Agricultural Economics最新文献

The Biden Administration significantly raised its Social Cost of Carbon because of revised predictions that increased global crop yield losses under a changing climate. Although previous studies have estimated and predicted the impact of climate on crop yield distributions—highlighting differences in conditional moments or distributions (given climate)—no one has yet explored whether a changing climate has structurally altered marginal crop yield distributions, particularly with regard to tail probabilities, in a statistically significant way. To that end, we apply a new test for the presence of distributional structural change to U.S. county-level crop yields for corn and soybean. We then investigate the extent to which the spatio-temporal variation in the structural change results is explained by the spatio-temporal variation in climate change measures. Interestingly, we find that the climate change measures are jointly statistically significant and explain a notable extent of the variation despite mitigating factors like on-farm adaptation efforts and measurement error. Our results are consistent across different structural change measures, different regions of the marginal yield distribution, various methods to account for technological change in mean yields, and correcting or not for temporal changes in variance. Importantly, our results statistically justify current approaches that consider the effect of climate on the entire distribution rather than those that only consider the trend and variance.

This paper evaluates the impact of three interventions (seed trial packs, consumption-oriented interventions, and agricultural training, either individually or bundled) in improving varietal turnover in northern Nigeria via a 3-year cluster-randomized controlled trial. A secondary objective of the paper is to evaluate the performance of these varieties in farmers’ fields. Results show that seed trial packs increased adoption of promoted varieties by 42%–44% of farmers and 42%–47% of maize and cowpea land area. Farmers rated production, processing, marketing, and consumption characteristics of these varieties very highly. Yields on plots with promoted varieties were significantly higher than those of farmers’ traditional varieties, ranging from 16% to 25% more for maize and 70% for cowpea in the first season, with observed yields persisting in the second season.

Climate change and extreme weather significantly affect farmers’ livelihoods and human security in developing countries. Different adaptation strategies have been implemented to mitigate negative climate impacts, including the development of early warning systems and recommended crop calendar adjustments in response to adverse forecasts. In the Mekong Delta, adjusting the planting date is expected to help rice farmers avoid harmful salinity inundation windows, and minimize damage due to drought and salinity intrusion. Using a 3-year panel survey data of 775 households from 2018 to 2020, this paper assesses the association between government rice planting date recommendations and farmers’ yield and income. Random effect panel model results reveal that adapting planting dates based on governmental recommendations is associated with increases in rice yields and profits, but only for fields protected by salinity barrier gates. Fields without gate protection are more vulnerable to salinity intrusion, yet the planting date recommendation does not have a significant correlation with production outcomes. Overall, while changes in planting dates improve livelihoods for rice farmers, current recommendations seem to be tailored to intensive rice production areas protected by salinity barriers. The result points to the importance of ensuring that information on how to adapt to climate change accounts for heterogeneity in environmental and production conditions.

Heritage crops are grown from open-pollinated old cultivars and are considered significant in their connection to human culture and food systems. Although developing market opportunities and promoting their production can be an effective strategy to conserve them, little is known about US consumers' awareness, interest, and preferences for them. In this study, we conducted a national survey and used a discrete choice experiment with five different crops (i.e., apple, cabbage, rice, squash, and tomato) to systematically investigate US consumers' preferences for heritage crops. We found that US consumers' awareness of heritage crops is limited. Their willingness-to-pays (WTPs) for these crops are relatively modest and vary between heirloom crops, which emphasize the legacy and time aspects of the crops, and heritage crops, which demonstrate the cultural and historical aspects of the crops. However, consumers' WTPs for heritage crops appear consistent across US regions and consumers' residency areas (i.e., cities, suburbs, and rural areas). Only a few consumers' lifestyle variables tend to be correlated to their WTPs. The findings of this study provide substantial empirical evidence to help farmers identify marketing opportunities for heritage crops and examine the feasibility of using a market-driven approach to conserve heritage crops in the United States.

Agri-food systems around the world are facing a sustainability crisis. Addressing the many interconnected issues requires fundamental transformations, moving beyond incremental improvements of various details toward broader and more profound systemic change. In this article, which is also the introduction to the ICAE 2024 Special Issue, we explore the role of our agricultural economics profession in shaping these transformation processes, examining how our discipline contributes to understanding agri-food system dynamics and identifying opportunities to enhance sustainability and resilience. We argue that agricultural economists can and should play a more central role in international agri-food systems research and policy initiatives by integrating multiple sustainability goals and metrics with rigorous economic analysis. Interdisciplinary cooperation with colleagues in agronomy, nutrition, environmental sciences, social and political sciences, and other relevant fields is necessary, as is the further development and use of data-driven approaches. However, equally important is maintaining strong theoretical foundations to develop hypotheses and understand behavioral mechanisms. Close exchange with nonacademic stakeholders at all system levels is key for policy relevance. We also provide an overview of the plenary papers presented at ICAE 2024 on various facets of agri-food system transformation and sustainable development.