Food System Dynamics (E-Journals)
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What is the benefit of organically-reared dairy cattle? Societal perception towards conventional and organic dairy farming
Get PDFDuring the last years, current systems in agriculture and food production have been topic in public discussions. Especially modern animal husbandry seems not to match consumers’ or societal needs any longer. This paper concentrates on the society’s perspective regarding dairy farming in general and diverting perceptions and expectations with respect to dairy cattle either reared organically or reared conventionally. It aims to give orientation to farmers as well as policymakers about the societal point of view of dairy farming.Six focus groups were carried out in three German cities to capture the scope of opinions and expectations among the population. Three of those groups consisted of participants buying mainly organic food while the other three comprised citizens buying mainly conventional food.With respect to society’s perception of today’s dairy farming results showed that participants put emphasis on the following topics: the space for each cow was considered as insufficient and not species-appropriate, assumed application of medications as too high, and in particular the prophylactic use of antibiotics as problematic.Asked about perceived differences between organic versus conventional farming it became obvious that organic in contrast to the conventional farming was perceived as more species-appropriate. More or less, all previously criticized aspects seem to be regarded as irrelevant in organic farming. Some participants showed a very romantic view of organic dairy farming. The most critical point was an assumed high rate of rogue traders among organic farmers
Efficiency of Food Chains – Theoretical and Methodological Framework
Get PDFThe aim adopted in the paper was to review methods for assessing the organizational aspects of supply chains and to carry out their critical evaluation. The selected approaches of supply chains’ assessment, published in leading Journals dealing with logistics and supply chain management, were analyzed. Literature studies, interviews, analysis of processes in the chains were used for analysing of dependency between the individual stages of supply chain and identifying the integration of entire supply chain. An important issue was to determine the possibility of assessing the integration of supply chains in selected sectors of agribusiness by using approaches presented in the paper. Basing on the data from enterprises from a selected sector of food processing several approaches discussed in the paper were adopted to evaluate the configuration and organizational aspects of supply chains. These organizational aspects of supply chains were related to the efficiency of enterprises from a selected food processing sector
Consumer Preferences for High Welfare Meat in Germany: Self-service Counter or Service Counter?
Get PDFMany people view animal welfare standards in the agricultural industry as critical and some consumers would prefer to buy high welfare meat. In order to successfully introduce high welfare meat products onto the market, some important marketing decisions must be made. Due to limited shelf space in retail outlets, niche products like high welfare meat cannot be placed both at the self-service counter and at the service counter. In order to analyze where to place it best an online survey of 642 German consumers was conducted. By means of factor and cluster analyses, consumers’ animal welfare attitudes and their preference for a point of purchase were combined. The different target groups were joint using cross tabulation analysis. The results reveal that consumers in the target group show a more positive attitude to the service counter
Applying a Markov approach as a Lean Thinking analysis of waste elimination in a Rice Production Process
Get PDFThe Markov Chains Model was proposed to analyze stochastic events when recursive cycles occur; for example, when rework in a continuous flow production affects the overall performance. Typically, the analysis of rework and scrap is done through a wasted material cost perspective and not from the perspective of waste capacity that reduces throughput and economic value added (EVA). Also, we can not find many cases of this application in agro-industrial production in Latin America, given the complexity of the calculations and the need for robust applications. This scientific work presents the results of a quasi-experimental research approach in order to explain how to apply DOE methods and Markov analysis in a rice production process located in Central America, evaluating the global effects of a single reduction in rework and scrap in a part of the whole line. The results show that in this case it is possible to evaluate benefits from Global Throughput and EVA perspective and not only from the saving costs perspective, finding a relationship between operational indicators and corporate performance. However, it was found that it is necessary to analyze the markov chains configuration with many rework points, also it is still relevant to take into account the effects on takt time and not only scrap´s costs
System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks 2015
Get PDFProceedings of the 9th International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks, Igls/Innsbruck, Asutria, February 15-19, 201
How scary! An analysis of visual communication concerning genetically modified organisms in Italy
Get PDFThe 2010 Eurobarometer on life science and biotechnology reveals an overall suspicion of GM foods amongst the public: the 61% of Europeans agree that GM food makes them feel uneasy and a higher proportion, 70%, think that GM food is fundamentally unnatural. In the economics literature many studies investigate the factors that drive public resistance: ethical concerns, low public trust in regulatory institution, risk misperception, absence of perceived benefits and media bias. In particular, public attitudes and risk perception about agricultural biotechnology are proved to be influenced by press media communication.This paper aims at gaining insight into the visual communication to which Italian population is exposed about GMOs, in order to investigate if images could have contributed to shape their negative public perception.A set of 500 images collected through Google search for “GMO” in Italy are classified considering fearful attributes (i.e. alteration of color, shape or size of plants or animals, mention to death or war, presence of DNA double helix or syringe) and an index that accounts for the scary impact of these images is built.Then the relationship between the index and a set of variables that refer to the context in which images appear is estimated. Preliminary results reveal that the order of appearance of images negatively affect index, namely that the first (and most viewed) Google result pages contain the most frightful images. It suggests that Italian population is subject to overstated negative inputs about GMOs. In addition, it emerges that web contents that show positive or neutral GMO attitudes are barely accompanied with objective and balanced visual communication. Implications and future research are then discussed
Needs and difficulties of food businesses in the substantiation of health and nutrition claims
Get PDFThe food industry has been struggling with existing guidance on how to prepare health claim dossiers. Hence the EU-funded project PATHWAY-27 seeks to provide a more tailored guidance.Within this project, robust guidelines for the food industry will be developed. The guidelines will be applicable to bioactives and bioactive enriched foods in general, to facilitate health claim documentation and dossiers.Based on a questionnaire, information on the needs and difficulties of the food industry in reaching the requirements established by the national and EU authorities (EFSA) was gathered. Particular emphasis was placed on scientific, economic, technical and technological barriers
Food gap and food security of sugar in Egypt
Get PDFThe research aims mainly to study food gap and food security of sugar in Egypt through studying of several sub-goals represented in: estimating models of general trends function for some economic indicators of sugar in Egypt during the period (1995- 2012), studying of the most important indicators of food security of sugar, estimating the size of the food gap of sugar and knowledge of the most important factors responsible for, and studying the policies and means to achieve food security of sugar in Egypt. Descriptive and quantitative analysis were used. The study depends on secondary data, which collected from local and foreign sources during the period (1995-2012).A study models of the general trend function for economic indicators showed that each of the total domestic production of sugar, domestic consumption, and the average per capita consumption, the amount of sugar imports, food gap of sugar, the price of Egyptian imports of sugar and periods of coverage of domestic production and the quantity of imports for consumption daily from sugar, and found that all of these variables has taken a general trend upward morally statistically significant at the level of probability (0.01) with the exception of a variable of coverage period of local production for daily consumption which took a general trend decreasing, and also did not identify the statistical significance of the variables of self-sufficiency rate and the period of coverage of imports for daily consumption , while the annual growth rates differed according to each variable.The conduct study show that the most important variables specific to the food gap of sugar are all from the local production of sugar, the average real price of Egyptian imports of sugar where it was found that the impact of each of these two variables on sugar gap be negative.The study showed that the strategic stock for sugar is estimated at 1.45 million tons and the average local consumption of sugar is estimated at about 2.17 million tons during the study period (1995-2012), thus estimated food security of about 0.84 is therefore required to take various actions which lead to increase the size of the strategic stock of sugar enough for half of it needs for domestic consumption even come close to the value of suitable coefficient of sugar food securityThe study showed that the policies and means to achieve sugar food security include horizontal agricultural development policy, vertical agricultural development policy, the policy of rationalizing the consumption of sugar, policy of consumer subsidy of sugar, and the policy of diversifying sources of imported sugar.In the light of the results of the study illustrated by research it has been possible to reach some ofthe following recommendations:1- It is necessary to intensify efforts to agricultural extension and agricultural research centers incollaboration with factories engineers and agriculture departments and supervisors agricultural awareness ofthe importance of agriculture resistance to pests and diseases that affect the crop, and help them get onpesticides is harmful to the environment to do so.2- Increasing of sugar production through the expansion of sugar crops, particularly sugar beet to the lack ofwater needs compared to sugar cane harvest in the new land.3- Increasing of sugar productivity crops through dissemination of sugar varieties of high productivity and tosuit every center of administrative centers in Egypt.4- Rationalizing the consumption of sugar during dismiss the size of the loss of sugar.5- to achieve food security has to be the need to develop awareness programs for the application of planningpolicy breeds where it is one of the most important determinants of the demand for i Egyptian imports ofsugar.6- it is important to put a national strategy to increase the self-sufficiency ratio of sugar with the need toimport and distribute the amounts of diversification between different sources in order to avoid what mighthappen from political pressure in favor of the Egyptian economy is in the case of international politicalconditions change.7- It is necessary to study the reduction commitments of support granted to the production and export in the sugar-exporting countries in order to reduce the negative effects on the Egyptian Savin
Financial Instruments and Conflicts of Interest: Application to French Agricultural Co-operatives
Get PDFTo finance their growth and value creation, agricultural co-operatives have at their disposal several financial instruments: equity, quasi-equity or debt. Many of these instruments are particularly innovative and have been designed specifically for co-operatives. In France, only recently have some co-operatives expanded their types of financing to include external funders through the issue of OTC- or publicly-traded securities.Agricultural co-operatives' governance and economic projects are often misunderstood by external financial investors. The risk of conflicts of interest plays a role in these misunderstandings in the way retained earnings, returns to agricultural products brought by co-op member and returns to equity capital. Such risks are identified and answers are proposed
BIODISELFAO: System for Investment Analysis in the Biodiesel Production Chain
No full textIn the short and medium terms, biofuels are the most viable alternative to reduce the environmental impact of fossil fuels. The recent controversy over the competition between biofuels and food production increases the complexity of investment decisions in the biodiesel production chain. In this context, decision support tools are highly relevant. The purpose of this article is to describe the BiodieselFAO using the Unified Modeling Language (UML). An integrated analysis considering both agricultural and industrial sectors was identified as a key requirement to the system. Therefore, farmers and industry are the main actors in the use case diagram. As the raw material represents around 70% of the industrial cost of biodiesel production, the price negotiation of raw material (oilseeds) is the central use case. Configuration, agriculture, industry, results and scenarios are the modules, which encompass the functionalities derived from the UML diagrams. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has made the BiodieselFAO available, free of charge, to around 180 professionals from 17 Latin American countries. Additionally, the developing team has supported the usage of the BiodieselFAO in several biodiesel investment analyses throughout Latin America. The system was also useful in the design and analysis of policy related to biodiesel industry in Brazil