Volume 123 - Issue 2

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.

This paper aims to examine the current state of dairy cattle farming in Greece, to identify factors that affect its profitability, and to analyse the efficiency of farms, using the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. It also assesses the economic viability of dairy cattle farms by quantifying the technical efficiency of their processes, with a view to suggesting measures that may serve to improve competitiveness. Results have shown that the mean technical efficiencies estimated for the CRS and VRS DEA approaches are 0.693 and 0.754 respectively, indicating that 30.7% and 21.6% equiproportional decreases in inputs are feasible, given the level of outputs and the production technology.