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This paper empirically investigates the demand for pastured eggs in the United States and evaluates the welfare consequences of Japan's egg import tariff reductions for the US consumers.

Using household-level Nielsen Homescan panel data, a fixed-effects Heckman two-stage sample selection model is estimated.

The estimation results ascertain the importance of a set of household socioeconomic characteristics, which are found to influence both the purchase probabilities and the consumption amounts associated with pastured eggs. In addition, demand for pastured eggs is estimated to be inelastic, and pastured eggs are found to be a normal good, more specifically a luxury.

The dataset used in this study reflect purchases only for at-home consumption, lacking information on away-from-home purchases.

Building upon previous research, this study makes the following distinct contributions to the current literature. To the best of our knowledge, it constitutes the first study to empirically examine the demand for pastured eggs, using household-level panel data and an estimation model that not only allows for left-censoring but also controls for regional and time fixed effects. Second, the present study reflects a unique effort in analyzing the adverse welfare consequences of the increased egg prices in the United States brought by a reduction of Japanese import tariffs on US-supplied eggs, focusing specifically on pastured eggs.

The percentage of dairy cows managed in grazing systems in Northwest Europe is on the decline, even though pasturing is perceived favourably as enhancing the health and welfare of dairy cows. With consumers turning away from intensively produced food, developing the pasture-raised milk market could encourage farmers to continue keeping their cows on pastures. To provide insights for expanding this specialty milk market, the purpose of this paper is to, therefore, investigate the roles of personal, product-related, economic and social factors in purchasing pasture-raised milk.

Drivers of pasture-raised milk purchases are identified and the conceptual model is tested using structural equation modelling with data from a cross-sectional study among 917 German milk consumers.

Perceived price and availability barriers are the main consumption obstacles for pasture-raised milk. Besides increasing availability and reducing price premiums, processors should cater health and dietary conscious consumers by providing pasture-raised milk with unique and favourable product qualities, i.e. focussing on freshness, a rich taste or naturalness. Raising awareness for extensive husbandry systems may enhance pasture-raised milk purchases, while introducing a unified pasturing claim could help consumers to distinguish pasture-raised milk from conventional barn milk.

This study provides dairies and marketers with valuable insight about the factors driving pasture-raised milk purchases. This information is derived from a large sample with extensive regional coverage and will thus be useful in expanding this specialty milk market and in maintaining extensive dairy production.

Agricultural-related food marketing claims are gaining in importance. The challenge for the industry is to claim real production characteristics while being in line with consumers’ expectations. Looking at the example of marketing pasture-raised milk year-round and the fact that cows only have access to pasture in summer, the purpose of this paper is to analyse consumer expectations, the potential of deception and the acceptance of more credible marketing strategies.

An online access panel was used for data collection. The data include 310 German milk buyers, who were grouped using cluster analysis to examine the different target groups for the year-round and seasonal marketing of pasture-raised milk.

The study distinguished two different consumer groups: one with lower expectations accepting year-round marketing (32.5 per cent) and the other with higher demands, who feel deceived by year-round marketing (46.7 per cent). Furthermore, one part of the last group is also sceptical towards the more precise seasonal marketing due to their general scepticism towards ag-related marketing claims.

To generate consumer trust in ag-related marketing claims, it is beneficial to meet consumers’ expectations. Producers have to decide if they orient their products to more modest or more critical consumer segments. While it is easier to implement lower standards, there is the risk to disappoint (and thereby lose) the most interesting target group of highly involved consumers characterised by some general doubts regarding food marketing claims.

The study is the first to demonstrate the existence of two consumer segments that differ in their expectations towards and acceptance of ag-related marketing claims for food products.

This chapter attempts to critically examine the wildlife conservation discourse that argues for curtailing the livestock grazing inside the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, situated on the India’s international borders with China in southeast Ladakh. The conventional conservation discourse points at the (supposed) greed of the Changpa pastoralists in accumulating an increasing number of pashmina goats as a primary environmental cause of wildlife loss in Changthang; however, there is a critical lack of insight into the political and historical mechanisms that lie within the dynamic interaction between resource access and socio-economic inequalities, critical for understanding Changpa pastoralism today.

Ethnographic inquiry into the Changpa economy before the closure of Ladakh–Tibet border trade in 1962, and afterwards, has highlighted the political and economic transformations in the area, as well as the cultural politics of market integration and increasing inabilities of the mobile Changpa pastoralists to access vital productive resources. Inequalities reflected in the contemporary livestock data, acquired from the pastoralists, underscore the processes of institutional bricolage, non-cooperative labour, exchange/wage herding and capital-dominated market networks, making pastoralism impossible for several of the households.

The chapter argues against making livestock withdrawal a major aim of conservation sciences. It calls instead for the recognition of state-provisioned commodified pashmina rearing, seen through the prism of changing abilities and shifting institutions, where unequal access to productive resources is a reflection of both historical dispossessions and also economic impoverishments of Changpa today.

Based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)-based insurance developed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Argentina (MAGyP) with technical assistance of the World Bank (WB), the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the out-of-sample performance of the NDVI-based insurance in Bahía Blanca Department of the south west of Buenos Aires (SWBA) Province in Argentina, by calculating the technical premium with the methodology developed by MAGyP-WB and NDVI information up to 2007, and analyzing the results that would have been obtained in 2008 and 2009.

With the available NDVI information (1982-2009), the authors uses the out-of-sample method to analyze the rating of the contract and the reasonability of the premium payment through a comparison of the frequency and severity of payouts in the NDVI coverage with the losses suffered by droughts in SWBA. Specifically, it has been taken the data until 2006 to set the Triggers and Exits values and to calculate the premium rates, and the payout and loss ratio in 2007 was then analyzed. A similar analysis was done for years 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.

According with the rating methodology described in this paper, payouts determined by the NDVI-based insurance fit with falls in forage production and reduced meat production yields, which confers reasonability to this tool as a coverage option for cattle and fodder producers. Definite technical premiums based on 1982-2007 period, capture the occurrence of severe drought events, defining a risk profile that is consistent with the used information. Adding more observations to the sample, this profile is redefined, showing the sensitivity of the results to the quality and quantity of data used in the analysis.

There is a subjective assessment in the determination of the sample and the weighting of this information. The election of the period to be considered, how to incorporate the changes in the patterns of climate behavior in the medium- and long-term and the expected effects in the NDVI, etc. will impact on the values of resulting technical premiums. In the specific case of this analysis, the fact of not having considered in the sample two extreme years (2008 and 2009) has a concrete implication in the obtained premiums. In this paper, only the Bahía Blanca Department was considered. Rainfall pattern and extensive grazing of natural grassland in the SWBA area might vary from Department to Department, so the results and payouts might change according to these circumstances.

The situation shown in the findings could be seen as an underestimation of the risk to which the producer is exposed and should be taken into account for further researches and insurance products to be designed. When the considered data series shows atypical or extreme values and these are incorporated into the sample, significant changes can be registered in the triggers and premiums.

This paper analyzes how a risk profile is redefined depending on the sample considered and shows the sensitivity of the results to used data when using index-based insurance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers' attitudes towards alternative slaughter methods (ASMs). ASMs present more animal-friendly and stress-free slaughter practices. However, these practices are not yet widespread due to strict regulations, high labor efforts and costs. Therefore, the market for meat products from ASMs is still small, and less is known about consumers' awareness, assessment and willingness to pay (WTP) for these products.

This study aims to close the research gap using a standardized and representative online survey among 1,604 German participants. To identify target groups for these kinds of meat products, a factor and cluster analysis was conducted.

The results show that ASMs are not widely known among consumers. Overall, participants evaluated ASMs positively, but about 1/3 of the participants stated to also have concerns related more to hygiene than to animal welfare issues. The cluster analysis reveals two out of four clusters found that are interested in ASMs. These clusters are characterized by high trust in small butcheries and organic meat consumption.

The slaughtering sector has hardly been examined from an economic point of view in the animal welfare debate so far. This study identifies potential target groups for products originating from ASMs based on possible consumption drivers and barriers. Therewith, products from particular animal welfare friendly slaughter methods can be promoted purposefully to suitable target groups.

This paper aims to investigate and review adaptation measures in the livestock sector from 21 African countries through literature survey and grounded theory approaches. The adaptation themes that emerged captured essence of measures and experience drawn from varied country submissions and contexts instituted to make the livestock sector climate compatible in as far as adaptation is concerned.

Literature survey approach was used on the impacts of climate change on livestock and a review of the submitted adaptation measures. The study used grounded theory approach to derive meaning from the retrieved information. The grounded theory was derived inductively through systematic collection and analysis of data pertaining to the submitted National Communications reports. The retrieved themes were then examined and interpreted to give meaning and draw conclusions through coding, conceptualizing, categorizing and theorizing.

Results identify eight adaptation themes: carrying capacity and policies; integrated pasture management; capacity building, extension, training, awareness and information sharing; livestock breeding, diversification and intensification; disease, vectors and parasites management; technology, innovation, research and development; alternative livelihood; and water supply. The findings show that African Governments have been implementing effective adaptation measures for food security through building a climate resilient livestock production system.

This study is one of the first to lead to recommendations that decision- and policymakers, private sectors, relevant stakeholders and government officials and scientists should play a key role in ensuring that adaptation measures reach farmers, herders at grassroots level. In addition, governments should create an enabling environment (policies) in climate change adaptation to improve food security. These recommendations might be helpful in many communities where adaptation to climate change is a pressing issue.

The article surveys dairy farmers' lay knowledge of climate change and the adaptation strategies they have implemented to respond to climatic and economic drivers. Dairy farming is highly dependent on local weather and climate. The case study is in Western Victoria, Australia, part of a major dairy farming region that contributes 26 per cent of national milk production and 86 per cent of the country's dairy exports. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study utilised a survey and semi-structured interviews in Corangamite Shire, to document dairy farmers' perceptions of climate variability and the adaptation strategies they have implemented, compared to meteorological data collected on climate variability in the recent past.

Farmers in this region perceive a change in rainfall and temperature broadly in line with meteorological records. Those that have experienced a greater degree of climate variability in drier regions were found to perceive it more accurately. Almost all respondents had already made changes to their dairy businesses, but in doing so only a small percentage were responding directly to seasonal variability or to longer term changes (9 and 15 per cent, respectively); the majority said they were responding to changing economic conditions in the industry.

A primary survey of dairy farming adds to knowledge of how climate variability is perceived, and how it is adapted to in a region heavily reliant on rainfall for its prime economic activity.

This paper aims to determine the effects of agricultural, recreational and urban variables on Oklahoma land prices.

An econometric model is estimated using price of agricultural land parcels as the dependent variable and independent variables representing agricultural, recreational and urban uses. Recreational variables include county‐level recreational income from Agricultural Census data as well as deer harvest for each county. Urban variables are functions of population and income for each county. The agricultural variables include rainfall as well as crop returns for cropland and cattle prices for pasture.

Agricultural variables are the most important, followed by urban and then recreational variables. Transaction prices are higher than commonly used land‐value survey data. The major recreational variable is deer harvest, which is more important in small tracts. The value of pasture is now greater than cropland. Small tract sizes receive substantial premiums.

Agriculture is still an important part of the Oklahoma economy, so the findings might differ in more densely populated states. As with most econometric models, there are possible biases due to errors in measurement or missing explanatory variables.

The paper provides information that could be used by those wanting to estimate land value or wanting to manage land to increase its value.

The paper differs from previous work in both variables considered and the data used. Also, most previous work has not as directly addressed the issue of the relative importance of agricultural, recreational and urban variables.

The paper constructs an annual price series for English net agricultural output in the years 1209–1914 using 26 component series: wheat, barley, oats, rye, peas, beans, potatoes, hops, straw, mustard seed, saffron, hay, beef, mutton, pork, bacon, tallow, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, wool, firewood, timber, cider, and honey. I also construct sub-series for arable, pasture and wood products. The main innovation is in using a consistent method to form series from existing published sources. But fresh archival data is also incorporated. The implications of the movements of these series for agrarian history are explored.