Food System Dynamics (E-Journals)
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Lighting on the road to explore future directions for agricultural modelling in the EU – some considerations on what needs to be done
Full text linkIn the field of agri-food, impact assessments to support policy decision-making are often based on simulations delivered by models. The increasing complexity of policies affecting agri-food sectors requires improving the capacities of current models, connecting or redesigning them to deliver forward-looking insights on policy objectives. The EU-Project ‘Support for Policy Relevant Modelling of Agriculture’ (SUPREMA) has identified upcoming needs in the research and policy agenda, while exploring the feasibility of those potential modelling exercises by testing the existing tools. The assessment has pointed out necessities for model extensions and development of new tools. Besides, it has revealed the potential of model integration and collaboration to supplement the outcomes of individual models. This is supported in view of the food system approach that is becoming the fundamental framework for analysing the dynamics of the agri-food sector when considering it from a broad perspective. This paper describes shortly how the assessment was conducted and presents the outcomes and lessons learnt from the project. It pays special attention to the challenges and the policy priorities that are expected to become important issues in the policy agenda in the coming years
Assessing Corporate Social Responsibility Efficiency for the International Food and Beverage Manufacturing Industry
Full text linkOne of the major challenges in the research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the aggregation of the CSR metrics into overall measures of CSR practices by firms. This paper computes composite indicators of CSR from an efficiency perspective using data envelopment analysis (DEA) for a sample of international food and beverage manufacturing firms over the period 2011-2018. The study’s contributions to the literature are twofold. First, this paper contributes by being the first to compare efficiency in CSR practices of food and beverage companies across regions of Europe, the United States and Canada, Latin America and Caribbean and Asia-Pacific. Second, methodologically we extend the composite indicators within DEA, allowing for non-convexities of the production set. The study finds a considerable potential for improvement in CSR practices as revealed by the values of CSR composite indicators. The study also shows the differences in CSR efficiency between food and beverage firms in the regions considered, with the most CSR efficient region being Latin America and Caribbean, and the least CSR efficient being firms in Asia-Pacific region. The CSR composite scores fluctuate over the analyzed period, with an increase in efficiency in 2018 experienced by all regions
Farm-level Food Loss: Opportunities and Challenges to Reducing Food Loss
Full text linkA presentation of slides dealing with Farm-level Food Loss
Loss and Waste in the Australian Fresh Apple Value Chain
Full text linkApples are a significant and popular fruit among t e Australian opulation, and in the case of fresh apples, the domestic market is relatively self-sustaining. Retail and consumer preferences are the driving force for quality standards for apples along the chain, with actors working to provide the best quality selection of produce. In order to meet these high standards, loss and waste occurs in the lower grades which are simply a by-product of first grade production. Globally, loss and waste of fresh produce is amongst the highest of all food groups and from the limited data available, apples appear to be no exception. While there is not accurate specific data regarding loss and waste data of fresh apples in the Australian value chain, reporting is increasing as is awareness of the broader issues of food loss and waste. Following along the value chain, there appear to be discrepancies in quantities of fresh apples available at the various stages, with these variations potentially reflective of loss and waste along the chain. Using best estimates from the literature, the total amount of fresh apples, conservatively, that is potentially diverted from the Australian fresh apple supply chain is around 163,000 tonnes which is about 41 per cent of total production at the farm level. What is also lacking from Australian market data and literature, other than robust primary loss and waste data, is the cost of food loss and waste, and the extent of the externalities that occur due to loss and waste along the value chain. Not only do negative externalities incur costs to the broader society, there are additional costs of intervention, and analysis is required to determine the feasibility and appropriateness of intervention strategies
Are Farmers as Risk-averse as They Think They Are?
Full text linkStudies on the acceptance of innovation often identify risk preference to be a decisive factor for the adoption of sustainable practices. While in finance and management research, lottery tasks are mostly used to measure risk aversion, behavioural studies usually use measures of risk tolerance and risk perception derived from explicit self-assessment questions. We empirically test the influence of three different risk measures on farmers’ acceptance of a sustainability standard and the amount of investment made. The results of our analysis indicate that the results of lottery tasks are consistent with the risk-seeking behaviour of e.g. of investment decisions made, whereas the evaluation questions are more likely to capture other aspects like farmers' expectations of the innovation itself. The results suggest that we need to intensively investigate farmers' expectations of the single innovations in behavioural economic studies to distinguish more precisely between actual risk aversion or tolerance and a negative or positive opinion of the innovation
Water Pricing in Agriculture following the Water Framework Directive: A Systematic Review of the Literature
Full text linkIn October 2000, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) established a common framework for water management in Europe, thereby substantially reforming European water legislation. The Directive encourages the use of economic instruments, including water pricing, to ensure water resource management and conservation. The aim of this systematic review was to establish the state of academic research on water pricing in connection with the WFD within the agriculture sector. It emerges that the issue of water pricing is very broad, site-specific and mostly, it faces multidisciplinary issues. Researchers should cross their conventional boundaries of investigation, trying to cut edges. While the Directive advocate for a larger implementation of economic instruments such as pricing, it seems that the large contribution from the economists is yet to come
ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF EGYPTIAN FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL TRADE WITH EUROPEAN UNION MARKETS
Full text linkForeign trade plays a great role to achieve economic development for almost all countries. However,Egypt being one of the developing countries is still suffering from the widening gap betweenincreasing food imports and exports. This problem has subsequent effects on Egyptian agriculturaltrade balance and hence Egyptian balance of payments.The study showed that the relative importance of the total agricultural exports to, as compared to thetotal national exports, reached its highest level of 16.4 % in 2017, while its lowest level was about6.2% in 2007. For the relative importance of the total agricultural imports to, as compared to the totalnational imports, it reached its highest level of 22.5% in 2005, while its lowest level was about 5.5% in2016.It appears that the average agricultural exports covered about 5.1% of the total national importsduring the period 2005-2011, while it was about 4.6% during the period 2012-2018. The decrease ofthe coverage of national imports by the agricultural exports in second period compared with firstperiod was due to the increase of the total national imports by about 77.5% (bases 2005-2011). Theratio of agricultural exports coverage established around 4.6% of the total national imports during theperiod 2005-2018. That was due to the fact that Egyptian governments in the last years reduced thenational imports specially the food commodities, and slightly increase the national exportsparticularly the agricultural exports.The conduct study showed that the average total value of agricultural imports EU markets amountedto about US 663.9 million during the period 2005-2018.The deficit of Egyptian agricultural balance of trade with EU markets reached about US 132.85million or about 1.01 % of the total deficit of Egyptian balance of trade in 2012-2018.It was appear that the impact of EU liberalization on Egypt will have negative effect on agriculturalbalance of trade with about US$ 79.44 million during the all study period 2005-2018
Bringing together stakeholders’ interaction and economic modelling: Recent experiences in designing research and agricultural policy
Full text linkPolicies are becoming intensively interrelated while increasing numbers of societal groups and stakeholders are affected. At the same time, current and future challenges require improved capacity in terms of models, their linkages or redesigns to deliver forward-looking insights on policies. Different stakeholder workshops have recently been applied in two projects to support these activities, including stocktaking, inputs for narratives, feedbacks to outcomes, acceptance of analysis and drafting future research agendas. This paper describes approaches applied in both projects, shortly presents their results and findings to finally draw some general conclusions
Ridley, M. (2020). How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom
Full text linkBook review of the bookRidley, M. (2020). How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY. ISBN 978-0062916594
Food Procurement as an Instrument to Promote Local Food Systems: Exploring a Brazilian Experience
Full text linkPublic food procurement is becoming more relevant among policymakers as a tool capable of supporting family farming, encouraging sustainable farming practices, and promoting rural development. Brazil is recognized as one of the first countries to develop national policies based on food demands from its public facilities to support family farming. Previous research has already demonstrated several positive impacts of programs based on public food procurement that establish new institutional markets aimed at the poorest family farmers. However, there is still a lack of research evaluating the impacts of public food procurements in creating local food systems that bring closer farmers and consumers. In this research, based on primary and secondary data, we sought to verify whether a food procurement-based program, the Brazilian Food Acquisition Program (PAA), contributes to the constitution and consolidation of local food systems in three Brazilian municipalities. On the one hand, our results suggest that PAA is an important instrument for the productive inclusion of family farming. On the other hand, PAA has contributed little to the establishment of more localized food systems, indicating that other drivers beyond the institutional market are critical to build and support local food systems