Volume 124 - Issue 3

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...