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The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the profit efficiency of custom and self-farming methods of rice production in Taiwan.

This study examines the nature and extent of the profitability and profit efficiency of custom and self-farming based on a farm survey in Taiwan. Furthermore, it estimates the stochastic profit frontier to measure the degree of inefficiency and analyze the determinants of these inefficiencies.

The profitability and profit efficiency of custom farming are lower than for self-farming, and the differences in profitability are more significant for large rice farmers. The estimation results show that the custom farming area and the farmer’s age decrease efficiency and, regardless of the farming style used, larger farms have higher profit efficiency.

This study’s findings show that self-farming is more favorable than custom farming for profit efficiency. This study examined this problem by conducting a regression adjustment for explanatory variables, but did not remove all self-selection bias, which may occur between profit efficiency and the choice of farming system.

Previous studies that measured the efficiency of rice farming often considered cost efficiency by the cost function, and ignored the increased profit from producing high-quality rice. This study used a one-step estimation of the profit frontier function to measure the degree of inefficiency and analyze the determinants of this inefficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of mechanization services on farm productivity in Northern China from an empirical perspective, with the aim to identify the underlying market and institutional barriers.

The authors apply the regression method with the control of village fixed effects to examining the relationship between capital–labor ratio, mechanization service ratio and farm productivity, using the panel data collected in 2013 and 2015 by CCAP.

Mechanization services improve farm productivity through substituting labor, but it may generate a less positive impact on farms who do not have self-owned capital equipment.

It is the first study to investigate how mechanization services affect farm productivity for grain producers in Northern China.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors affecting the use of pesticides in intensive vegetable farming in Java, Indonesia. Evaluating such factors is expected to provide appropriate policies to reduce pesticides, and eventually, mitigates the adverse impacts of pesticides on human health and the environment.

Data were compiled from a farm survey of randomly selected 240 vegetable farmers in three regions of Java in 2014. A concept of economic threshold was employed to analyse the pesticide use determinants, which were estimated using econometric models.

Factors leading to the increase in the application of pesticides were the number of observed insect pests, prices of vegetables, use of local varieties, and use of mixed pesticides. Conversely, factors lowering the use of pesticides were the number of observed diseases, the cost of pesticides, and area planted to vegetables. The most important factor in influencing pesticide use was farmers’ perception on the correct prediction of yield losses associated with pests and diseases.

The sample for this research is somewhat low and the analysis was based on one-year data of the quantity of pesticides in a formulation.

The use of pesticides can be reduced by training farmers on crop protection practices, which provide correct information on pests and diseases. Policies related to the price of pesticides would be ineffective, as farmers still highly relied on pesticides. These findings will be useful for reducing the use of pesticides in intensive vegetable farming in Indonesia, and in tropical countries in general.

Pesticides have two opposite properties: to increase income on the one side and to cause devastation of life on the other side. Because pesticides are generally less selectively toxic than would be desired, non-targets including humans and the environment must be protected from contamination by these agrochemicals. This study found the most important determinants for reducing pesticide exposures in Indonesian intensive farming.

The purpose of the paper is to present a case example of the power struggles and gender issues one daughter faced when she became a partner, and future successor, in the family business. This paper uses an ethnographic approach in order to study a small family farm in England. The case focuses on a small family farm, these businesses are unique in terms of their values and expectations for succession (Haberman and Danes, 2007), and identified by Wang (2010) as a fruitful avenue for research on daughter succession.

The empirical work was gathered through the use of a single site ethnographic case study involving participant observation as the researcher worked on the family farm and semi-structured interviews with family members over two years.

The results shed light on some of the social complexities of small family farms and power struggles within the family exacerbated by perceived gender issues. The work also highlights the potential threat to the daughter’s position as a partner, from her father’s favouritism of male employees.

Institutions that provide help to family farm businesses need to be aware of the potential power issues within the family specifically related to gender, particularly in terms of succession planning.

Using ethnography in family firms allows the researcher to be a part of the real-life world of family farmers, providing rich data to explore daughter succession.

Moringa (Moringa oleifera) is a highly nutritious, fast-growing crop that has emerged in Western markets as a “superfood” and as a “smart crop” for income generation potential among small-scale farmers. As such, moringa has been widely promoted by agricultural development practitioners in low-income countries and by emerging businesses aimed at achieving nutritional and social impact. However, the intrinsic nutritional and agronomic strengths of moringa are not enough to warrant its widespread promotion without first evaluating its economic potential to farmers.

A Land Use System (LUS) analysis modeling tool was employed to test the economic performance of two sets of moringa production practices in Kenya. Data were collected during in-depth interviews and field visits with farmers in Meru that supply a local market, and in Shimba Hills that supply an organic export market.

Results suggest that current production practices over an 12-years assessment period generate a Net Present Value (NPV) of US$8,049 [ha-1] in Meru and a negative NPV of US$697 [ha-1] in Shimba Hills; with average daily returns to family labor of these two production systems of roughly 1.6 times and 0.13 times the prevailing local wage rate, respectively. These differences were attributed to a higher farmgate prices and greater yields in Meru. The analysis tool was then used to predict the effects of changes in farming practices, e.g. if farmers in Meru switched to intensive bed cultivation NPV is estimated to increase by ∼650%.

This study demonstrates the importance of examining the economic performance of agricultural production systems intended to increase the benefits to small-scale farmers.

Our study is the first to assess moringa's economic performance within two production systems in Kenya – a local farmers' cooperative in Meru, and a group of farmers contracted by an export company.

This case describes the challenges faced by Amul in organising dairy farmers into a co-operative and creating continuous opportunities for value addition. Participants in the case discussion are required to review the developments in the organisation and recommend a strategy for the future.

“Deep in all of us”, wrote a Homes and gardens sub‐editor in April 1965, headlining Elspeth Huxley's article A cottage on a hillside, “is a craving for a quiet country retreat, old, mellow and secluded.” If true, this had clearly been true of England at least for a very long while. “Of late there has been a positive spate of books about living in the country”, wrote Philip Gosse in 1935. “The rustic life is all the rage.” “The cult of the country cottage”, declared J. Gordon Allen in 1912, “which was thought a few years ago to be merely a passing whim, has recently developed apace”. The manner in which a sizeable proportion of the English middle class were persuaded over several decades to forsake or at least to contemplate forsaking urban living is of some interest to, amongst others, sociologists and social historians. Since we are concerned here with the bibliographical aspects of this radical shift of attitudes, it would be as well to dispose at the outset of one possible analysis: namely the idea that literary precedents had much to do with this. Agreed, masters of urban living much earlier than the English—the Romans—invented apparently the away‐from‐it‐all stance: Horace, generals returning to the plough with Rome saved, the Georgics. Agreed also, their Augustan imitators had much to say about places in the country. But consider Wootton's

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of accelerated depreciation deductions, which includes Section 179 and bonus depreciation, taken in the first year of asset life by Michigan farms. The frequency, value and influence of accelerated depreciation on farm investment are also analyzed.

Accrual adjusted income statements, balance sheets, depreciation schedules, and income tax information for 66 Michigan farms from 2004 to 2014 provide data for the analysis. The present value of the accelerated deduction and change in the cost of capital were calculated. Finally, investment elasticities were used to arrive at the change in investment due to accelerated depreciation.

Accelerated depreciation was utilized across all applicable asset classes. Section 179 was used more often than bonus depreciation in part because it was available in all the examined years. Based on actual farm business use, accelerated depreciation lowered the cost of capital for the operations resulting in an estimated increase in investment of 0.27 to 11.6 percent depending on asset class.

The data utilized are of a detail not available in previous investigations which used either aggregate data or estimated rather than the observed use of accelerated depreciation. This analysis reveals that accelerated depreciation as used by commercial farms lowers the cost of capital and thus encourages investment particularly in machinery and equipment.

The purposes of this paper are to analyze the path and speed of rural transformation (RT) and explore the relationship between farmer's income and RT as well as structural transformation (ST) and typology of RT in the past four decades in China.

Based on the major indicators of RT and ST, graphic illustration is used to analyze the relationships between these indicators and farmer's income using the time-series and cross-provincial data in 1978–2017.

While China has experienced significant RT and ST, the levels and speeds of these transformations differed largely among provinces. Higher and faster RT and ST are often positively associated with the higher and faster growth of rural income. Based on this study, a general typology of rural and structural transformations and rural income is developed. The likely impacts of institutions, policies and investments (IPIs) on RT are discussed.

The authors believe that the findings of this study provide the insights on regional RT and ST and policy implications to increase farmer's income through facilitating and speeding up RT and ST with appropriate IPIs during the rural transformation.