Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of disaster relief payments on on-farm and off-farm labor supply of farm households in Taiwan. The effectiveness of the policy amendments of the disaster relief assistance programs is also examined.

A unique sample of 124,827 persons living in the family farm household in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 was used. This sample was merged into the township-level administrative profile of all of the recipients of agricultural disaster relief payments from the Natural Disaster Program in Taiwan. A fixed effect panel data model was estimated to analyze the impacts of disaster relief payments on each individual’s labor supply decision.

Natural disaster payments significantly reduced individual’s propensity to work on the farm. Moreover, the higher of the payments, the higher(lower) possibility of the individual to engage in on-farm(off-farm) work. In addition, an increase in the amount of disaster payments can increase the on-farm labor supply of family farm members.

Due to data unavailability, an individual-level panel data set is not used. Future studies can check the robustness of the finding using an individual-level panel data set.

This paper contributes to the limited empirical evidence on agricultural relief programs.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors associated with the adoption of agro-processing methods and to estimate their impact on farm income and farm diversification.

Using a large-scale sample of 12,122 special crop farm households drawn from the 2015 Agricultural Census Survey in Taiwan, the semiparametric multivalued treatment effect model was estimated.

The authors found that agro-processing farm households obtain higher farm incomes than non-agro-processing farm households. Among the agro-processing methods, self-processing generates higher farm income than outsourced-processing. Moreover, farm households that adopt either agro-processing method are more likely to diversify into agritourism and other agribusinesses than non-agro-processing farms.

The authors could only access data on farm income and not on agro-processing costs. Future studies may address the impact of agro-processing on farm profitability if relevant data are available.

Very few studies have examined the relationship between agro-processing, farm income and farm diversification. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first papers to examine the impact of different agro-processing practices on farm income and farm diversification.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impacts of the 2008 economic crisis on the change in income inequality among farm households using the micro‐level data. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using a national household survey data in Taiwan in 2007 and 2009, the paper applies the Gini decomposition method for income inequality.

Results of a decomposition method indicate that the Gini coefficients decrease for farm households, and that the effects are more pronounced among the full‐time farms. The reduction in the overall income inequality is due to the decreased farm income and off‐farm wage salaries, as well as the increased government payments.

Although these findings are interesting and useful, some caveats still remain. First, the analysis can only reveal the short‐term effect of the economic crisis. The long‐term effect could be different. In addition, the paper does not further address whether the impacts may differ for households with different socio‐demographic characteristics of the household members and household characteristics. More detailed information on each household member is required to address this issue. This issue is beyond the scope of the current study and is left for further investigation.

Numerous studies have examined the impact of 2008 economic crisis on the general economy, however, little is known about the effect among farmers. This study is among the first to assess the impacts of financial crisis on income inequality between farm and nonfarm households.

The purpose of this paper is to fill a knowledge gap by examining the changes in fruit and vegetable consumption of Chinese households.

Using 1993 and 2001 household survey data from three selected provinces in China, the authors estimated a quantile regression (QR) model to demonstrate how changes of fresh fruit and vegetable consumption over time may differ across regions, and additionally, how these changes may differ over the entire distribution.

Results show significant increases in fresh fruit consumption for all provinces; in addition, the pattern of changes over time differs across the entire distribution. In contrast, significant decreases of fresh vegetable consumption are evident, and results are robust across regions; however, the disparities of fresh vegetable consumption across regions are not significant.

The results may shed some light on the national food policy. First, any food policy that may affect prices of fresh fruits and vegetables will likely affect households in lower percentiles more than those in upper percentiles. In addition, based on the findings, households in Guangdong may have a higher risk of inadequate fruit consumption. Lower level consumption of fruits in Guangdong may be caused by its relatively high prices of fruits and perhaps the shifting consumption pattern to a more meat‐based diet as income increases.

There has been considerable interest in estimating food demand structure in China due to its huge market for food products. However, little is known about the fruits and vegetables products. In addition, most of the previous studies used the linear regression‐type model for analysis, which fails to capture the effects of the exogenous factors on the entire distribution. To fill the knowledge gap, this paper uses a QR model with the different‐in‐difference method to examine the changes in fruit and vegetable consumption of Chinese households.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effects of farm income variability, farm size, and other socio‐demographic characteristics on the precautionary saving behavior of farm households and to estimate the influences of the identified factors on the amount of savings by self‐employed farm households.

Using 2003 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) data and a Double‐Hurdle procedure, the likelihood and the amount of savings by farm households are estimated.

An important empirical finding of this study is that variability in income plays an important role in explaining precautionary savings of US farm households. Findings suggest that farm households facing higher income risk save more and accumulate more wealth. It is indicated that several farm, operator, household, and demographic attributes contribute to the precautionary savings of farm households. In particular, results show that educational attainment by operator and spouses have positive impact on the decision to save. In addition, results from this study show that farms that specialize in cash grain are likely to have precautionary savings.

Farm households today are virtually indistinguishable from non‐farm households in their levels of income and diversity of employment. As a result, government policies that influence general economic conditions have much more profound impacts on farm families. Federal support of farm income warrants continued scrutiny. This paper shows that greater income uncertainty increases savings and wealth of farm households. Therefore, farm policies that reduce income variability or uncertainty will have an impact on precautionary savings and wealth of farm households.

Several studies have investigated savings of households; however, these studies are limited to entire US population, older Americans, or non‐self‐employed individuals in the USA. Little is known about the savings behavior of self‐employed US farm households owing to a lack of household survey data and because of the complex relationship between the farm household and farm business in terms of resource allocation (both capital and labor).

This study investigates the economic outcomes of organic farming controlling for the four major aspects of a cropping system, including climate, genotypes, management and soil. Considering possible variations in treatment responses, this study also presents empirical evidence of heterogeneous treatment effects associated with spatial agglomeration or farm covariates.

Rice farm households data taken from the 2015 Agriculture Census is merged with township-level seasonal weather data, crop suitability index and average income per capita in Taiwan. To address the selection bias problem, the authors apply the Probit-2SLS instrumental variable (IV) method in the binary treatment model under homogeneous and heterogeneous assumptions.

It is found that organic farming leads to a significantly positive effect on rice farms' economic performances in terms of cost reduction and profit growth. This positive treatment effect is more sizable with spatial agglomeration. Furthermore, the treatment effect of organic farming is found to vary with the farm characteristics such as farmland area and the number of hired workers.

Two important implications for the promotion of sustainable agri-food production are inferred: (1) establishing organic agriculture specialized zones may benefit rural development; (2) providing economic incentives to small farms to expand their scale may be a more effective policy means to promote sustainable agri-food production.

The findings in this study complement the body of knowledge by drawing insights from the agriculture census data and providing profound evidence of the heterogeneous outcomes of organic farming due to spatial clustering and farm covariates.

The purpose of this work is to study the relationships of trust in a local agri-food supply chain in Southern Brazil. In an unsustainable context, where the number of mariculturists is decreasing, the authors seek to identify what the factors are and how they contribute to this problem, as well as find solutions aimed at the sustainability of that chain.

The authors carried out qualitative research with 15 semi-structured interviews that took place in the year 2021. The thematic analysis of the results applied the IRAMUTEQ software and the assessment of the narratives was guided by prior thematic analysis.

The supply chain under investigation requires better organisation. Communication and interpersonal trust proved important in the relationship between producers and control bodies. The university, as a seed supplier, needs predictability and efficiency to convey inter-organisational trust. Informal relationships are interpersonal and extremely trust-based and inter-organisational trust increases the performance of establishments and promotes the development of innovative structures. Furthermore, in crisis periods interpersonal trust increases.

The results allow policymakers to plan better their actions and build more effective tactics in order to reach sustainable development. This work is also important for stakeholders and managers, as it guides improvements in management, governance and sustainability of agri-food supply chains.

An unprecedented research was done on the studied supply chain, knowing the relationships of trust among them, identifying peculiar partnerships and recognising some constructs and outcomes of trust.

This paper aims to explore the evolutionary dynamics of innovation ecosystems in the food industry by adopting both open innovation and convergence approaches to derive practical policy implications to develop impactful innovation ecosystems to promote food production sustainably.

Starting from the cutting-edge case of Foodvalley in the Netherlands, the study adopts a backcasting approach to reach a future vision of food ecosystems from a sustainable food production perspective. The authors set the backcasting analysis in four steps: (1) description of the present and trends analysis, (2) selection of trustworthy criteria and goals, (3) development of future images and (4) analysis of how to reach the images.

The trends analysis has identified three existing innovation fields – protein shift, circular agrifood and food and health – and two strategic directions – convergence and localness decrease. The study reports how a long-term commitment may lead the valley toward a best future scenario.

The study suggests that policymakers and stakeholders can promote innovation strategies in sustainable food production ecosystems by encouraging collaboration between different sectors, reducing regulatory barriers, attracting innovative actors, and investing in education and training programs. To achieve measurable environmental and social impact outcomes, policies should promote entrepreneurship and create an enabling environment that encourages innovation and risk-taking.

The originality of this paper concerns the backcasting perspective applied to the analysis of the food ecosystem. This approach facilitates the identification of a path direction for successfully managing open innovation and industry convergence toward a desirable future of sustainable food production.

Using the behavioural perspective as a theoretical complement of rational models, this paper examines factors that influence the decision of producing organic wines.

Based on a quantitative analysis of 687 wineries belonging to Denomination of Origin in Spain, the authors empirically examine the sequential relationships between manager's personality and winery and institutional level factors, on organic wine production activity and winery export performance.

This paper investigates the direct and indirect sequential relationships between wineries' factors including an organic production activity and two dimensions of export performance, namely: volume-based and value-based performance. The results of a sequential model provide evidence that openness to experience, a manager's personality trait, has a positive causal relationship with organic wine production.

This paper offers richer insights into the factors leading wine production managers to change from conventional to organic production methods. Specifically, the study shows that wine production managers are susceptible to make decisions to whether produce organic wine or not that may not be consistent with the current theoretical models based on economic efficiency (i.e. comparing costs and benefits). Instead, these decisions are, in part, based on their personality traits. Future research could study how the functional attribute affects the willingness to produce organic wines.

This study contributes to a new strategic implication of organic wine production activity and export performance linkage in behavioural and traditional theoretical perspectives. These findings are valuable for policy makers in the wine sector, as they can better inform and guide policies directed to identify organic production support programs.

The purpose of this paper was to assess the economic impact of investment in different animal welfare–enhancing flooring solutions in Swedish dairy farming.

The authors developed a bio-economic model and used stochastic partial budgeting approach to simulate the economic consequences of enhancing solid and slatted concrete floors with soft rubber covering.

The findings highlight that keeping herds on solid and slatted concrete floor surfaces with soft rubber coverings is a profitable solution, compared with keeping herds on solid and slatted concrete floors without a soft covering. The profit per cow when kept on a solid concrete floor with soft rubber covering increased by 13%–16% depending on the breed.

Promoting farm investments such as improvement in flooring solution, which have both economic and animal welfare incentives, is a potential way of promoting sustainable dairy production. Farmers may make investments in improved floors, resulting in enhanced animal welfare and economic outcomes necessary for sustaining dairy production.

This literature review indicated that the economic impact of investment in specific types of floor improvement solutions, investment costs and financial outcomes have received little attention. This study provides insights needed for a more informed decision-making process when selecting optimal flooring solutions for new and renovated barns that improve both animal welfare and ease the burden on farmers and public financial support.