Journal of Agricultural Economics最新文献

Mitigating agricultural losses caused by extreme temperatures presents a global challenge. Using household-level data on corn farmers in northern China from 2009 to 2017, this paper examines how farmers mitigate welfare losses caused by extreme temperatures by reallocating labour from farm to off-farm sectors, accounting for the heterogeneity across crop growth stages during which extreme heat occurs. We find that extreme temperatures increase the labour supply in migrant off-farm employment during the initial stage of the growing season, shift labour from corn cultivation to local off-farm employment during the mid-season and do not significantly impact labour allocation in the final stage. These labour shifts are primarily driven by production risks associated with yield losses and harvest failures, which reduce agricultural returns. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that farm households engaged in part-time farming and those with low dependency are more likely to use labour reallocation as an adaptation to extreme temperatures due to lower mobility frictions. Our back-of-the-envelope welfare calculations indicate that labour reallocation from agriculture to off-farm employment, induced by extreme heat, mitigates up to 60.29% of agricultural losses. Ignoring this labour reallocation may overestimate the effect of extreme temperatures on farmers' welfare losses.

This study examines the evolution and drivers of agricultural productivity, measured as Total Factor Productivity (TFP), across 10 Latin American countries from 1981 to 2012. Earlier studies using traditional time series unit root and cointegration methods have assumed common short- and long-run parameters and therefore tended to confirm convergence across countries. This study estimates TFP using a stochastic production frontier model, then tests for convergence using a Panel Error Correction Model that allows for differences between countries and includes variables influenced by policy: cumulative R&D investment (as a proxy for knowledge), trade in capital goods (to capture knowledge spillovers), and education spending (as a proxy for human capital). The study finds no evidence of absolute convergence, that is countries are not all heading toward the same productivity level. However, conditional convergence toward different steady states is observed for all countries except Guatemala. Although most countries are moving toward separate productivity levels, investment in R&D, trade openness, and improved education can both close productivity gaps and raise overall long-run productivity. The findings suggest that targeted policies in these areas are essential to support productivity growth in lagging countries.

Current research on the impact of information provision predominantly pertains to binary food label systems, with limited discussion on multitier food label systems. We propose a parsimonious conceptual framework showing that information provision does not necessarily benefit the multitier labelled food market. The impact depends on how consumers misperceive the quality of labelled food and the extent to which information provision alleviates such misperception. We supplement our conceptual framework with an empirical investigation of China's eco-labels. We find that information provision results in higher willingness to pay, market share and value of information for eco-labelled aquatic products and a preference order aligning closely with the stringency of regulation on these eco-labels. These findings, in conjunction with our theoretical framework, suggest an underestimation of the quality of eco-labelled aquatic products. Our study provides policymakers and relevant stakeholders with a framework to identify the impact and conditions of information provision within a multitier food label system.

Existing studies on the association between environmental regulations and competitiveness have largely been conducted at the country, industry and firm levels, with little attention paid to their impacts on the economic performance of small farming households. We fill this gap by examining China's grassland ecological compensation policy, an environmental regulation aimed at grassland protection that restricts small herder households' grazing activities. Our empirical analysis is based on a relatively large-scale dataset of 570 herder households, and a stochastic frontier analysis is conducted to determine the technical efficiency of livestock production. The results show that the governmentally imposed grassland ecological compensation policy improves herder households' technical efficiencies, supporting the Porter Hypothesis, which suggests that environmental regulations trigger competitiveness. Further analysis shows that balance grazing, which is a less stringent regulation type, is effective in increasing technical efficiency, whereas grazing bans, which form a more stringent regulation type, fail to promote technical efficiency. This supports the narrow version of the Porter Hypothesis, which suggests that flexible environmental regulations have greater innovation effects than prescriptive ones. In addition, we find a positive and significant relationship between payment intensity and technical efficiency. Grassland plots covered by grazing ban and meeting ecological restoration standards should be converted to balance grazing to improve herders' technical efficiencies.

China imports 65% of the globally traded soybeans to meet the demand for vegetable oil and animal feed, accounting for about 85% of the country's total consumption. Extreme weather events (EWEs) significantly disrupt the global soybean market, with impacts transmitted to China. Using Superposed Epoch Analysis (SEA) and a global agricultural partial equilibrium model, this research examines the effects of EWEs on global soybean production, trade, and China's soybean-related sectors. The findings indicate that single-country EWEs have modest impacts, but simultaneous EWEs in multiple countries lead to global soybean production declines of 8.8%–17.1%, resulting in world price increases of 9.5%–33.2% and a decrease in China's imports by 1.5%–20.7%. Soybean oil and meal prices in China would increase by 0.8%–16.7%, and meat prices would rise by 0.1%–3.9%. Consequently, consumer spending on soybeans and meat may increase by 10.7–174.1 billion yuan. China's soybean stocks play a crucial role in mitigating the impacts of EWEs. Releasing stocks can limit soybean price hikes by up to 8.3% and meat price hikes by up to 1%, potentially lowering consumer spending on soybeans and meat by up to 37.4 billion yuan. Several measures are proposed to mitigate the impacts of EWEs and enhance resilience, including international cooperation for stabilising production, improving domestic stock and demand management, and building production capacity.

We analyse how a higher level of trade integration in global agricultural markets can mitigate food-security risks in a world where agro-climatic events increase both in frequency and intensity. By incorporating stochastically simulated crop-yield reductions into a partial-equilibrium model of global agricultural markets, we compare commodity supply, demand and price responses under two alternative trade pathways: a trade-liberalised world and a trade-restricted world. By implementing the same sets of yield reductions (input) on these two pathways and comparing synthesised market outcomes (output), we examine the role of trade as a mechanism for ensuring more resilient agricultural markets. Our findings indicate that trade integration could stabilise food availability and mitigate domestic and world price volatility. While trade policies can play a significant role in mitigating food-security risks in a climate-uncertain future, they must be complemented by broader policies to enhance global resilience and food security.

This study examines the impact of climate change on food security in Bangladesh, focusing on rice production and its sensitivity to climatic variability. By linking precipitation and temperature to rice yields and incorporating these relationships into a trade regime-switching partial equilibrium model, the research simulates future market conditions under alternative Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). The analysis is divided into two parts: first, estimating yield variations for Bangladesh's two main rice harvests using historical weather data and stochastic simulations of future conditions; second, modelling the economic impacts of yield fluctuations under autarky and import parity regimes. The latter reduces the effects of domestic shocks but increases exposure to international market shocks. Climate variability interacts with trade regimes to determine food security outcomes: the effects on food availability and access, and the stability of food supplies, can be either nil or strong depending on the trade regime. The effectiveness of market interventions further depends on the trade regime in place, strengthening the case for more directly targeted support to food insecure households.