Agricultural Economics最新文献

The heavy reliance on herbicides for weed control has led to an increase in resistant weeds in the United States. Robotic weed control is emerging as an alternative technology for removing weeds mechanically using artificial intelligence. We develop an integrated weed ecological and economic dynamic (I-WEED) model to examine the biophysical and economic drivers of adopting robotic weed management and simulate the optimal timing and intensity of robotic adoption within and across growing seasons. We specify a cohort-based weed growth model that relates yield damages to effective weed density and treats the susceptibility of weeds to herbicides as a renewable resource that can be regenerated by using mechanical weeding robots, due to a fitness cost that makes resistant weeds less prolific. Compared to myopic weed management which ignores resistance development, forward-looking management leads to earlier adoption of robots and treating robots as complements instead of substitutes to herbicides. This weed management results in adopting fewer robots, deploying robots on a smaller portion of the land, higher profitability, and lower yield loss in the long run, relative to myopic management. Counterintuitively, myopic management leads to a lower resistance level through its higher robot adoption intensity. We also find that a lower level of initial weed seed resistance and/or a higher fitness cost result in a higher level of resistance because they create incentives for farmers to delay the adoption of robotic weed control. Our analysis shows the importance of jointly considering the interactions between weed ecology and economics in analyzing the incentives and effects of robotic weed management on weed resistance.

We estimate the implicit market price of soil erosion using quarterly data of 2824 agricultural farms traded in Uruguay between 2000 and 2014. A unique feature of our estimation is that we allow for possible spatial spillovers. We find evidence of a negative and statistically significant association between erosion and land values. On average, an additional loss of 1% of the original topsoil due to erosion is associated with a direct (own) decrease of .24% in the per-hectare price of agricultural land (P-value: .012, 95% CI: −.0042, −.0005). In 2023 dollars, this is equivalent to a decrease of USD 8.7 in the average price per hectare, or USD 1130 in the price of the average farm. In terms of tons of soil, the average value is $.24 a ton. Finally, considering the 50 km radius of our spatial model, the value of losing 1% of topsoil is $15.8 million. The value of our estimates is sensitive to our measure of erosion and our specification of the spatial-temporal weighting matrix, but the statistical association is robust.

Aspirations defined as future-oriented desires or ambitions, can determine agricultural investments and rural development. Aspirations are shaped by people's social, cultural, and physical environment and can be affected by external factors such as natural disasters. This article addresses the question of how weather shocks can influence individual and community aspirations. Using primary panel data from two survey rounds before and during a major drought in Zambia, we show that such extreme weather events can be associated with adverse impacts on individual aspirations. Further exploratory analyses suggest that aspirations towards assets that are particularly vulnerable to droughts are affected most. We do not find any significant effects of drought on community aspirations.

Despite technologies' critical roles in agricultural productivity, evidence is scarce on how conflict affects technology adoption and consequent agricultural productivity, often due to a lack of data in fragile states. Our study contributes to filling this knowledge gap by using unique large-scale data on rice producers before and after a military coup in Myanmar in 2021 that led to a significant increase in conflicts in the country. We find that the increase in violent events including those in adjacent townships significantly changed the rice production function in both factor-neutral and non-neutral ways. Specifically, increased violent events have been generally associated with downward factor-neutral shift in production function, and more importantly, increased output elasticity to agricultural capital (equipment) owned (in other words, reduced output resilience against capital ownership shocks). Our evidence also suggests that this has been led partly through reduced access to agricultural extension services, which would otherwise help farmers maintain productivity even with limited capital ownership by substituting it with human capital and skills. Our results consistently hold for both panel and cross-sectional production functions across various specifications and particularly in Lower Myanmar. Results also indicate that lower mechanization service fees partly mitigate these effects.

Drought events are a major cause of large crop yield losses with implications for food security and farmers’ incomes. Growing multiple crops simultaneously during a cropping season is a well-known on-farm risk management strategy to cope with these drought risks. However, the effectiveness of this crop diversification under different severity levels of drought and how this effectiveness is influenced by the crop composition is unclear. This article provides new methodological and empirical insights to assess the effectiveness of such diversification, in particular to cope with extreme drought. We apply and evaluate nested Archimedean copulas and elliptical copulas to assess simultaneous farm-level yield losses of different cash crops in German agriculture (winter wheat, winter barley, winter rapeseed, sugar beet, and grain maize) under different drought severity levels (N = 249,756; regionally pooled farm-level crop-yield pairs, 1995–2019). We show that on-farm crop diversification contributes to cope with drought risks, but its effectiveness varies considerably across regions, crop pairs, and drought severity. Our results underline that cropping system diversification alone is often not sufficient to cope with drought risks, but that the right crop combinations are needed. For example, during a severe drought (one in 20 years event), 26.4% of farmers in eastern Germany suffered simultaneous yield losses of at least 20% in winter wheat and winter barley, while 19.1% of farmers in eastern Germany suffered simultaneous yield losses of at least 20% in winter wheat and sugar beet. Farmers should therefore be encouraged to grow crops with more diverse phenological requirements throughout the year.

An overview of how macroeconomic shocks affect beef quality-grade premiums and discounts in the U.S. fed cattle market is discussed. We review the shock transmission linkages along the beef industry supply chain and determine the economic implications for the finished cattle market. The analysis provides insight into how the fed cattle market responds to macroeconomic shocks. The economic implications of financial risk associated with the behavior of beef carcass quality-grade premiums and discounts associated with the Great Recession and the COVID pandemic are contrasted and assessed.

Data analysis indicates that macroeconomic shocks affect the quality-grade premium pricing mechanism for finished cattle. The origins of the shock (aggregate demand versus aggregate supply) and government fiscal policy intervention determines how premium levels and premium volatility responds to a macroeconomic shock. Thus, beef carcass quality-grade premiums are not only subject to industry idiosyncratic risk, such as swings in the seasonal demand for beef, but are also subject to systematic risk associated with business cycle fluctuations.

This study assesses farmers' preferences for the adoption of grass strips as cropland conservation measures and explores the effects of information on their preferences. We further analyze these preferences for plots with varying levels of tenure security and erosion vulnerability. Using survey data from Southern Ethiopia, a plot-level discrete choice experiment in two rounds that includes a video-based information treatment in a within-subject design is conducted. The findings show that farmers prefer to adopt grass strips with a high conservation potential, that can be used as feedstock and that help to stabilize physical structures or delineate plot boundaries. In addition, information transfer increases preferences for adopting grass strips with not only a high conservation potential but also a medium conservation potential. The effects of the information transfer on preferences are found to be heterogeneous and vary with plot characteristics. Under well-defined property rights, farmers prefer to adopt the grass strips for stabilizing physical structures, conserving their cropland against environmental risk or boundary delineation. However, under weak tenure security, they prefer to plant grass strips only for boundary delineation to reduce the institutional risk of losing cropland, but this preference was only observed after information provision. These findings highlight the importance of designing and implementing context-specific agricultural information dissemination systems and that well-defined land rights increase the adoption of land conservation technology in the global south.

Place-based policies (PBPs) associated with China's “reform and opening-up” have played a significant role in the country's rapid economic development. However, the relationship between PBPs and residents’ nutrient intake remains unexplored. To fill this research gap, this study uses longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (1991–2011), applies a difference-in-differences approach to analyze the association between PBPs and residents’ nutrient intake, and sheds light on the potential mechanisms. The findings reveal that PBPs are positively associated with increased intake of total energy, fat, and protein. This relationship is facilitated through mechanisms such as promoting local employment opportunities, increasing household income, optimizing the food environment, and increasing residents’ dietary knowledge. The findings also show that the increase in nutrient intake associated with PBPs is more pronounced among men, high-income groups, individuals with higher education, urban residents, and following China's accession to the World Trade Organization. Additionally, PBPs are linked to improved self-assessed health and a decreased likelihood of insufficient fat intake. Meanwhile, insufficient evidence supports the hypothesis that these policies are associated with overnutrition or non-communicable diseases.

The relationship between food prices and life expectancy in emerging countries has significant implications for public health and socioeconomic development in these regions. This study examines this relationship using a dataset of 120 emerging economies over the period 2000–2021, employing the dynamic panel threshold and system generalized method of moments (GMM) models. Our findings reveal a nonlinear inverted U-shaped relationship where beyond a specific threshold, higher food prices tend to shorten life expectancy. We also reveal the disproportionate burden placed on low-income countries when food prices rise, in comparison to middle-income countries and highlight the profound impact of economic disparities on public health. Moreover, we identify several channels through which food prices affect life expectancy. Specifically, we reveal that income, undernutrition, and mental health disorders represent potential mediating factors affecting food prices–life expectancy nexus. We also shed light on the severe implications of economic crises on public health, emphasizing the close connection between economic events and indicators of human health. These insights have direct implications for policymakers, offering valuable guidance in the context of fluctuating food prices.

This study investigates the effectiveness of an education intervention that targets low-income farmers regarding the consequences of agricultural burning. Agricultural burning is a major contributor to carbon emissions, second only to those from the energy sector. Using three treatment arms and a control group, I provided rural farmers in Nigeria with information on the social (health impacts, wildfire spread, biodiversity loss) and economic (income implications) consequences of agricultural burning. The third group received information that combined aspects from the first and second treatments, offering a comprehensive view of the effects of agricultural burning. The analysis suggests that exposure to this information prompts farmers to view agricultural burning as unacceptable, reducing their likelihood of engaging in this practice during the upcoming planting season. In addition, exposed farmers demonstrate a higher willingness to pay nominal fees for government services, such as weed disposal. This outcome demonstrates their support for sustainable farming practices, rather than resorting to burning. The influence of economic information is particularly noteworthy; farmers exposed to it demonstrate a higher willingness to pay such fees. Furthermore, the interventions led to a shift in farmers’ perceptions regarding the primary drivers of climate change, with increased recognition of human activity as the dominant factor. The study highlights how the gender of the farmer and their religious beliefs influence attitudes towards environmental protection. Specifically, male and less religious farmers tend to be more responsive to the interventions. These findings provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of “low-cost” educational interventions in promoting sustainable agricultural practices among low-income communities.