Consequences of BSE disease outbreaks in the Canadian beef industry

This study examines farm to wholesale prices spreads to measure the impact of the BSE disease outbreak on the Canadian beef industry. The study uses structure break tests developed by Gregory and Hansen (1996) and Hansen (1992) examine possible breaks within co integrating relationships. The study finds evidence that the industry began realignment as a result of the UK BSE disease outbreak, and the Canadian BSE disease outbreak was simply the largest realignment of the process beginning with the UK disease outbreak. However, the only statistically significant break was the BSE disease outbreak itself in May 2003. Stability was not restored until the border was reopened in 2005. Specific results indicated that the processing sector exploited the border closure in May 2003 to enhance its market power and that the system returned to a competitive one after the border re-opened in July 2005.Beef industry, price transmission, BSE, market power, parameter instability, cointegration with structural break, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, GA, IN,

Efficiency and Heterogeneity in Czech Food Processing Industry

Agribusiness,

BSE Disease Outbreaks, Structural Change and Market Power in the Canadian Beef Industry

This study examines farm to wholesale prices spreads to measure the impact of the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) disease outbreak on the Canadian beef industry. The study uses structure break tests developed by Gregory and Hansen (1996) and Hansen (1992) examine possible breaks within cointegrating relationships. The study finds evidence that the industry began a realignment as a result of the UK BSE disease outbreak, and the Canadian BSE disease outbreak was simply the largest realignment of the process beginning with the UK disease outbreak. However, the only statistically significant break was the BSE disease outbreak itself in May 2003. Stability was not restored until the border was reopened in 2005. Specific results indicated that the processing sector exploited the border closure in May 2003 to enhance its market power and that the system returned to a competitive one after the border re-opened in July 2005.BSE, market power, Canada, beef industry, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization, International Relations/Trade,

Drivers of productivity change in the italian tomato food value chain

This study evaluated productivity dynamics and identified sources of productivity growth in Italian tomato production and processing. We used a stochastic frontier input distance function with four error components—heterogeneity, statistical noise, persistent and transient inefficiency— and a four-step estimation procedure with a system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator in the first step to address the endogeneity problem. The results reveal significant differences in the productivity and efficiency of tomato production and processing. Moreover, there are considerable differences among the different sizes of tomato producers, with the main variations observed for scale efficiency. While tomato processors operate at an optimal production size, tomato producers are characterized by considerable economies of scale, especially small producers. These results thus suggest that there is significant opportunity for technical efficiency improvements at both stages of the value chain. Finally, due to improvements made to scale efficiency, extensive productivity growth was observed for the group of small tomato producers

Agriculture in the Face of Changing Markets, Institutions and Policies: Challenges and Strategies

Since the late 1980s, agriculture in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) has been under considerable adjustment pressure due to changing political, economic and institutional environments. These changes have been linked to the transition process, as well as the ongoing integration into the European Union and the world market. Reduced subsidies, increased environmental and food quality demands, as well as structural changes in the supply, processing and food retailing sector call for major structural adjustments and the improvement of farmersâ managerial abilities. Though such changes always carry significant threats to farms, they also offer new opportunities for the farms' entrepreneurial engagement. Upcoming changes in the agricultural environment and their possible consequences for farm structures across Europe are thus still timely subjects. The objective of the IAMO Forum 2006 is to contribute to the success of agriculture in the CEECs, as well as their neighboring countries, in todayâs increasingly competitive environment. Concrete questions the conference focuses on are: What are the most suitable farm organizations, cooperative arrangements and contractual forms? How to improve efficiency and productivity? Where do market niches lie and what are the new product demands? This book contains 33 invited and selected contributions. These papers will be presented at the IAMO Forum 2006 in order to offer a platform for scientists, practitioners and policy-makers to discuss challenges and potential strategies at the farm, value chain, rural society and policy levels in order to cope with the upcoming challenges. IAMO Forum 2006, as well as this book, would not have been possible without the engagement of many people and institutions. We thank the authors of the submitted abstracts and papers, as well as the referees, for their evaluation of the abstracts from which the papers were selected. In particular, we would like to express our thanks to OLIVER JUNGKLAUS, GABRIELE MEWES, KLAUS REINSBERG and ANGELA SCHOLZ, who significantly contributed to the organization of the Forum. Furthermore, our thanks goes to SILKE SCHARF for her work on the layout and editing support of this book, and to JIM CURTISS, JAMIE BULLOCH, and DÃNALL Ã MEARÃIN for their English proof-reading. As experience from previous years documents, the course of the IAMO Forum continues to profit from the support and engagement of the IAMO administration, which we gratefully acknowledge. Last but not least, we are very grateful to the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Federal Ministry of Nutrition, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV), the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Haniel Foundation and the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO) for their respective financial support.Agribusiness, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Farm Management, Industrial Organization, International Development, Labor and Human Capital, Land Economics/Use, Productivity Analysis,

Deliverable D8.1 (D18): Report on the provision of a set of promising technologies relevant to safe and just operating space

The Report on the Provision of a set of Promising Technologies Relevant to Safe and Just Space Operating Space (SJOS) is the first report of Work Package 8 (WP8) of the BrightSpace research project. One of the aims of the project is to identify strategies for current agri-food systems to strengthen and adopt production and processing practices that would lead to climate neutrality and eliminate the negative environmental and social impacts, as targeted by the European Green Deal. The objectives of the European Green Deal are closely linked to the transformation of the agri-food sector, a transformation that depends critically on the successful adoption of emerging technologies that contribute to operating within the Safe and Just Operating Space . Given the importance of sustainable technological innovation and adoption, the core objective of this study is to identify key emerging technologies and innovations in agricultural production and food processing and their alignment with the SJOS. In line with this objective, this report present the results of an extensive scan of emerging technologies, their systematization, and a literature review mapping the existing empirical evidence on their impact on the SJOS. The study employs a systemic methodological approach, combining artificial intelligence-based technology scans, a systematic literature, and qualitative comparative analyses. It leverages the TC technology scan tool to identify relevant technologies and clusters them into meaningful categories using the topic modeling tool (Latent Dirichlet Allocation application). A systematic review of the literature further elucidates the implications of identified technologies for the SJOS, enriching the study with existing empirical findings and expert insights. The technology scan identified 62 key emerging technologies for agriculture and food processing, which were categorized and assigned to six clusters. The literature review helped to extract existing empirical evidence on 13 technologies that already show significant promise in terms of their contribution to advancing the sector towards the SJOS. Among the promising technologies in the decision Tools cluster, artificial intelligence (AI), decision support systems, and big data (including the Internet of Things) were found to be of high scientific interest. Blockchain is also emerging as a frontrunner, demonstrating profound potential to enhance food security and economic resilience in the agri-food sector. Genome editing, biofortification, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and in vitro culture within Gene Change technologies were also found to be promising in terms of their impact on sustainability. For the Robotic Agriculture cluster, the literature points to a future potential mainly in farm automation. Within the Integrative technology cluster, the academic focus is on regenerative agriculture. Among the technologies in the Transparent Food cluster, hyperspectral imaging stands out as the technology that has demonstrated a significant contribution to SJOS so far. In the Rural-Urban Technology cluster, vertical farming emerges as the only technology with promising prospects. The results underline the promising role of technological progress in achieving the SJOS and the ambitious strategic goals of the EU. This deliverable forms the basis for the subsequent research within WP8 (Task 8.1). In the next research steps, AI and the literature-based identification of promising technologies will be complemented by experts’ assessment. With the help of expert panels, the promising technologies will be evaluated in terms of their technological parameters as well their scalability and ability to fill critical SJOS gaps and drive transformative change

Deliverable D3.1 (D5): Preliminary report on the impact on technology, structural change and demand side processes

This deliverable presents preliminary work from Work Package (WP) 3. The WP aims to provide and improve basic understanding of non-policy processes relevant to Safe and Just Operating Space (SJOS) outcomes. The WP takes an ex-post perspective to study the relationships of interest. This provides the basis for ex-ante modelling activities within BrightSpace. Specifically, WP3 aims to systematically collect the available empirical knowledge of relevant non-policy processes, identify research gaps, and address these gaps through novel empirical analysis. It covers non-policy processes on the supply as well as on the demand side. The preliminary deliverable presents completed and planned activities relating, on the supply side, to on-farm technology usage, farm structural change, farming intensity and field structural change. Those are tasks 3.1 and 3.2. The deliverable also reports completed activities and planned work for task 3.3 Consumer diets/preferences/waste reflecting the demand side processes addressed in the WP. Within each chapter, we first provide the results of a systematic literature review to collect empirical evidence of how the considered process links to the outcome of different SJ dimensions. This literature review also identifies major research gaps where empirical knowledge is lacking to determine the importance of a process for an SJ dimension or where empirical quantification is lacking to provide sufficient information to model the relationship. Secondly, in each section, we present the empirical activities we aim to conduct within the second half of WP3. Thirdly, we discuss how empirical knowledge of the considered processes can be included in ex-ante models, identifying modelling needs and possible modelling interfaces. The literature review on the linkages between the SJOS and agricultural production decisions provide guidance and prioritization for future modelling and further research activities. Our findings reveal substantial knowledge on the relationship between on-farm technology usage, farm and field structural change, consumer preferences, and waste with the thematic areas of the EU SJOS. The literature review also identifies the need for more empirical work to generate useful estimates that can be used to quantify and model the identified relationships in ex-ante models. The planned activities described under ‘intended work’ for the second half of the WP3 are open to modification based on the project development during the implementation of the activities