Food Industry eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Is Access to Tractor Service a Binding Constraint for Nepali Terai Farmers?","authors":"Hiroyuki Takeshima, R. Adhikari, Anjani Kumar","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2740619","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2740619","url":null,"abstract":"Using results from the three rounds of Nepal Living Standard Surveys (conducted in 1995, 2003, and 2010), this study empirically assesses whether access to rented tractors or custom hiring services is a binding constraint on the income growth of farm households in Nepal. Because four-wheel tractors of medium horsepower are still the primary suppliers of these tractor services, access to these services can be restricted. First, we investigated the determinants of the adoption of hired tractors as well as the intensity of their use (measured by real annual expenditures on renting tractors). Results suggest that the adoption and the intensity patterns are generally consistent with the conventional theory of the demand for agricultural mechanization, indicating that the supply of these services may be relatively efficient in meeting the demand. However, adoption is still affected by the presence of tractor owners within the same village district committee, indicating that the proximity to tractor service providers may still partly determine accessibility. This second point was more formally tested using matching estimators within the Terai region of Nepal. It was found that, on average, the supply of tractor services might have evolved to a relatively efficient level in the Terai so that those who benefited from renting in tractors generally had access to such services. However, for at least certain segments of farm households in the Terai, insufficient access to tractor services was still a binding constraint on the growth of farm household incomes. The policy implications of these findings are briefly discussed in the last section.","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125120049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Farm Transition and Indigenous Growth: The Rise to Medium- and Large-Scale Farming in Ghana","authors":"Nazaire Houssou, A. Chapoto, C. Asante‐Addo","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2740458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2740458","url":null,"abstract":"This paper characterizes the transition from small-scale farming and the drivers of farm size growth among medium- and large-scale farmers in Ghana. The research was designed to better understand the dynamics of change in Ghana’s farm structure and contribute to the debate on whether Africa should pursue a smallholder-based or large-scale oriented agricultural development strategy. The results suggest a rising number of medium-scale farmers and a declining number of smallholder farmers in the country, a pattern that is consistent with a changing farm structure in the country’s agricultural sector. More important, findings show that the rise to medium- and large-scale farming is significantly associated with successful transition of small-scale farmers rather than entry of medium or large farms into agriculture, reflecting small-scale farmers successfully breaking through the barriers of subsistence agriculture into more commercialized production systems. The findings in this paper also suggest that some of the factors thought to be important for change in farm structure are no obstacle to farm size growth, even though they may foster transition. Notably, the results here diverge from the patterns observed in Zambia and Kenya, which indicate that the emergent farmers came mostly from the urban elite. Unfortunately, past and current policy discussions have not featured these emergent farmers sufficiently in the quest to transform agriculture in Ghana. Government should capitalize on these emergent farmers who have a demonstrated ability to graduate productively as it strives to address challenges in the smallholder sector.","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128413146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Microbiological Spoilage of Dried Fishes","authors":"G. Sivaraman, V. Siva","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2709070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2709070","url":null,"abstract":"Drying is one of the traditional methods used as preservation of fish. Salted/curing of dried fish is a major source of animal protein available with cheaper cost for the society, especially people residing in coastal areas (Prasad et al., 1999). The consumption of dried fishes is about 32% of the total marine landings in India and is second to fresh fish consumption (Thomas and Balachandran, 1989). About 17% of the total catch is being used for the production of dry fishes in India about (Jeya Shakila et al., 2003). Dry the fish by removing available water in the fish tissue thereby unavailable to microbial growth. Commonly common salt is used to destroy the non-halophilic and spore forming bacteria and also to osmophilic fungi. In spite of the curing with salt, the qualities of dry fishes are being frequently contaminated with bacteria, fungus and insect contamination etc.","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121441183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How Smallholder Farmers in Uttarakhand Reworked the System of Rice Intensification: Innovations from Sociotechnical Interactions in Fields and Villages","authors":"D. Sen","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2699394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2699394","url":null,"abstract":"The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is presented in Asia and other parts of the world as an alternative ‘agro-ecological’ and ‘farm-based’ innovation in rice production. SRI calls for modifications in crop-management practices without relying on external inputs, which makes it different from innovations based on new rice varieties, which became dominant since the Green Revolution. SRI practices are therefore said to be appropriate for resource-poor smallholder farmers.Previous studies on SRI have focused mainly on the yield effects in comparison with other crop management practices, overall costs and benefits of SRI or deviations from recommended practices. These studies have largely neglected farmers’ underlying strategies. This thesis provides an understanding of whether and how SRI can be called a ‘farm-based’ innovation. Rather than returning to earlier debates about SRI's adoption and disadoption, the study looks as how farm households and communities in Western Himalayan region of India responded to the introduction of SRI. The main objective of this research was to understand how farmers respond to an intervention like SRI and what this tells us about SRI as a socio-technical system. The main research question addressed by this thesis is how SRI, conceived as a set of practices introduced from outside the communities, was incorporated into the local rice farming system. Specifically, the thesis examines how existing work groups were adjusted to accommodate the new method, how the SRI practices were interpreted and adjusted to fit with the local social and agro-ecological arrangements, and how the new method influenced existing rice farming practices in the locality. The research was carried out in three contrasting villages of Uttarakhand, located in the Bhilangana sub-basin of the Western Himalayan region of India. SRI was introduced in this area in 2008. Fieldwork in the three villages was conducted throughout two rice seasons.The theoretical resources drawn upon for this research include the concept of “socio-technical system”, “agriculture as performance”, and the culture of “task groups”. Together these concepts help to understand rice farming as a collective and mutually shaping social and technical performance rather than the activity of an individual farmer. The thesis shows how existing and new rice farming practices and task groups are reconfigured through socio-technical innovations within a given agro-ecological setting. SRI acted as a catalyst, initiating a process of readjustments in the socio-technical configurations of rice farming, varying according to the local context. Farm households, while incorporating SRI into the existing farming system, try to seek complementarity and synergy between various rice farming methods. This allows fluidity among task groups and leads to the extension and diversification of the repertoire of methods used, taking into account the dynamics of the larger socio-economic conditions. The t","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"98 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130412070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"US Maize Data Reveals Adaptation to Heat and Water Stress","authors":"T. Thomas","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2741261","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2741261","url":null,"abstract":"Heat is a serious barrier to maize productivity increases, and heat is expected to rise as a result of climate change. Using county-level annual yields for rainfed maize for 2,616 US counties from 1980 to 2010, we conduct a multivariate, nonparametric yield response analysis to weather, maize price, and time trend to project climate impact on maize and to compare with climate projections from crop models. When we compare with climate impacts predicted by biophysical models, we find that our analysis tends to support the most pessimistic of the biophysical model projections for climate change. We also demonstrate that growth in maize yields in the United States between 1980 and 2010 was higher under high temperatures than under moderate temperatures, with yields growing 20.2 percent faster when the mean daily maximum temperature for the warmest month ranged from 34 to 35 degrees Celsius instead of 28 to 29 degrees. Similarly, we find that US maize has become more tolerant of lower rainfall levels, with yields growing 15.9 percent faster between 1980 and 2010 when rainfall is below 250 millimeters in the first four months of the growing period compared with when it is between 400 and 450 millimeters (the optimal amount of rainfall). This suggests that significant adaptation to current and future effects of climate change is already taking place for US maize.","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"97 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123462636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Assurance of Food Safety in Supply Chains via Relational Networking: A Social Network Perspective","authors":"T. Schoenherr, R. Narasimhan, P. Bandyopadhyay","doi":"10.1108/IJOPM-02-2014-0051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-02-2014-0051","url":null,"abstract":"Purpose – Taking a social network perspective, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the assurance of food safety via relational networking. Design/methodology/approach – The authors consider both informal and formal relational networking, and explore a firm’s learning orientation, risk aversion and consumer pressure as potential precursors to such relational networking. It is further hypothesized that relational networking generates both industry and supply chain knowledge, which is suggested to be beneficial for contamination detection. The model is tested with survey data collected among food-producing firms in India, the world’s second largest food producer. Findings – The authors find a positive influence of consumer pressure on both a firm’s learning orientation and risk aversion, which in turn affect both informal and formal relational networking. Informal networking further generated industry knowledge and was beneficial for contamination detection. Formal relational networking i...","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134398880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Labour Scarcity and Farm Mechanisation: A Cross State Comparison","authors":"A Amarender A. Reddy, Radhika Rani, G. Reddy","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2666935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2666935","url":null,"abstract":"The paper has analysed the trends in labour use (casual labour and family labour), machine use and labour productivity for five major crops namely, paddy, wheat, cotton, sugarcane and chickpea in the major states. The paper test the hypothesis that there are significant changes in the labour use, farm mechanisation and labour productivity across the states and crops by using the data collected from comprehensive cost of cultivation scheme for the period 1997 to 2010. The labour use per hectare decreased mainly in wheat, chickpea and paddy. The farm mechanisation is speeded up replacing both human and bullock capital. This transformation started in Punjab and Haryana and spread to other states. It increased labour productivity significantly when compared to land productivity. There is also a process of casualisation of agricultural labour as reflected in the increased share of casual labour in states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat and Haryana. However, in most of the crops in Orissa, West Bengal and in some crops in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan still the share of family labour is high with low level of farm mechanisation and less labour productivity which reflects the prevalence of subsistence agriculture. The positive association among farm mechanisation, displacement of family labour and increased casualisation of labour is observed across many states and crops. Some less developed states are catching up in the process. In this process, there is a steep increase in the labour productivity in agriculture, but the growth rates in wage rates are not commensurate with labour productivity growth. There is huge labour productivity gap that exists across the states with Punjab and Haryana leading with Madhya Pradesh and Orissa at the lower level","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128000576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Fish is the Friend of Matriliny: Reef Density Predicts Matrilineal Inheritance","authors":"Ariel BenYishay, Pauline A. Grosjean, Joe Vecci","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2658484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2658484","url":null,"abstract":"This paper studies the influence of marine ecology on social institutions of inheritance and descent. In a sample of 79 small-scale horticultural fishing communities in the Solomon Islands, and in samples of 186 to 1,265 societies across the world, we find that coral reef density systematically predicts the prevalence of matrilineal inheritance. Moreover, this result likely reflects adaptation of institutions to ecological conditions, as it holds within ethno-linguistic groups. Reef density explains as much as 10% of the variation in inheritance rules across villages in the Solomon Islands. Explanations based on the sexual division of labor and on inclusive fitness arguments support our results. We also document some of the demographic consequences of matrilineal inheritance, including smaller household and village population size, but find at best weak evidence that matrilineal inheritance translates into higher female economic or political agency.","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116826954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Growth of SHG-Bank Linkage Programme -- A Comparative Study of Six Regions in India","authors":"Louis Manohar","doi":"10.5281/ZENODO.44913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.44913","url":null,"abstract":"The SHG-Bank Linkage Programme in India has been a flag-ship programme of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), with the objective of enabling the poorest of the poor to access financial resources to increase household income and to achieve sustained livelihood. The purpose of the study was to explore the penetration and growth trend of SBL programme in the six regional divisions of India.","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"215 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116288515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Density-Ratio Model of Crop Yield Distributions","authors":"Y. Zhang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2640625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2640625","url":null,"abstract":"This paper proposes a density ratio estimator of crop yield distributions, wherein the number of observations for individual distributions is often quite small. The density ratio approach models individual densities as distortions from a common baseline density. We introduce a probability integral transformation to the density ratio method that simplifies the modeling of distortion functions. We further present an implementation approach based on the Poisson regression, which facilitates model estimation and diagnostics. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate good finite sample performance of the proposed method. We apply this method to estimate the corn yield distributions of 99 Iowa counties and calculate crop insurance premiums. Lastly we illustrate that we can employ the proposed method to effectively identify profitable insurance policies.","PeriodicalId":107048,"journal":{"name":"Food Industry eJournal","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130215510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}