Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics最新文献

We examine the role of soil conservation practices (SCPs) in promoting sustainable agri-food production to achieve food and nutrition security. To this end, we use the endogenous treatment regression model, as it allows us to address the selection bias associated with SCP adoption. Data sourced from the 2020 China Land Economic Survey, collected by Nanjing Agricultural University, China, are examined. First, we analyse the association between the adoption of SCPs and rice yield; we focus on rice as it is the most common staple food globally. Then, we examine the links between SCP adoption and dietary diversity and the consumption of seven specific foods (rice, potato, pork, poultry, egg, fruits and vegetable oil). This allows us to glean insights into how SCPs may affect the dietary patterns in rural communities. The findings show that adopting SCPs is associated with an 8.5% increase in rice yield. Rice yields increase with the intensification of SCP adoption. Disaggregated analysis suggests that low-income farmers receive the most rice yield promotion by adopting SCPs compared with wealthier ones. Meanwhile, among the three SCPs (i.e. soil remediation, commercial organic fertiliser application and formulated fertilisation) considered in our study, only formulated fertilisation increases rice yields. Furthermore, adopting SCPs is associated with higher consumption of protein-rich foods and lower dietary diversity.

In 2022, the United Nations (UN) endorsed a resolution to end plastic pollution, with an objective to have a legally binding agreement in place by 2024. The clothing industry uses a significant amount of plastic, which generates plastic pollution through both the mismanagement of clothing waste and microplastics released during the washing of clothes. Consequently, clothing needs to be made without plastic fibres or synthetic chemicals to comply with the UN's resolution and stop contributing to plastic pollution. In this paper, we develop an economy-wide model and impose a tax on the conventional clothing sector or subsidise plastic-free clothing in different regions until all clothing produced is free of plastics and synthetic chemicals. We analyse the impact of these policies on GDP, welfare, output and land use across six policy scenarios. If only some regions tax clothing production and not others, the production of conventional clothing increases in untaxed regions (i.e. there is conventional clothing ‘leakage’). As clothing producers import some of their plastic inputs, increased production of conventional clothing in untaxed regions dampens the reduction in plastic production in regions with a clothing tax. Conventional clothing ‘leakage’ does not occur in the subsidy scenarios, and global plastic production decreases by more compared with tax scenarios. Under both a tax and the subsidy, synthetic chemical and plastic-free clothing production increase global demand for ‘natural’ alternatives such as plant-based fibres, oil seeds, natural rubber and forestry products. This causes significant land use change in the model at the expense of food-based agricultural products.

Biosecurity: A Systems Perspective is a book edited by Susan M. Hester, Lucie M. Bland, Edith Arndt, Sana Bau, James S. Camac, Evelyn Mannix, Raphaël Trouvé, and Andrew P. Robinson. Susan is an associate professor at the University of New England Business School. Lucie is a biological scientist, Edith is a biosecurity research fellow and has worked in the public service, Sana is an environmental scientist, James is an applied ecologist, Evelyn is an artificial intelligence research fellow, Raphaël is an ecologist and statistical modeller and Andrew is a statistician. All the editors work at the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis (CEBRA) at the University of Melbourne in Australia. This book has twenty-five contributors who have backgrounds in agricultural and resource economics, statistics, environmental science, ecology, public policy and business. The majority of the contributors are from Australia with one contributor from New Zealand and another from Hawai'i. Therefore, the perspectives and examples in this book are mostly drawn from the Australian context.

Globally, the rate at which pests and diseases are spreading within and between countries is alarming. This increased rate of spread of pests and diseases is due to various factors such as climate change and globalisation. Consequently, most countries require a robust biosecurity system to reduce the risk of spread of pests and diseases and ultimately their economic, social and environmental impacts. In this book, the authors recognise that pests and diseases have broad impacts on society. Consequently, the authors define a biosecurity system as “a suite of management activities implemented by a jurisdiction to protect its economy, environment and human health from damaging impacts of pests and diseases” (page 5). The authors also suggest that biosecurity should be viewed from a systems perspective as a complex system of interactions between several actors in recognition that biosecurity systems consist of social, economic and political sub-systems all of which need to be considered when managing biosecurity challenges.

The link between economics and risk analysis is an aspect that is always ill-defined making it difficult for economists to clearly see their role in the field of biosecurity. This book provides four broad areas where economics can be applied to biosecurity. First, the authors suggest that a comprehensive risk assessment should include economic evaluation of the consequences of biosecurity threats. Examples of the economic evaluation methods outlined include benefit cost analysis, partial equilibrium models, computable general equilibrium models and non-market valuation techniques. Although it is unlikely that an economist will assess the risk of entry of pests and diseases, the book outlines how such computations are done using examples. This makes it easier for economists to understand the parameters required to evaluate the impact of

Milk is a near-universal source of essential nutrients and contributes significantly to global nutrient availability. Global demand for milk continues to rise, driven by population growth, rising household incomes and favourable consumption patterns. Plant-based alternatives (PBAs) to milk seek to cater to the preferences of a share of consumers regarding sustainability, lifestyle or health-related matters (e.g. allergies and lactose intolerance). Though popular, PBAs do not stand as suitable nutritional substitutes for milk. These considerations emphasise the complex relationships between nutritional content and consumer preferences. This paper estimates a demand system for milk and PBAs in the New Zealand (NZ) market. We explore patterns of complementarity or substitutability between standard milk, reduced-fat milk and organic milk, and an aggregate group of PBAs. We use these results to calculate nutrient elasticities and assess changes in nutrient availability in response to prices and expenditure variations. We estimate a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System using purchase records for 2460 NZ households in 2021. We find that demand for standard milk does not show any substitutional relationship with PBAs. On the contrary, increases in the PBAs price lead households to switch towards standard milk, thereby increasing the availability of essential nutrients. That is, in the case of price increases, milk effectively offsets the reduction in essential nutrients as households switch away from PBAs, but PBAs cannot offset any reduction in essential nutrients as households do not find them to be adequate substitutes for milk.

This study enhances our comprehension of the performance of farm businesses in Western Australia by estimating persistent and transient technical efficiency measures in the presence of firm-level effects. The analysis is based on a balanced panel data set of 54 farm businesses from the years 2002 to 2011. We employ Kumbhakar et al.'s (2014, Journal of Productivity Analysis, 41, 321) model to estimate persistent efficiency and firm effects separately, as well as Kumbhakar's and Heshmati's (1995, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 77, 660) model where these two factors are confounded. Furthermore, we investigate the factors that influence transient and persistent technical efficiency. Our findings reveal that failing to differentiate between persistent technical efficiency and firm effects underestimates the estimates of persistent and overall technical efficiency. This underestimation may result in misguided policy recommendations for improving the technical performance of farm businesses. We also find that persistent efficiency dominates overall technical efficiency. The significant determinants of persistent overall technical efficiency include the regional rainfall zone where a farm business is located, the managerial competency of the farm operator denoted by their age and off-farm activities. Off-farm income plays a crucial role in determining transient technical efficiency.

This work investigates the linkages among conventional and organic milk markets in France and Germany using the flexible TVP-VAR connectedness approach. Price connectedness tends to be stronger in the spatial than in the quality dimension of the market network. The bulk of the adjustments to incoming price innovations are completed beyond the 3-month frequency range. Organic milk markets are more likely to be net-transmitters of shocks to conventional markets. Total connectedness has not been increasing. The strength of price spillovers between market pairs varies widely with time; their pattern does not, thus pointing to a fairly stable internal network structure.

Our study investigates the impact of genetically modified organism (GMO) regulations on international agricultural trade, with a specific focus on GMO approvals. We analyse the effects of GMO regulations on bilateral trade through three main pathways: productivity enhancements in the exporting country, regulatory dissimilarities between trading partners and the influence of GMO approvals on demand in the importing country. Using a panel data set on corn trade and employing advanced econometric techniques, our findings reveal that GMO cultivation approvals in exporting countries have the most substantial and consistent positive effect on trade. Conversely, the impact of GMO demand approvals in importing countries is relatively smaller and negative. Additionally, regulatory dissimilarities between any two countries become negligible when accounting for the effects of cultivation and demand approvals. Thus, GMO approval regulations exert more significant multilateral effects on trade than bilateral ones.

In an ever-more-competitive global beverage market, vignerons compete for the attention of consumers by trying to differentiate their wine from others while also responding to technological advances, climate change and evolving demand patterns. In doing so, they highlight their regional and varietal distinctiveness while keeping an eye on changes in consumer preferences for different varieties. This paper examines and seeks to explain the extent to which winegrape varietal mixes vary across regions and over time within Australia and relative to the rest of the world. It reports changes in indices of similarity across regions and indices of concentration in the winegrape varietal mix within regions. Nationally, the varietal mix has become less differentiated and closer to that of France and the world as a whole. However, individual regions within Australia are becoming more concentrated in their mix of varieties and more differentiated from other Australian regions. We estimate supply response models based on a Nerlovian adaptive profit expectations and partial acreage adjustment framework. These models do not provide insights into many of the variables influencing vignerons' planting decisions, but they help explain recent changes in varietal mixes. The results suggest that changes in varietal mixes are more motivated by expected revenues than by what may work best based on the climate of each region. In the wake of climate change and global wine demand premiumising, some Australian vignerons may find their region is too warm for producing high-quality wine with the winegrape varieties planted there.

We present a simple model of internal and external balance that incorporates key features of resource-rich developing countries (RRDCs). The main result is that ‘government take’—the ratio of fiscal resource revenue to resource output—is a key determinant of the equilibrium real exchange rate (ERER) in these countries. Examining the case of Papua New Guinea, which has grappled with foreign exchange restrictions since 2015, we find that about half of the RER overvaluation estimated at 26% in 2019 would disappear if the current low level of government take was to be lifted to its long-term average. The analysis has two key takeaways for RRDCs. First, changes in the government take require adjustments to the RER and fiscal policy to maintain internal and external balance. Second, economic adjustments to falls in the take are difficult; therefore, policies seeking to stabilise the take over time to promote macroeconomic stability are recommended.

The frequency and severity of drought has been increasing in Southern Africa against the backdrop of an increase in the population of both humans and wildlife, most notably elephants. This has increased the incidents of human–wildlife conflict (HWC) due to competition for food and water, further complicating both conservation efforts and food security for farmer-households juxtaposed to wildlife corridors. We seek insights into these issues by examining the role of drought in inducing HWC in rural Zimbabwe and investigate the effect of HWC on the food-security status of rural households. We utilise data from the 2023 nationally representative survey of rural Zimbabwean households in this endeavour. To avoid the confounding problem associated with self-selection into a HWC household and taking into account the count nature of our outcome variable, we employ the endogenous switching regression model with count data. The results provide three major insights. First, drought occurrence increases the likelihood of HWC among rural farmer-households. Second, HWC increases rural household vulnerability to food insecurity. Finally, the HWC shock is inconsequential on farmer-household food insecurity if the farmer-household has already suffered the drought shock.