{"title":"Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine – Implications for Grain Markets and Food Security","authors":"Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel","doi":"10.30430/71.2022.5.apol","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/71.2022.5.apol","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82862814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crop insurance adoption remains low among small and medium farms – despite financial public support in the form of premium subsidies. A better understanding of smaller farmers’ insurance decisions and contract attribute preferences is thus needed to encourage insurance solutions. Moreover, previous research has primarily examined risk preferences and insurance adoption among Western European farmers, while little is known about insurance markets and risk preferences in Central and Eastern European countries. We contribute to the literature by i) contrasting the current status of insurance adoption by Lithuanian farmers by farm size, ii) assessing farmers’ risk preferences and attitudes towards crop insurance, and iii) investigating small and medium farmers’ preferences for the characteristics of a new (hypothetical) subsidised multiple peril crop insurance (MPCI) product. Therefore, we conduct a socio-economic survey in Lithuania that features a risk preference elicitation task and a discrete choice experiment (DCE). Findings show that, on average, sampled farmers are risk-neutral to slightly risk-seeking and that insurance adoption is lowest among smaller farms (<50 hectares). Moreover, insurance adoption was associated with higher risk exposure, higher trust in insurance services, and higher willingness to take farming-specific risks on all farms. For small and medium farms, the DCE results suggest preference heterogeneity for contract attributes and higher adoption rates when contract design reduces the risks and efforts associated with subsidised insurance.
{"title":"Risk Preferences and the Adoption of Subsidised Crop Insurance: Evidence from Lithuania","authors":"Birgit Gassler, Regina Rehermann","doi":"10.30430/gjae.2022.0125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/gjae.2022.0125","url":null,"abstract":"Crop insurance adoption remains low among small and medium farms – despite financial public support in the form of premium subsidies. A better understanding of smaller farmers’ insurance decisions and contract attribute preferences is thus needed to encourage insurance solutions. Moreover, previous research has primarily examined risk preferences and insurance adoption among Western European farmers, while little is known about insurance markets and risk preferences in Central and Eastern European countries. We contribute to the literature by i) contrasting the current status of insurance adoption by Lithuanian farmers by farm size, ii) assessing farmers’ risk preferences and attitudes towards crop insurance, and iii) investigating small and medium farmers’ preferences for the characteristics of a new (hypothetical) subsidised multiple peril crop insurance (MPCI) product. Therefore, we conduct a socio-economic survey in Lithuania that features a risk preference elicitation task and a discrete choice experiment (DCE). Findings show that, on average, sampled farmers are risk-neutral to slightly risk-seeking and that insurance adoption is lowest among smaller farms (<50 hectares). Moreover, insurance adoption was associated with higher risk exposure, higher trust in insurance services, and higher willingness to take farming-specific risks on all farms. For small and medium farms, the DCE results suggest preference heterogeneity for contract attributes and higher adoption rates when contract design reduces the risks and efforts associated with subsidised insurance.","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"134 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79450455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Improving the welfare of animals is an important aim in livestock farming. Thereby, farmers’ willingness to implement animal welfare practices directly influences the welfare of animals. Therefore, this paper investigates pig farmers’ preferences and willingness to accept the implementation of animal welfare practices. We study individual preferences for specific animal welfare measures that are part of a hypothetical animal welfare program. The data are analyzed with a mixed logit model in WTA space and show that German pig farmers require statistically significant compensations for implementing animal welfare practices. We find evidence that farmers’ choices are driven by their trust in the consumers’ willingness to pay, their evaluation of the efficiency of specific animal welfare practices and farm characteristics. Our results further reveal that accounting for farmers’ preferences aids in understanding their willingness to implement specific animal welfare practices. Regarding the improvement of animal welfare these findings are highly relevant for politicians, food industry and producers in order to support animal welfare program design and to identify the costs of welfare improvements on the meat supply chain and future profitability.
{"title":"Farmers’ Willingness to Accept Animal Welfare Practices: A Discrete Choice Experiment with German Pig Producers","authors":"M. Danne, O. Musshoff","doi":"10.30430/gjae.2022.0158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/gjae.2022.0158","url":null,"abstract":"Improving the welfare of animals is an important aim in livestock farming. Thereby, farmers’ willingness to implement animal welfare practices directly influences the welfare of animals. Therefore, this paper investigates pig farmers’ preferences and willingness to accept the implementation of animal welfare practices. We study individual preferences for specific animal welfare measures that are part of a hypothetical animal welfare program. The data are analyzed with a mixed logit model in WTA space and show that German pig farmers require statistically significant compensations for implementing animal welfare practices. We find evidence that farmers’ choices are driven by their trust in the consumers’ willingness to pay, their evaluation of the efficiency of specific animal welfare practices and farm characteristics. Our results further reveal that accounting for farmers’ preferences aids in understanding their willingness to implement specific animal welfare practices. Regarding the improvement of animal welfare these findings are highly relevant for politicians, food industry and producers in order to support animal welfare program design and to identify the costs of welfare improvements on the meat supply chain and future profitability.","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87440370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While many studies have compared the technical efficiency of part-time and full-time farms, we add to the existing literature by extending this analysis to scale efficiency. Based on a sample of crop farms in Austria between 2010 and 2017, we find that part-time farms are more scale efficient when they are evaluated with respect to their production technology and the difference in scale efficiency between part-time and full-time farms increases over time. Although we do not find any significant difference in technical efficiency, full-time farms have a higher technological change. Furthermore, an analysis of the determinants of scale efficiency confirms that factors facilitating farm growth also increase scale efficiency.
{"title":"Part-Time Farming and Scale Efficiency","authors":"F. Addo, K. Salhofer","doi":"10.30430/gjae.2022.0195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/gjae.2022.0195","url":null,"abstract":"While many studies have compared the technical efficiency of part-time and full-time farms, we add to the existing literature by extending this analysis to scale efficiency. Based on a sample of crop farms in Austria between 2010 and 2017, we find that part-time farms are more scale efficient when they are evaluated with respect to their production technology and the difference in scale efficiency between part-time and full-time farms increases over time. Although we do not find any significant difference in technical efficiency, full-time farms have a higher technological change. Furthermore, an analysis of the determinants of scale efficiency confirms that factors facilitating farm growth also increase scale efficiency.","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73888712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The vast majority of studies in the realm of false information are currently conducted in the realm of political topics and Covid-19. This study addresses environmentally-related news stories. With the help of two experiments, I explore determinants that can explain who is good at distinguishing between accurate (i.e., factually correct) and false information and compare several intervention scenarios to debunk false information. In experiment one, subjects had to rate environmentally-related news stories as accurate or false. Afterward, subjects received systematically varied information about the correctness of the news stories depending on the experimental condition they had been randomly assigned to. After a period of three weeks, the subjects were asked to evaluate the news stories again (experiment two). In experiment one, I find that the perceived familiarity with news stories increased the propensity to accept them as true. Moreover, actively open-minded thinking helped to distinguish between accurate and false information. But the willingness to think deliberately did not seem to be important. In experiment two, it can be found that by repeating false news stories, subjects were more likely to adequately identify them later (i.e., no evidence for a familiarity backfire effect). However, it decreased the likelihood to adequately identify accurate news stories. A somewhat reverse, but weaker effect occurred when factually correct news stories were repeated: the correct identification of accurate news stories was more successful, but the opposite holds for the identification of false news stories.
{"title":"Identifying and Debunking Environmentally-Related False News Stories – An Experimental Investigation","authors":"Sven Grüner","doi":"10.30430/gjae.2021.0176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/gjae.2021.0176","url":null,"abstract":"The vast majority of studies in the realm of false information are currently conducted in the realm of political topics and Covid-19. This study addresses environmentally-related news stories. With the help of two experiments, I explore determinants that can explain who is good at distinguishing between accurate (i.e., factually correct) and false information and compare several intervention scenarios to debunk false information. In experiment one, subjects had to rate environmentally-related news stories as accurate or false. Afterward, subjects received systematically varied information about the correctness of the news stories depending on the experimental condition they had been randomly assigned to. After a period of three weeks, the subjects were asked to evaluate the news stories again (experiment two). In experiment one, I find that the perceived familiarity with news stories increased the propensity to accept them as true. Moreover, actively open-minded thinking helped to distinguish between accurate and false information. But the willingness to think deliberately did not seem to be important. In experiment two, it can be found that by repeating false news stories, subjects were more likely to adequately identify them later (i.e., no evidence for a familiarity backfire effect). However, it decreased the likelihood to adequately identify accurate news stories. A somewhat reverse, but weaker effect occurred when factually correct news stories were repeated: the correct identification of accurate news stories was more successful, but the opposite holds for the identification of false news stories.","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"76 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75270982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Balmann, M. Graubner, D. Müller, S. Hüttel, S. Seifert, M. Odening, Jana Plogmann, M. Ritter
This paper provides review about challenges and opportunities to assess and quantify market power in agricultural land markets. Measuring land market power is challenging because the characteristics of this production factor hinder the direct application of familiar concepts from commodity markets. Immobility, fixed availability, and large heterogeneity of land and potential users contradict assumptions of fictitious point market for homogeneous goods. Moreover, the use of concentration indicators for policy assessments is hampered by two problems. First, defining the relevant regional size of the market is challenging and concentration indicators are not robust with regard to market size and number of actors. Second, high concentration of land ownership or land operation may point at potential market power, but it may also be the result of an efficient allocation of land due to structural change in agriculture. The aforementioned challenges are illustrated with a case study for the Federal State of Brandenburg in Germany. Using available data for land sales, a regression analysis reveals a negative relationship between land use concentration and farmland prices. This result can be interpreted as an indication of market power on the buyer side in agricultural land markets. However, it is hardly possible to translate this finding into recommendations for land market regulations because the evaluation of the potential misuse of dominant positions in land markets requires a case-specific analysis. Providing evidence for the exertion of market power in land markets is extremely complex and deserves further attention from researchers and politicians.
{"title":"Market Power in Agricultural Land Markets: Concepts and Empirical Challenges","authors":"A. Balmann, M. Graubner, D. Müller, S. Hüttel, S. Seifert, M. Odening, Jana Plogmann, M. Ritter","doi":"10.30430/gjae.2021.0117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/gjae.2021.0117","url":null,"abstract":"This paper provides review about challenges and opportunities to assess and quantify market power in agricultural land markets. Measuring land market power is challenging because the characteristics of this production factor hinder the direct application of familiar concepts from commodity markets. Immobility, fixed availability, and large heterogeneity of land and potential users contradict assumptions of fictitious point market for homogeneous goods. Moreover, the use of concentration indicators for policy assessments is hampered by two problems. First, defining the relevant regional size of the market is challenging and concentration indicators are not robust with regard to market size and number of actors. Second, high concentration of land ownership or land operation may point at potential market power, but it may also be the result of an efficient allocation of land due to structural change in agriculture. The aforementioned challenges are illustrated with a case study for the Federal State of Brandenburg in Germany. Using available data for land sales, a regression analysis reveals a negative relationship between land use concentration and farmland prices. This result can be interpreted as an indication of market power on the buyer side in agricultural land markets. However, it is hardly possible to translate this finding into recommendations for land market regulations because the evaluation of the potential misuse of dominant positions in land markets requires a case-specific analysis. Providing evidence for the exertion of market power in land markets is extremely complex and deserves further attention from researchers and politicians.","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78475918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we attempt to identify the major groups of decision making units (dairy farms) contributing to the aggregate efficiency change. We also suggest identifying influential peers in order to gain more insights into possible development strategies within a sector. The empirical application focuses on specialist dairy farms in Lithuania. The farm-level data cover the period 2004-2016. The results indicate the presence of structural changes and resulting shifts in the aggregate efficiency. Based on the results of decomposition of the covariance term and identification of the influential peers, two models can be followed by Lithuanian dairy farms, namely “pure” family farms with lower operational scale and large farms involving hired labour.
{"title":"Aggregate Efficiency Dynamics in Lithuanian Dairy Farms","authors":"T. Baležentis, G. Karagiannis","doi":"10.30430/gjae.2021.0211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/gjae.2021.0211","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we attempt to identify the major groups of decision making units (dairy farms) contributing to the aggregate efficiency change. We also suggest identifying influential peers in order to gain more insights into possible development strategies within a sector. The empirical application focuses on specialist dairy farms in Lithuania. The farm-level data cover the period 2004-2016. The results indicate the presence of structural changes and resulting shifts in the aggregate efficiency. Based on the results of decomposition of the covariance term and identification of the influential peers, two models can be followed by Lithuanian dairy farms, namely “pure” family farms with lower operational scale and large farms involving hired labour.","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73189783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sabrina Bethge, Jost-Frederik Wendt, Sebastian Lakner
In this study, we explore the economic well-being of farm and nonfarm households in Germany. We applied an indicator that combines households' disposable income and net wealth consisting of financial assets and real estate to data from the Income and Consumption Survey (EVS) 2018. We found that the income available to farm households can support a standard of living equal to that of nonfarm (employed) households. Wealth affects households' economic well-being in both directions: farm households and workers/employees would be better off if their household income would assess their economic status. The opposite trend occurs for unem-ployed and pensioners/retirees. However, the analysis of farmers' well-being requires income data of multiple years regarding the income volatility of self-employment in agriculture. Consid-ering wealth to assess farm households' economic well-being means paying attention to their farm assets because they are highly intertwined with the household. The EVS misses farm char-acteristics and a reliable number of farmers' observations to assess their economic well-being over time to derive agricultural policy implications. Hence, there is currently a lack of statistical data and evidence to achieve the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 's second objective to pro-vide income support in a targeted manner.
{"title":"The Economic Well-being of Farm Households in Germany","authors":"Sabrina Bethge, Jost-Frederik Wendt, Sebastian Lakner","doi":"10.30430/gjae.2021.0090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/gjae.2021.0090","url":null,"abstract":"In this study, we explore the economic well-being of farm and nonfarm households in Germany. We applied an indicator that combines households' disposable income and net wealth consisting of financial assets and real estate to data from the Income and Consumption Survey (EVS) 2018. We found that the income available to farm households can support a standard of living equal to that of nonfarm (employed) households. Wealth affects households' economic well-being in both directions: farm households and workers/employees would be better off if their household income would assess their economic status. The opposite trend occurs for unem-ployed and pensioners/retirees. However, the analysis of farmers' well-being requires income data of multiple years regarding the income volatility of self-employment in agriculture. Consid-ering wealth to assess farm households' economic well-being means paying attention to their farm assets because they are highly intertwined with the household. The EVS misses farm char-acteristics and a reliable number of farmers' observations to assess their economic well-being over time to derive agricultural policy implications. Hence, there is currently a lack of statistical data and evidence to achieve the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 's second objective to pro-vide income support in a targeted manner.","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"71 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83682137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.30430/70.2021.3.139-164
Inna Geibel, F. Freund, M. Banse
{"title":"The Impact of Dietary Changes on Agriculture, Trade, Environment and Health: A Literature Review","authors":"Inna Geibel, F. Freund, M. Banse","doi":"10.30430/70.2021.3.139-164","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30430/70.2021.3.139-164","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48919,"journal":{"name":"German Journal of Agricultural Economics","volume":"307 3 1","pages":"139-164"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72947202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}