prevail. Then it outlines a social optimum of field margin provision. Finally, it provides a solution to the establishment of socially acceptable rules in a political economy framework. Also, a payment scheme is introduced.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Political Economy.

Ano: 2000

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/26413

Badiane, Ousmane; Nuppenau, Ernst-August.

Although the techniques that are being used have become much more sophisticated, recent methodological developments in market research have hardly gone beyond the econometric test of market integration. While more efficient methods are being proposed to analyze price interdependence, the implications at the farm level and for agricultural transformation are not part of the analysis. However, one would expect reforming governments to be more interested in issues such as i) the implications of market integration for the operation of local markets, ii) its impact on the process of domestic market reforms, iii) strategies to improve the degree of integration, and iv) the benefits of doing so. It is well known that the ultimate at the local level of changes in...

Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper

Palavras-chave: Marketing.

Ano: 1997

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/102548

Size, Energy Use and Economies of Scale: Modeling of Policy Instruments to Address Small Farms’ Advantages if Energy Is Scarcer and Ecology Matters?

This paper contributes to the discussion on appropriate farm sizes as dependent on energy use and green house gas emission. Normally large farms use more energy than small farms and obtain higher labor productivity which is one of the reasons for their superiority. We presume energy includes a component of negative externality if fossil energy is used and carbon CO2 are counted. Moreover it can be intended to use farming for carbon sequestration. In the paper we will analyze, how a new pathway can be developed, that includes incentives (taxes and subsidies) to save energy and develop coexistence between large and small farms. In favoring small scale farming because of less emission, a contribution to global warming reduction is envisaged. The issue is how...

Transaction costs in agri-environmental schemes: the principal-agent-point of view

Palavras-chave: Energy use; Farm size and agricultural policy; Agricultural and Food Policy; Environmental Economics and Policy; Land Economics/Use; Production Economics.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/52805

Weber, Anja Michaela; Nuppenau, Ernst-August.

Agri-environmental schemes provide payments for farmers in return for environmental services. Their implementation induces transaction costs for administration and farmers. Although transaction costs became subject of research in recent years, little attention has been paid to activities which create them. This paper uses insights from Principal-Agent-Theory to show, how information gaps between contracting partners result in tradeoffs inducing activities conducted at implementation level. A Grassland Extensification Scheme, provided in Hesse, Germany, serves as a case-study. The paper shows that attempts and incentives to overcome informational gaps are different for administration and farmer. Further, attempts to reduce transaction costs of own...