1,720,967 research outputs found
Consumer preference for farmed fish in Ghana and Kenya: Opportunities for domestic demand-driven aquaculture
No full textFish production in Ghana and Kenya has been dwindling for a couple of decades now, due primarily to overexploitation of the nations\u27 marine and inland fisheries resources - the main sources of fish in the two countries. There is however potential in aquaculture to revive domestic fish production in both countries. Accordingly, the governments of Ghana and Kenya have undertaken measures to unleash the potential in their respective aquaculture industries to boost domestic fish production. The measures undertaken by the governments and past aquaculture research have mainly focused on production, leaving many consumption questions unanswered. Meanwhile almost all aquaculture output of both countries ends up in the domestic markets. It is therefore pertinent that the preferences of domestic consumers for aquaculture output are analyzed in order to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the aquaculture industries in Ghana and Kenya. This thesis used choice models to investigate the preferences of consumers in urban Ghana and Kenya for farmed tilapia and catfish, the main aquaculture products in both countries, in order to advise the aquaculture industry on how to promote aquaculture products in the domestic market. The results show that farmed tilapia and catfish are not generally preferred in both Ghana and Kenya due primarily to issues of availability, healthiness and taste. Ghanaian consumers prefer smoked tilapia and catfish while consumers in Kenya prefer fresh and fried forms of tilapia and catfish. The sensory, functional and symbolic attributes of farmed tilapia and catfish, and the socio-demographic features of consumers are important determinants of consumer preference for farmed fish in both countries. The effects of especially the socio-demographic features of consumers differ across the two countries and fish species
Essays on Malawian agriculture: Micro-level welfare impacts of agricultural productivity; profitability of fertilizer use; and targeting of fertilizer subsidy programs
Get PDFThis dissertation comprises of three essays that address different aspects of agriculture in Malawi using a two-wave panel data collected by the National Statistical Office of Malawi with support from the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) program. Each essay stands alone as an independent study because of differences in research questions and the methodologies used in addressing the questions. The first essay analyzes the micro-level welfare impacts of agricultural productivity. Welfare is measured by various dimensions of poverty and food insecurity; and agricultural productivity is measured by maize yield and value of crop output per hectare. Depending on the measure of welfare, the impact of agricultural productivity was estimated with a household fixed effects estimator, a two-part estimator or a correlated-random effects ordered probit estimator. The results indicate that increasing agricultural productivity has the expected statistically significant welfare improving effect, but the magnitude of the effect is small given the attention that agriculture usually receives. Efforts to effectively improve the welfare of rural agricultural households should therefore go beyond increasing agricultural productivity. The second essay estimates the profitability of inorganic fertilizer use in maize production using fixed effects and multilevel models. The study finds that fertilizer use is generally unprofitable at prevailing market conditions when one assumes farmers incur positive transaction costs in the use of fertilizer. The main factor that drives low fertilizer profitability is low nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) which is estimated to range from 9.24kg to 12.09 kg on average, depending on the model specification. In order for fertilizer use to be profitable on average, the NUE would have to increase by at least 137% if maize output is valued at the farm gate price and by 50% if maize is valued at the lean season market price. Essay three provides guidance for the targeting of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) by estimating the difference in inorganic fertilizer use efficiency and crowing out of commercial fertilizer by subsidized fertilizer between poor and non-poor households. The difference in inorganic fertilizer use efficiency is estimated with a multilevel model of maize yield while the difference in crowding out is estimated with a double hurdle model of demand for commercial, inorganic fertilizer. The results indicate that non-poor farmers are significantly more efficient in the use of inorganic fertilizer, but have significantly higher levels of crowding out, compared to poor. This suggests that there is a trade-off between targeting the non-poor farmers and targeting poor farmers. Further analysis of the trade-off however indicates that targeting non-poor farmers instead of poor farmers, after accounting for the difference in crowding out, would result in an overall yield gain of 3.14 - 4.33kg per kilogram of nitrogen. Therefore the food security objective of Malawi’s farm input subsidy program would be better served if non-poor farmers are targeted instead of poor farmers
Should Farm Input Subsidy Programs Target Poor or Non-Poor Farmers? Evidence from Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Program
Get PDFThis paper addresses the question of
whether farm input subsidy programs should be targeted at
non-poor farmers instead of poor farmers, using a two-wave,
nationally representative panel data from Malawi. The
question is addressed by estimating the net gain in maize
yield for targeting non-poor farmers instead of poor farmers
after accounting for the difference in inorganic fertilizer
use efficiency and the difference in crowding-out of
commercial fertilizer by subsidized fertilizer between the
poor and non-poor farmers. Consumption expenditure is used
to classify households into consumption poor and non-poor
households, and an asset-based wealth index is used to
classify households into asset poor and non-poor households.
The difference in inorganic fertilizer use efficiency is
estimated with a multilevel model of maize yield, and the
difference in crowding out is estimated with a double hurdle
model of demand for commercial, inorganic fertilizer. The
results indicate that non-poor farmers are significantly
more efficient in the use of inorganic fertilizer but have
significantly higher levels of crowding out, compared to
poor farmers. This suggests that there is a trade-off
between targeting non-poor farmers and targeting poor
farmers. However, further analysis of the trade-off
indicates that targeting non-poor farmers instead of poor
farmers, even after accounting for the difference in
crowding out, would result in an overall gain in yield of
3.14 to 4.33 kilograms of maize per kilogram of nitrogen
distributed by the subsidy program. Therefore, the
productivity enhancing objective of Malawi’s farm input
subsidy program would be better served by targeting non-poor
farmers instead of poor farmers
Making Agriculture Work for the Poor in Timor-Leste
No full textWith about 80 percent of poor
households in Timor-Leste dependent on agriculture for their
livelihood, it is widely acknowledged that growth in the
agriculture sector is an important channel for poverty
reduction in the country. That notwithstanding, the
country’s agricultural production system is one of the least
developed in the world, with the sector’s productivity being
well below that of other small island developing states and
below the average for other low-income states. Using data
from the 2007 and 2014 waves of the Timor-Leste Surveys of
Living Standards, this paper provides insight into the
extent to which increases in agricultural productivity can
contribute to poverty reduction, and assesses the drivers of
and constraints to increasing agricultural productivity in
the country. The findings show that improvements in
agricultural productivity reduce the probability of being
poor among agricultural households. The paper also finds
that for agricultural productivity to increase, the
following factors should be considered: facilitation of farm
mechanization, improvement in the use of chemical
(fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides) inputs, enhancement
of access to credit and extension, encouragement to farmers
to join farmer groups, expansion of the commercialization of
farm produce, and reduction in the gender gap in
agricultural productivity
Meat Demand in the US During and After the Great Recession
Get PDFCombining depth, length and breadth, the Great Recession is the worst economic downturn that the US economy has suffered since the Great Depression. Among other things, the recession reduced household income, caused significant changes in food prices and increased consumer uncertainties. These changes can potentially affect demand for such important food products as meat. Barten’s generalized demand model is used to study the demand for meat products during and after the recession. Structural change is observed in the demand for meat products in all the markets considered. The instability in the demand for the meat products is not general, but rather isolated in a subset of some demand variables. Expenditure and own-price and cross-price elasticities of demand during the recession are estimated and compared to those after the recession
Economic Efficiency and Subsidized Farm Inputs: Evidence from Malawi Maize Farmers
Get PDFAlthough agriculture is widely regarded as a major channel through which poverty and food insecurity in Africa can be curtailed, the continent’s agricultural productivity has been abysmal. Farm input subsidy is becoming a popular policy tool that African governments are using to improve agricultural productivity. Because agricultural productivity is closely linked with efficiency in the use of existing farm inputs, this study uses stochastic frontier analysis to investigate efficiency among farmers and how it is affected by farm input subsidy programs using Malawi maize farmers as a case study. The study finds that farm input subsidy improves efficiency among farmers but even with subsidy, farmers are only 47% efficient in production. Input subsidy alone is therefore not enough to promote agricultural productivity via improvements in farmers’ efficiency. Other programs such as irrigation should be promoted along with subsidies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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