2021 - Volume 123

Based on the theory of planned behaviour, this study examines the mediation effect of attitudes on the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and intention to buy domestic wine in transition countries. The survey was conducted on a heterogeneous sample of 372 wine buyers from Albania and Kosovo during 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Structural Equation Modelling by Partial Least Squares was used to analyse the collected data. The main results of this study show that the theoretical model from the theory of planned behaviour is valid in the case of buying behaviour of domestic wine in Kosovo, while in Albania, the subjective norm has no significant influence on the intention to buy domestic wine and perceived behavioural control has no significant influence on consumer behaviour. Consumer ethnocentrism has a positive influence on attitudes towards buying domestic wine and there is a partial mediating effect of attitudes on the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and the intention to buy domestic wine. Intention to buy domestic wine shows a very strong and positive correlation with behaviour in both countries. The results of the study provide valuable information for food marketers who should develop an appropriate marketing strategy if they wish to...

In the agricultural economics literature, there is a lack of consistent results concerning the relationship between operational subsidies and labour productivity. This premise lay behind the research outlined in this paper, which aims to determine the direction and strength of the relationship between several factors influencing labour productivity, including the subsidy rate index and labour productivity in Polish farms. Special attention has been paid to quantitative evaluation of the effects of subsidies on operational activity. The study was carried out at the farm level, divided into quartile groups defined in terms of labour productivity. The panel data regression method was used to analyse data from Farm Accountancy Data Network for the years 2010-2018. It was found that the factors positively influencing labour productivity in agriculture were capital per employee and utilised agricultural area per employee, while labour productivity was negatively affected by the subsidy rate. In smaller farms where low labour productivity is observed, subsidies for operational activity are an important source of income  generation and consumption financing. The financial surplus in such farms is not high enough to finance farm development. In such cases, subsidies become a factor slowing down processes of farm structural change because farmers are not...

Climate change is putting increasing pressure on agriculture, which might be reduced by paying more attention to risk management, production efficiency and farm investment. This paper describes the interrelationship between crop insurance take-up, technical efficiency and investment in Hungarian farming using a system of simultaneous equations. The empirical analysis is based on farm accountancy data for the period 2001-2019. Results suggest that both technical efficiency and investment have positive and significant effects on insurance take-up. Accordingly, higher technical efficiency and a higher investment rate both lead to increased insurance usage. In terms of its relationship with efficiency, insurance has a positive and significant coefficient, but investment does not have a significant influence on technical efficiency. Where investment is concerned, insurance usage has a positive and significant effect, but the role of technical efficiency is insignificant. Results suggest that policy interventions that stimulate any of the three factors can potentially have additional positive impacts through spill-over effects on other factors. These effects could be further enhanced if, for instance, interventions focusing primarily on insurance take-up also pay attention to investment by differentiating insurance premium subsidies, depending on whether there is an ongoing (or operating) investment that can be linked to weather-related...

Boosting the immune system’s response through better nutrition has been suggested as a coping strategy to help fight COVID-19. Among other food products, orange juice, a rich source of Vitamin C, has been in huge demand in India since the outbreak of COVID-19. Panic buying has further added to this increased demand for orange juice. Using data collected through online surveys, this paper applies both conjoint and market simulation analysis to study consumers’ preferences when purchasing orange juice. Nine important product attributes (flavour, preservatives, sweetener, brand, taste, pulp concentration, container, production method of orange and price) as well as different levels for each attribute are considered for the analysis. Among the selected attributes, relatively respondents gave more importance to the ‘method of production’ of orange, followed by ‘brand’, ‘pulp concentration’, ‘sweeteners’, and ‘preservatives.’ The market simulation analysis showed that a new product with the desired levels (high mean utility values) across the selected attributes would stand to enjoy a market share of around 32 percent. These findings support product differentiation as a strategy by firms in the food processing sector under conditions of intense competition.

This paper examines the impacts of non-farm activities on farm inputs investment decisions across six regions in Vietnam using the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey. Results suggest that although income from non-farm activities contributes to relaxing credit constraints among farmers, such alleviation does not necessarily allow farmers to increase their onfarm investments. We found that in the developed regions where farmers participate and earn more from non-farm activities, despite there being a low level of credit constraints, their investment in agriculture is still limited due to the labour constraints of the farm household. In contrast, in the less developed regions, where farmers have less access to non-farm income sources, they tend to invest their non-farm income in on-farm activities. The article contributes to the literature by showing that differences in credit constraints levels lead to variations in farm households’ decisions on whether or not to direct non-farm income towards investment in agricultural production.

This paper investigates the effects of three different simulated post-COVID-19 recovery GDP growth rates during 2021-2023 (baseline, optimistic and pessimistic scenarios) for agricultural markets in four selected EU Member States (the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Hungary) compared to a pre-COVID-19 projection. Empirical results are derived from the AGMEMOD model. A self-sufficiency ratio is utilised to summarise the net effects on consumption and supply in the agricultural markets. The country level analysis confirms that the agriculture sector in the EU has been quite resilient during the pandemic. The simulated impacts of the different GDP shocks on the agri-food sector are limited, which also conforms to reality, but changes in consumer behaviour could lead to longer lasting impacts on specific sectors.

The spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on economic and social activities, with the agri-food sector being no exception. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, numerous studies investigating its sectoral influence have been carried out, putting emphasis on demand and supply shocks and changes in trade volumes. However, there has not been much research into the implications of the pandemic for prices. To fill the research gap, this paper is an attempt to examine the impact of COVID-19 on producer prices in the EU-27 in Q2 and Q3 of 2020. The study is based on monthly data on trade in agri-food commodities according to the SITC classification in 2015-2020 and the monthly producer prices index of food (2015 = 100) in the EU countries. It was assumed that the agri-food trade balance is the key factor determining the level and changes of domestic prices. The theoretical background for empirical research is provided by a spatial partial equilibrium model and the concept of spatial market integration. The results of the study reveal that there is a negative and statistically significant relationship between an export-import ratio (which illustrates the country’s self-sufficiency level) in the pre-COVID-19 period and price changes in Q2 of...

This paper adds to the debate about factors influencing consumer behaviours that lead to the actual purchase of organic food in both developed and developing countries. Accordingly, authors seek to understand how consumers’ knowledge about organic food and consumers’ overall health consciousness play out as mechanisms for consumers’ behaviours leading to actual purchase. Samples from Tanzania as a developing country and Denmark as a developed country are used. A total of 1393 consumers filled the questionnaire. The study found that consumer knowledge and health consciousness function as underlying mechanisms in the relationship of attitude and subjective norms for actual purchase of organic food behaviour in Tanzania. In addition, consumer knowledge and health consciousness function as an underlying mechanism in the relationship of attitude and perceived behaviour control for actual purchase of organic food in Denmark. The study argues for enhancing consumers’ knowledge of organic food as the latter has been championed for its perceived health benefits in both developed and less developed countries.

Long since the end of the British India regime, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka have produced a significant volume of tea which continues to bring them invaluable foreign currency earnings through exports. Our paper explores the tea export competitiveness of these countries by employing the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) index, and analyses the nexus between tea export and economic growth over the period from 1980 to 2018 using several dynamic econometric approaches. Results suggest that Bangladesh has lost its tea export competitiveness over the last decade. India posted moderate performance, while Sri Lanka consistently kept its dominant position. Further, the Johansen Cointegration test outcomes report no long-run relationship between tea export and economic growth across all the countries. The Granger Causality outcomes illustrate that only in Sri Lanka is it the case that tea export causes short-run economic growth. Lastly, the impulse response function projects tea export and economic growth, taking into consideration the response of each to a shock from the other. Extrapolation from the results indicate that, in contrast to the cases of Bangladesh and India (where no direct relationship was found), tea export and economic growth are intimately interconnected in Sri Lanka. This article further recommends...

We estimate the transmission of coffee prices from the international market to the Mexican market for the period 2004-2019. Our estimates are obtained from a single equation conditional Error Correction Model (ECM). We estimate our proposed model for two overlapping periods: before a hypothesised break (2004-2013), and full sample (2004-2019). The results of the first estimation suggest that given a 1% increase in the international price of coffee, the Mexican price increases by 0.9%, which is larger than previous estimates in the literature, but a finding which is consistent with the idea of more market integration due to free trade agreements. Furthermore, we find that Mexican coffee production has no effect in the determination of local coffee prices. Our model also implies a previously undocumented break in the long-run relationship between international and national prices, which started in 2015 but was statistically significant until 2017. This latter finding suggests that the international coffee price pass-through to the Mexican economy has come to an end.