2022 - Volume 124

The European Union (EU) is committed to decarbonising its economy by 2050. To that end, significant reductions in greenhouse gases from the energy and agricultural sectors are of critical importance. However, while the EU member states each pursue a different climate strategy, all member states’ emissions are regulated by EU climate law. This paper investigates the factors explaining carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the 27 member countries, using fully modified least squares (FMOLS) and quantile regression models. Before estimations, panel unit root and cointegration tests have been used for the period 1990-2018. The applied model examines the impact of economic growth, energy intensity, renewable energy consumption and agricultural trade on carbon dioxide emissions. Estimates have shown that the intensification of energy stimulates carbon emissions. Economic growth indicates an increase in carbon emissions. The results reveal that agricultural trade decreases carbon dioxide emissions in the EU, highlighting that intra EU trade is more environmentally friendly. Finally, the impact of renewable energy is limited to contributing to climate mitigation goals by reducing emissions.

The saffron sector as a sustainable farming system plays a primordial agro-ecological and socio-economic role in the Anti-Atlas region in Morocco. Under the Green Morocco Policy, the saffron area has more than tripled; however, productivity is still very low. To evaluate the efficiency of Moroccan saffron farming and its determinants, we estimated a stochastic frontier model using survey data collected in the production area. The results show that saffron farms suffer from technical inefficiencies. More time dedicated to saffron field operations, a higher number of saffron plots and a greater distance to the urban centre increase farm efficiency, while the age of the farmer and the presence of off-farm activities decrease it. Building on our results, we argue that the new policy “Generation Green” should be focused on younger farmers as they are more likely to improve their skills and crop management techniques. To upscale the adoption of saffron as a sustainable farming system, an improvement in farmers’ market access is necessary which would facilitate farm specialisation, convert saffron to a majorsource of income and reduce dependence on off-farm activities. Strengthening the role of saffron cooperatives could represent an important step in this direction, but this requires improved knowledge dissemination...

This paper applies a parametric approach to estimate technical and scale (in)efficiencies using input and output data at the level of 850 individual Colombian coffee-farms. Different Stochastic Production Frontier functions are estimated using a two-step procedure that corrects the endogeneity that has been ignored in previous works, leading to more reliable (i.e. unbiased and consistent) results. We conclude that small and medium coffee farmers are technically inefficient and exhibit increasing returns to scale, whereas large coffee farmers are close to being quasi-technically efficient and exhibit decreasing returns to scale. The corrected-for-endogeneity estimation also indicates that small and medium-sized units must prioritise primarily the land factor, whereas large farms should concentrate their efforts on increasing the labour factor. Based on these results, several agricultural and land policy recommendations are made.

This research aims at analysing the extent to which climate change affects cotton and cashew nuts production and exports in West African countries in the presence of intermediary market power. To that end, the paper uses a combination of approaches to calibrate a price endogenous regional bio-economic optimisation model and handles uncertainties inherent to future socioeconomic scenarios through Monte Carlo simulations. The results show that the effects of climate change on cotton and cashew nuts land use are mixed under the two simulated climate change scenarios. In fact, the effects vary across countries, ranging from experiencing only a decline, or only an increase to both a decline and an increase in land use. Similarly, the effects of climate change on the quantities of cotton and cashew nuts exported are also mixed, with the positive effects being more pronounced for cotton. Simulations of reductions in the market power exerted by intermediaries on cotton producers also show that such a scenario could to some extent mitigate the negative effects of climate change on cotton exports for some countries. Therefore, actions that include corrections to cotton market imperfection could be undertaken to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on cotton and cashew...

This paper intends to determine the factors influencing the adoption of Management Information Systems (MIS) as well as the effects such systems have had on the technical efficiency of agribusiness firms in Cameron. 183 MIS users and 300 non-users were sampled through a multistage sampling procedure. An Ordered Logit model was employed to show that the user’s level of satisfaction, the purchase price of equipment and technological performance all have a positive effect on MIS adoption. Conversely, fear of change in firm management, access to government regulations, and complexity of MIS equipment discourage the adoption of MIS. The Cobb-Douglas stochastic production function meanwhile revealed that ICT expense, firm size and number of customers were positively significant for the revenue of MIS users. For MIS non-users, ICT expense, firm size and quantity purchased also had a positive significance for revenue. However, the average technical efficiencies were 0.96 and 0.55 for MIS users and non-users, respectively, meaning that MIS users were far more technically efficient than MIS nonusers. Also, the Tobit regression model on MIS users revealed that MIS improved the technical efficiency of agribusiness firms adopting them. This study therefore recommends that agribusiness firms in Cameroon invest in MIS; moreover, they...

This paper discusses the results of a study on the digitalisation of the agri-food sector in a French region characterised by small- and medium-sized farms. Our results, which rely on a survey comparing digital practices in the agri-food sector with other sectors, reveal a paradox. While digitalisation is mostly perceived as a panacea capable of increasing agricultural productivity while respecting the planet, it is not widespread in the agri-food sector and even less than in other sectors of the same size. At the same time, the perceived impact of digitalisation is also lower than in other sectors. To increase the digitalisation of this sector, two elements emerge from our results: both the implementation of a global digital transformation strategy and membership of a professional association are required. Here, we refer to a broad definition of digitalisation, which includes organisational and social aspects, and does not only address technological dimensions. Our study challenges the technocentric and productive vision of digitalisation. It suggests that farmers’ institutional environments and policies need to take a more holistic view of digitalisation to provide increased sense and generate engagement.

This study analyses the performance of vineyards in Kosovo in terms of their technical, allocative, and economic efficiency. It uses two methods to measure efficiency: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Tobit regression. The data comes from a survey of 165 wine producers through face-to-face interviews in three regions of Kosovo – Rahovec, Suharake and Prizren – between the years 2016 and 2018, each yielding the average of inputs, outputs and prices for the three years. In order to determine the key variables for grape growing efficiency, it was necessary to consider the combined effects of the interactions between inputs, as this has an impact on overall final production. The results show great potential for improving the efficiency of viticulture. The average technical efficiency (TE) is 0.68, the average allocative efficiency (AE) is 0.77 and the average economic efficiency (EE) is 0.52. In general, TE, AE and EE were influenced by the selected variables, suggesting that the selected variables played quite an important role in enabling farmers not to use too many inputs in the production of grapes and instead to use them in appropriate proportions. It also shows how grape growers can improve their productive efficiency by adopting certain practices...

The research literature shows that agriculture has potential for development, job creation and structural change if agricultural value chains are considered in their entirety: from inputs, to farm, through processing, until marketing. This is particularly important in the case of Africa, where agriculture contributes in a major way to GDP and employment. However, this focus on value chains does not seem to have been accompanied by attention to the diversity of actors operating along value chains. Based on an extensive literature review on access to markets by farmers and on participatory research with farmers, traders, and sectoral stakeholders of leafy vegetables value chains in Kenya and Tanzania, this study argues that the role played by traders in local fresh produce markets in Africa is poorly understood and supported. It is argued that powerful narratives about the benefits of direct access to market by farmers, which are also present in academic literature, are sometimes overoptimistic, or interpreted beyond their scope and applied regardless of the specific features of actors and produce. The study shows that the leafy vegetables trade provides self-employment for many women, and that it has positive impacts on other groups, notably farmers.

This study empirically explores the impact of consumer confidence on frozen and chilled pork belly prices in Korea, taking the quality difference into account. For our analysis, we utilise the vector error correction model (VECM) and impulse-response function. Based on the weak exogenous test results, we find that consumer confidence has a long-run causality on frozen and chilled pork belly prices in Korea. The cointegration vector from VECM also shows that consumer confidence has a positive and negative effect on high- (chilled pork belly) and low-quality food (frozen pork belly) prices, respectively. Impulse-response function results reveal that chilled pork belly prices are affected by consumer confidence more frozen pork belly prices. Our findings have implications for Korean pig meat farmers as well as importers. First, consumer confidence, a leading composite index for the future, is important for high-quality pork, particularly chilled pork belly. In turn, pig-raising farmers that produce chilled pork belly may improve their profits by setting the number of pigs they raise based on the consumer confidence index. Second, importers of frozen pork belly can enhance their profits by choosing their import volume based on the consumer confidence index. Our results confirm that consumer confidence affects the demand...

The supply and use of bio-based products may yet shape the future, contributing to the achievement of broader objectives such as climate neutrality, circularity, and sustainability. Reducing dependency on non-renewable resources, and substituting fossil-based resources with biomass by way of a transition to a sustainable industrial – and especially chemical – sector, represent important challenges. To be able to understand what may be desirable pathways to a ‘green’ chemical sector, insights on the upcoming needs of biomass for the EU bio-based industry are required, together with information about its availability and the way it is produced. However, there is a lack of methodologies and quantitative tools capable of assessing and anticipating potential developments in the EU bio-based markets. To provide an early theoretical basis for the upcoming modelling of supply chains of the bio-based materials market, this short communication presents the conceptual framework underlying the BioMAT (Bio-based MATerials) model, developed in the course of the EU H2020 BioMonitor project.