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There is a great deal of interest in ecosystem or natural capital accounting and in methods to estimate monetary valuations of ecosystems. This paper aims to explore methods that may assist agricultural (livestock grazing) enterprises to estimate the monetary value of the productive capacity of the ecosystems they use. Such estimations are expected to provide a more complete set of information about the performance of pastoral operations and may assist them to assure ecological and economic sustainability.

This paper applies five different methods for valuation of the productive ecosystems used in extensive agricultural (grazing) systems. The methods apply different approaches to valuation described in the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and Australian Accounting Standards (AASs). To do this, the paper uses financial information drawn from the long-term performance of an economically and environmentally sustainable pastoral enterprise.

SEEA- and AAS-compliant methods to measure the value in use of provisioning ecosystems are practical and useful. The estimations contribute to a reasonable range of fair values required by AASs and improve the availability of information that would be useful in improving the performance of the operation and compare it to reasonable alternate management strategies.

The SEEA is an international standard and AASs are closely aligned to the International Accounting Standards, so the methods described in this paper are likely to be generalisable to enterprises grazing low-rainfall rangelands in other countries. However, their ability to appropriately accommodate the extensive modifications to ecosystems caused by cultivation and fertilisation needs to be tested before they are applied to grazing operations in high-rainfall areas or other forms of agriculture such as cropping or horticulture.

The availability of standards-compliant methods for ecosystem valuation means that companies who wish to include ecosystems on a voluntary and informal basis as sub-classes of land in their general purpose financial reports may be able to do so. If these methods are SEEA-compliant, they could be combined with information about the ecosystem type, extent and condition to produce a set of national ecosystem accounts so that the contribution of ecosystems to the economy can be estimated.

Many of the enterprises that rely on extensive agricultural ecosystems are unable to generate sufficient financial returns to cover their obligations to owners and creditors. The ability to determine the monetary value of the annual inputs provided by the ecosystems may assist landowners and citizens to detect and avoid depletion of their economic and ecological resources.

This paper applies an explicit interpretation of AAS and draws from valuation methods recommended in the SEEA to demonstrate that current accounting standards (national and corporate) provide a strong foundation for the valuation of the ecosystems used as economically significant factors of production.

The aim of this study was to evaluate determinants of four diversification practises by cocoa smallholders in West Sulawesi, Indonesia: (1) growing other crops, (2) keeping livestock, (3) off-farm work for wages (4) off-farm self-employment, and the impact of diversification on welfare of community members.

Household interviews (n = 116) conducted in two subdistricts (Anreapi and Mapilli) of Polewali-Mandar District, West Sulawesi, provided quantitative data on household characteristics, crop and livestock production, income sources, expenditure and credit access. Two villages per subdistrict were included in the study, each producing cocoa as the main crop but differing in their proximity to a market town. Logistic regression was applied to identify determinants of diversification by households. Multiple linear regression (MLR) models evaluated the impact of diversification practices and other explanatory variables on two proxies of welfare (or household wealth): per capita value of durable assets (household assets other than land or livestock) and per capita expenditure for each household.

Mean per capita cocoa production in the sample was low (51 kg dry beans/annum). The mean dependency ratio (proportion of household occupants age <18 and >64) was 35%, with an average of five occupants per household. Household heads were predominantly male (95%), averaging 46 yo and 7 years of formal education. Most households (72%) depended on loans, but only 24% accessed formal loans. Significant determinants of diversification practices were access to formal credit for self-employment and subdistrict for livestock, with Mapilli subdistrict households more likely to keep livestock. Household predictors in the MLR accounted for 28% variation of the dependent, per capita value of durable goods. Off-farm self-employment and raising livestock significantly improved welfare, but growing other crops or off-farm work for wages had little effect. Other household variables demonstrated to have significant positive effects on welfare were education of the household head, proximity to a market town and land area per household.

The study was restricted to a relatively small sample size (n = 116). Studies including panel data or larger numbers of households could enable the identification of further determinants of diversification.

The study demonstrates that diversification has the potential to improve rural livelihoods, but that obstacles, especially formal credit access, may deter poorer households from diversifying their income sources.

Programs and policies that facilitate access to formal finance by smallholders could encourage diversification into small business and improve livelihoods in cocoa-dependent communities.

In the light of the decline in cocoa farm productivity in West Sulawesi, the study demonstrates the potential benefits, as well as limitations, of income diversification by smallholders.

Over the past four decades, real values of farm real estate and the share of assets on farmers’ balance sheets attributed to farm real estate have increased. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that explain the concentration of the US agricultural balance sheet around a particular asset, farm real estate, and the extent to which the degree of asset concentration varies across United States Department of Agriculture production regions.

State-level data from 48 states and entropy-based inequality measures are used to examine changes in asset distributions (real estate vs non-real estate assets) both within and between regions over time.

The agricultural balance sheet is found to concentrate into real estate in the USA over the period 1960-2003 with the rate of concentration varying across production regions. In some regions, the concentration is mainly due to changes in real estate prices, while in other regions concentration is also driven by changes in real estate holdings or changes in total factor productivity.

This study formally estimates the degree to which the concentration of balance sheet items can be explained by the observed changes in farm real estate prices relative to observed changes in agricultural factor productivity or changes in farm real estate holdings. The computed regional differences in asset concentration and its main drivers have implications for changes in equity and solvency positions of farmers as well as agricultural lenders’ risk exposure.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the association between farm/farmer characteristics and unsubsidized farm insurance premium expenditure in Ireland. The distribution of farm insurance expenditures is wide, and it is important to understand the extent to which individual factors influence demand for different levels of insurance premium.

The quantile regression approach and farm accountancy data from the Teagasc National Farm Survey are used to model the association between farm/farmer characteristics and farm insurance demand in Ireland.

Asset values (livestock, buildings and machinery) are positively associated with total insurance expenditure. Both forestry area and crop area are significantly associated with farm insurance expenditure with a stronger influence on the middle and upper part of the distribution. The interaction between farm income and farmer age is positively associated with insurance expenditure pointing to the importance of farm income protection.

The research is mainly concerned with insuring against substantive risks, which are capable of threatening the asset base and continuation of the farm business. Future research can integrate questions in relation to farm safety and farmer health with research on the economic survival of the farm business.

Farmers in Ireland adopt unsubsidized farm insurance as a risk management tool. This situation is relevant to other EU member states including Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Sweden. The findings can be used to inform stakeholders and policymakers about the relative impact of different factors on insurance expenditure.

Previous research has typically focused on the linear relationship between farm/farmer characteristics and insurance demand without accounting for variability across the size distribution. This research is based on the quantile regression approach where the association between farm/farmer characteristics and farm insurance expenditure can be assessed at different points of the distribution.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of access to credit and safety nets on fertilizer adoption in rural Ethiopia.

A panel data set collected in 2005 and 2007 on 278 households and over 5,700 plots from the Southern Highlands of Ethiopia is examined. The authors developed a theoretical model relating input use and credit contract under third-party credit collateral agreement. The estimation is based on instrumental variables regressions to account for the endogeneity of credit access, and safety nets in fertilizer demand equation.

Despite increasing trends in fertilizer and improved varieties adoption since mid-2003, only 22 percent of the plots in the sample is actually received fertilizer. Households with more assets measured by livestock wealth are more likely to adopt fertilizer but less likely to participate in the local credit market as they have better savings that could be used to buy fertilizer/improved seeds without credit contract. This suggests poorer farmers heavily depend on credit than wealthier. Participation in safety nets programs did not contribute for increased use of fertilizer suggesting that the program either competes with agricultural labor or the low wage income was not enough to pay for farm inputs.

The findings show that with a heavier reliance on credit by poorer farmers it appears that much might be gained by targeting policies toward increasing credit access to this group.

Studies that utilize repeated plot- and household-level observations are limited. To the knowledge, this is the first study showing the relationship between credit accesses, public work program and fertilizer adoption over time in rural Ethiopia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that weather shocks can play in the livestock mortality microinsurance take-up when the insured risk has a prevalent covariant component.

The sample consists of 360 rural Ethiopian households. Data were collected in a panel-structure at the end of three agricultural seasons (2011-2013). In the questionnaire, a specific section on insurance was meant to collect information on the farmer’s willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a set of insurance products, including livestock mortality insurance. Two OLS regression models and a quantile regression model were employed to estimate the impact of weather anomalies on the WTP for the insurance product.

The authors find that weather anomalies contribute to changes in the WTP to a large extent. Negative (positive) changes in precipitation (temperature) anomalies can lead to more than a 30 percent reduction in the WTP. This general finding is complemented with the analysis of the conditional distribution of the WTP, which shows that other elements can prevail for low values of the conditional distribution. In this case, the WTP seems to be represented more by the interviewee’s age and basic knowledge of insurance, and village fixed-effects. Basic knowledge of insurance, in particular, can increase WTP by about 60 percent.

This paper has straightforward implications from a policy perspective. It suggests that farmers would prefer an insurance premium that follows the changes in the systemic component. On the contrary, insurance as well as reinsurance companies are usually reluctant to frequently revise their premiums. Financial education programs, farmer-driven design, trust building, and bundling insurance with other financial and non-financial products can increase the value proposition perceived by the farmers. From a marketing perspective, the overall findings suggest that continuous fine-tuning of the contract, transparency, and targeted information campaigns can contribute to increase and stabilize potential customers’ WTP.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that considers the impact of weather shocks on the WTP for a livestock mortality insurance product. Livestock is one of the most strategic assets of poor rural households in Africa. This study contributes to the theoretical and empirical literature on the determinants of weather insurance take-up in developing countries and, in particular, the role of spatiotemporal adverse selection and basis risk (e.g. Jensen et al., 2016).

The purpose of this paper is to present the methods and findings of an experimental game designed to extend the concept of index‐based livestock insurance in northern Kenya, and analyze patterns of game play. The paper is designed to inform others who may be attempting something similar to this work in other developing country agricultural settings.

The paper presents the following: descriptive context of the issue, explanation of the game design to match the conditions in the area, details of how the authors explained the game, and regression analysis of play by participants.

Games designed to reflect key elements of the local production system can be an effective way of explaining financial products to rural producers in developing countries.

It remains to be seen if the extension effort leads to more informed consumers of insurance products, which the authors hope to address in future work. Also, the approach described in this paper is very labor intensive, which could limit use in a wide ranging extension program.

The authors were able to explain the idea to groups that were mixed: female and male. It will be interesting to see if there are any gender dimensions to insurance use. In addition, with competing claims to livestock with complex property rights, there is a need to monitor how insurance interacts with social ideas of livestock ownership.

This is a completely new idea in the area of arid and semi‐arid livestock production, the challenge is pronounced, and as insurance becomes more important in the development economics toolkit, the authors believe others can benefit from seeing what they have done.

This study investigates whether Savings and Credit Co-operatives’ (SACCOS) services such as loans, savings and training improve household livelihood outcomes.

The study employed a quasi-experimental design. Six SACCOS were purposively selected in four districts of Mwanza and Tabora regions in Tanzania. A sample of 500 respondents was randomly selected of whom 200 were SACCOS’ members and 300 were non-members. A questionnaire and a key informant interview guide were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was used to analyse the quantitative data whereas qualitative data was subjected to thematic analysis.

The results indicate that SACCOS’ services had significantly impacted on the household livelihood outcomes in terms of maize yields, household assets, savings, food expenditures and non-food expenditures.

This study was conducted in two regions of Tanzania using six SACCOS. Similar studies can be conducted in a larger area of Tanzania by capturing more than six SACCOS. In addition, the study focused on the rural areas of Tanzania. The future studies can be carried out in urban areas or both urban and rural areas of Tanzania.

Local leaders, SACCOS’ leaders and other stakeholders in the study area should thus mobilise non-members in their areas to join SACCOS. In addition, the Tanzania government should facilitate the formation of new SACCOS and strengthen those already operating in rural areas.

SACCOS provide opportunities for individuals and households in rural areas to converge socially and economically to achieve better results (positive impact on livelihood outcomes), which otherwise could be non-achievable through single household or individual efforts.

Unlike previous studies, this study provides empirical evidence on the impact of SACCOS’ services on livelihood outcomes of SACCOS members in rural areas of Tanzania where abject poverty is widespread and where the majority of SACCOS are found.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2021-0028

The purpose of this paper is to examine the disconnect that can develop between corporate goals and those of individual intra‐organisational business units arranged as an internal supply chain within a large vertically integrated agribusiness. It also aims to explore and discuss the development of a holistic performance metrics system that facilitates internal supply chain coordination and cohesion, while allowing synergies to develop across the company.

A case study approach involving a participative action research component was used to examine the disconnect between internal business unit (operational) goals and overall corporate (strategic) goals and to develop a conceptual performance assessment model addressing both operational and strategic contexts.

The findings show that appropriate performance indicators and measures can be created that relate directly to logical operational outcomes, thus encouraging a more tightly integrated internal supply chain, a stronger coherence among the components and a better aligned set of operational and corporate goals.

Only financial information and data obtained from a participative managerial decision‐making simulation were used to explore performance goal incongruence between operational and corporate managers, compared with the need for multiple contextual performance measurement metrics that the literature suggests provides a best practice system.

The rapidly developing corporate agribusiness sector provides a unique operating environment in that these companies deal primarily in self‐regenerating assets such as livestock. Additionally the development of performance metrics for improving the coordinated integration of autonomous business units is explored for the first time and the concept of “Integrated Autonomy” is suggested as a way to describe the resulting situation.

Currently, Malaysia uses the Poverty Line Income (PLI) to measure poverty. This is because income measurement is the easiest way to collect data, but in its simplicity, it fails to capture the broader meaning and implications of poverty. Asset index is one of the non-monetary poverty measurements which have been established by researchers but not used in measuring poverty in Malaysia. A household might be poor in income, but assets may prevent them from being trapped in poverty.

This study will reassess the poverty of 302 households in the Northern States of Malaysia using the asset index and also the current state of poverty incidence with change under asset index.

The results show that households in the Northern States of Malaysia are interpreted as being ‘poorer’ when poverty is measured using assets as opposed to income alone. Besides that, poverty incidence of Malay households, households living in urban area and households with middle-aged heads have high poverty incidence, while households with a head of households that is single and highly educated have low poverty incidence. The logistic regression analysis shows that the determinants of poverty incidence based on the asset index are Indian, Penang and Perak State, the age of the head of household, distance to the education centre from home.

This study shows the asset index measurement which have not been done in Malaysia. This will contribute to the improvement of poverty measurement of the country.