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This study aims to characterize several wine consumer segments who were “likely” to sample (i.e. taste before purchasing) wine from vineyards using cover crops, a sustainable production practice that reduces herbicide applications, and identify those with a greater probability of being a viable target market based on survey responses.

A total of 956 wine consumers from the Mid-Atlantic and boarding US states were separated into segments based on an ECHAID (exhaustive Chi-square automatic interaction detector) classification tree from internet survey responses.

Out of the 12 created segments, 6 (n = 530, 72% of training data) contained participants who were at least 1.02 times (index score =102%) more “likely” to try the wine compared to the overall sample and were willing to pay $18.99 for a 750-mL bottle of the wine, which included a $1 surcharge to cover associated production costs. Of these, three (n = 195, 26%) had the greatest potential for which a marketing plan could be developed (index scores of 109%–121%), with over half in each segment willing to pay $20.99 for the bottle of wine, which could motivate growers to consider implementing this sustainable strategy.

Although several segments of participants were “likely” to sample the sustainably produced wine, an ECHAID classification tree allowed us to identify participants who would not pay $18.99 for a 750-mL bottle of wine, even after learning about the use of cover crops and the trade-off ($1 bottle surcharge). By narrowing the number of potential “likely” segments to those with a greater potential of sampling the wine, more purposeful marketing strategies can be developed based on demographics, attitudes, and behaviors defined in the model.

To achieve the dual goals of decarbonization and food security, this paper examines China's carbon footprint reduction in 2050 based on current mitigation strategies.

Considering publications as featured evidence, this study develops an investigation of agricultural decarbonization in China. First, the authors summarize the mitigation strategies for agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the existing literature. Second, the authors demonstrate the domestic food production target in 2050 and the projection target's projected life-cycle-based GHG emissions at the commodity level. Lastly, the authors forecast China's emission removal in the agri-food sector in 2050 concerning current mitigation strategies and commodity productions. The authors highlight the extent to which each mitigation strategy contributes to decarbonization in China.

Practices promoting sustainable development in the agri-food sector significantly contribute to GHG emission removal. The authors find mitigation strategies inhibiting future GHG emissions in the agri-food sector comprise improving nitrogen use efficiency in fertilizers, changing food consumption structure, manure management, cover crops, food waste reduction, dietary change of livestock and covered manure. A 10% improvement in nitrogen use efficiency contributes to 5.03% of GHG emission removal in the agri-food sector by 2050. Reducing food waste and food processing from 30% to 20% would inhibit 1.59% of the total GHG emissions in the agri-food sector.

This study contributes to policy discussions by accounting for agricultural direct and indirect emission components and assessing the dynamic changes in those related components. This study also extends existing research by forecasting to which extent the decarbonization effects implemented by current mitigation strategies can be achieved while meeting 2050 food security in China.

The purpose of this paper is to use simulation analysis to assess farmer choice between crop insurance and supplemental revenue options as proposed during development of the Agricultural Act of 2014.

The certainty equivalent of wealth is used to rank farm choices and assess the effects of supplemental revenue options on the crop insurance plan and coverage level chosen by the producer under a range of farm attributes. The risk-reducing effectiveness of the select programs is also examined through their impact on the farm revenue distribution. The dependence structure of yield and prices is modeled by applying copula techniques on historical data.

Farm program supplemental revenue programs generally have no effect on crop insurance choices. Crop insurance supplemental revenue programs typically reduce crop insurance coverage at high coverage levels. An individual plan of crop insurance combined with a supplemental revenue insurance plan may substitute for incumbent area crop insurance plans.

The analysis provides insights into farmers’ possible choices by focussing on alternative crops and farm attributes and extensive scenarios, using current data, crop insurance plans and programs contained in the 2014 Farm Bill and related bills. The results should be of value to policy officials and producers in regards to the design and use of risk management tools.

Agriculture insurance is the panacea for the farming community. Many policy interventions were implemented for stimulating agriculture insurance access to farmers in India. However, access to agriculture insurance constantly remained one of the major challenges to Indian policy planners. The goal of the present paper is to explore current policy interventions in the area of agriculture insurance in India.

The present paper reviews and analyzes the evidence literature through a content analysis method on development and performance analysis perspective of existing agriculture insurance schemes in India.

Agriculture insurance is a significant risk management policy, but this is not easily reachable to the majority of farmers in India. The government of India introduces a novel agriculture scheme every decade, but every crop insurance scheme was inconsistent and ineffective owing to operational defects. Agriculture insurance in India is still developing in terms of coverage, scope, and exposure, but farmers' dissatisfaction about agriculture insurance turned out to be a negative word of mouth. Insurance illiteracy and farmers' preference for agriculture relief payments are the main reasons for limited access to agriculture insurance. The current crop insurance schemes are improperly operated because of implementation issues at the state level.

This paper will be useful for researchers and academicians to analyze the past and present status of crop insurance in India.

The paper is the unique work of the authors as it has attempted to present India's journey with agriculture insurance. An effort is made in the present study to provide a comprehensive and holistic developmental and performance analysis perspective of agriculture insurance in India.

Rent seeking is endemic to the process through which any policy or regulatory initiative is developed in the USA. The purpose of this paper is to show how farm and other interest groups have formed coalitions to benefit themselves at the expense of the federal government by examining the legislative history of the federal crop insurance program.

The federal crop insurance legislation and the way in which the USDA Risk Management Agency manages federal crop insurance program are replete with complex and subtle policy initiatives. Using a new theoretical framework, the study examines how, since 1980, three major legislative initiatives – the 1980 Federal Crop Insurance Act, the 1994 Crop Insurance Reform Act and the 2000 Agricultural Risk Protection Act – were designed to jointly benefit farm interest groups and the agricultural insurance industry, largely through increases in government subsidies.

Each of the three legislative initiatives examined here included provisions that, when considered individually, benefitted farmers and adversely affected the insurance industry, and vice versa. However, the joint effects of the multiple adjustments included in each of those legislative initiatives generated net benefits for both sets of interest groups. The evidence, therefore, indicates that coalitions formed between the farm and insurance lobbies to obtain policy changes that, when aggregated, benefited both groups, as well as banks with agricultural lending portfolios. However, those benefits came at an increasingly substantial cost to taxpayers through federal government subsidies.

This is the first analysis of the US federal crop insurance program to examine the issue of coalition formation.

The purpose of this paper is to assess farmers’ willingness to participate and pay for weather-based index insurance in the Upper East Region of Ghana, and what factors influence the participation and purchase of crop insurance schemes.

A survey of 200 farmers in the region was carried out in 2018 to measure demographic information, farm characteristics, risks and risk-management practices and attitudes to crop insurance programs. The survey also captured maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for crop insurance. The double-bounded contingent valuation technique was used to estimate the WTP for crop insurance and the variables that affected WTP.

Farmers, in general, had an indifferent attitude to crop insurance in the region, but were willing to participate in the crop insurance programme, and were willing to pay between 7.5 and 12.5 per cent of the cost of growing maize as a premium for crop insurance. Demographic and economic variables did not impact WTP, but attitude towards crop insurance, farm diversification and frequency of drought negatively impacted on the WTP for crop insurance.

Education programs could be undertaken to improve the attitude and understanding towards crop insurance, as some farmers perceived the programme as not trustworthy, and others did not truly understand the operation of the programme.

Drought can have a significant impact on household welfare, particularly in food insecure countries or regions. Crop insurance can provide a method of securing income for farmers allowing them to purchase food rather than other choices, such as removing children from education to reduce household expenses, improving the long-term welfare of the farm household.

This paper considers willingness to participate and WTP for a crop insurance programme in Ghana, it is one of a small number of papers that consider attitude to, and willingness to participate and WTP for crop insurance in developing countries. The value of the research is the expanded understanding of farmer attitude to crop insurance and their lack of knowledge of crop insurance operations.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an improved reinsurance pricing framework, which includes a crop yield forecasting model that integrates weather variables and crop production information from different geographically correlated regions using a new credibility estimator, and closed form reinsurance pricing formulas. A yield restatement approach to account for changing crop mix through time is also demonstrated.

The new crop yield forecasting model is empirically analyzed based on detailed farm-level data from Manitoba, Canada, covering 216 crop varieties from 19,238 farms from 1996 to 2011. As well, corresponding weather data from 30 stations, including daily temperature and precipitation, are considered. Algorithms that combine screening regression, cross-validation and principal component analysis are evaluated for the purpose of achieving efficient dimension reduction and model selection.

The results show that the new yield forecasting model provides significant improvements over the classical regression model, both in terms of in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting abilities.

The empirical analysis is limited to data from the province of Manitoba, Canada, and other regions may show different results.

This research is useful from a risk management perspective for insurers and reinsurers, and the framework may also be used to develop improved weather risk management strategies to help manage adverse weather events.

This is the first paper to integrate a credibility estimator for crop yield forecasting, and develop a closed form reinsurance pricing formula.

In Australia broadacre crops can be insured against hail and fire damage and some other perils but not against losses caused by drought, flood or frost. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the private provision of crop insurance in Western Australia.

A farm survey was conducted with the cooperation of dryland farmers belonging to Western Australian grower groups. The willingness to pay for hail insurance is modelled as a function of risk aversion, risk of crop failure and government assistance; and the effect of expected crop yield in t/ha on the crop area is investigated.

The empirical analysis shows that the coefficient of relative risk aversion is 2.7. An increase in the variability of crop yield by 20 per cent, which may be caused by future climate change, would raise the willingness to pay for crop insurance one‐to‐one by 20 per cent. Adverse selection plays a minor role because almost all farmers buy full coverage for hail insurance and associated risks. A future supplier of multi‐peril crop insurance must, however, consider the potential for ex ante moral hazard because the size of the crop area depends on the expected crop yield in t/ha.

The Global Financial Crisis has provided a stark reminder that society crucially depends on the efficient and fair allocation of risk. Climate change threatens the livelihood of farmers and food security. Private multi‐peril crop insurance, which has yet to emerge, would improve the welfare of rural populations and the efficiency of farming.

Few empirical studies deal with the private provision of multi‐peril crop insurance because the market for multi‐peril crop insurance fails worldwide and private insurance does not exist. In this study, Australian crop insurance serves as a proxy to gain an understanding of multi‐peril crop insurance.

This paper aims to assess agri-environment (AE) scheme options on cultivated agricultural land in England for their impact on agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It considers both absolute emissions reduction and reduction incorporating yield decrease and potential production displacement. Similarities with Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) introduced in 2015 as part of the post-2014 Common Agricultural Policy reform, and their potential impact, are considered.

A life-cycle analysis approach derives GHG emissions for 18 key representative options. Meta-modelling is used to account for spatial environmental variables (annual precipitation, soil type and erosion risk), supplementing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change methodology.

Most options achieve an absolute reduction in GHG emissions compared to an existing arable crop baseline but at the expense of removing land from production, risking production displacement. Soil and water protection options designed to reduce soil erosion and nitrate leaching decrease GHG emissions without loss of crop yield. Undersown spring cereals support decreased inputs and emissions per unit of crop yield. The most valuable AE options identified are included in the proposed EFAs, although lower priority is afforded to some.

Recommendations are made where applicable to modify option management prescriptions and to further reduce GHG emissions.

This research is relevant and of value to land managers and policy makers. A dichotomous key summarises AE option prioritisation and supports GHG mitigation on cultivated land in England. The results are also applicable to other European countries.

China and India have made significant strides in transforming their agricultural sectors to cut hunger and poverty for the masses through improved agricultural productivity. Given limited land and shift of labor to non-agricultural sector, increasing productivity will continue to be central in agricultural growth in the twenty-first century. The purpose of this paper is to provide comparative analysis of the agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the two countries. It complements existing literature by examining the evolution and drivers of TFP at disaggregated sub-national level. Richer data allows a deeper understanding of the nature and drivers of TFP growth in the two countries.

This paper applies different analytical framework to address different research questions using data since 1980. China study estimates a parametric output-based distance function using a translog stochastic frontier function. Productivity growth index and its multiple components are calculated using parameters derived from the parametric approach to identify the characteristics of technology such as structural bias. India study first applies data envelopment analysis to estimate the aggregate productivity growth index, technical change (TC), and efficiency change. Next productivity indexes by for traditional crops are estimated using growth accounting framework at state level. Finally, a panel regression links TFP on its determinants.

Several common themes emerge from this comparative study. Faced with similar challenges of limited resources and growing demand, improving productivity is the only way to meet long-term food security. Agriculture sector has performed impressively with annual TFP growth beyond 2 percent in China and between 1 and 2 percent in India since the 1980s. The TFP growth is mainly propelled by technological advance but efficiency had been stagnant or even deteriorated. This study provides a granular picture of within country heterogeneity: fast growth in the North and Northeast part of China, South and East of India.

The study suggests some possible policy interventions to improve agricultural productivity, including investment in agricultural R & D to create advanced production technology, effective extension programs and supportive policies to increase efficiency, and diversification from staple crops for sector-wide growth. The India study suggests certain policies may not be contributing much to productivity growth in the long run due to a negative impact on environment. Further studies are needed to expand the productivity analysis to take into consideration of the negative externalities to the society. Data enhancement to account for quality-adjusted inputs could improve the estimation of productivity growth.

Each country study reveals certain prospects of the agricultural sector and production technology. China analysis statistically confirms the existence of technical inefficiency and technology progress, suggests the translog form is appropriate to capture the production technology and satisfies conditions stipulated in theoretical models. The results indicate TC does not influence the contribution of output or input to the production process. India study pinpoints the lagging productivity growth of traditional crops, which still derives growth from input expansion. Although different states benefited from different crops, sector-wide productivity gain is primarily the result of diversification to high-value crops and livestock products.