Project Report Series最新文献

{"title":"An Analysis of Risk and Return in Hog Finishing","authors":"F. Novak, L. Bauer, S. Dailly, R. Melvin","doi":"10.7939/R3Z60C52C","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3Z60C52C","url":null,"abstract":"The objectives of this study were to measure returns and the variation in returns for hog finishers in Alberta. From this base, different strategies were assessed as to their ability to reduce the level of price risk faced by producers. The National Tripartite Stabilization Program was reviewed along with hedging strategies using the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Live Hogs futures. Risk was measured using the Mean Square Error (MSE) and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) beta. A twelve month rolling average of nearby basis was used to predict hog prices. All of these strategies studied, the NTSP, a selective investment model, a 100% hedge and an optimal hedge, reduced risk compared to the base model. The 100% hedge reduced risk to the greatest extent. The NTSP alone reduced risk and increased returns. When using the Capital Market Line as a means of measuring the risk return tradeoff, all the strategies provided a viable alternative for risk reduction compared to the base model. The CAPM betas for the various strategies were very low. Hog finishing could provide a diversification opportunity for holders of a market portfolio.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126128508","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":"Conserving Water in Irrigated Agriculture: The Economics and Valuation of Water Rights","authors":"T. Veeman, M. Veeman, W. Adamowicz, S. Royer, Bruce Viney, R. Freeman, J. Baggs","doi":"10.7939/R33N20M24","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R33N20M24","url":null,"abstract":"The effective management of water resources in Alberta is crucial to sustainable agriculture, industrial development, and environmental management. The historical water allocation mechanism, administrative apportionment, has been viewed in recent years as ineffective and cumbersome. Accordingly, the revision of the Water Act in 1996, included an attempt to improve the efficiency of water allocation. By making the transfer of water rights possible, the revised Act provides many new options for water use and flexibility. The implications of transferable water rights in Alberta water policy must be carefully considered in order to determine the viability and suitability of such a system in the provincial context. This project examines some of the economic aspects of transferable water rights and the potential for effective water allocation by way of transfers in an Alberta setting. As a major part of this project, a hedonic price model, focusing on land values in southern Alberta, was constructed based on similar models, which have been used elsewhere to value water rights or agricultural products. The hedonic approach to market analysis uses the relationship between the price of land and the attributes of the land, such as water availability, soil quality and location, to explain differences in land prices. In this process, the hedonic model is used to estimate the implicit marginal price or value of each land attribute -- in our case, the marginal value of irrigation water. This value will provide us with an indirect estimate of the value of water rights in the region studied. An advantage of the technique is that it estimates the value that farmers express for irrigation water in the market place for land. Such values, then, give us an indication of the anticipated prices, which might prevail for water rights in southern Alberta. The focus of the study was an area of southern Alberta encompassing the counties of Wheatland, Newell, Cypress, Forty Mile, Taber, Warner, Lethbridge and Vulcan and the irrigation districts of Western, Eastern, St.Mary's, Taber, Lethbridge Northern, and portions of Raymond. Information was collected on the physical and economic characteristics of 230 land parcels, which were sold in this region in 1993 and early 1994. A crude comparison of the value of irrigated agricultural land and non-irrigated agricultural land in the sample reveals that irrigated land was worth, on average, $325 more per acre than non-irrigated land. In the ensuing analysis, it was estimated that the value of a parcel of land was determined largely by the buildings on it, the number of acres in the parcel, the proximity of the parcel to a major city (in this case Calgary or Lethbridge), and by the availability of irrigation water. In the hedonic model, the coefficient values of the variables included represent the marginal impact of each of these characteristics on land prices holding all other things constant. For example, the value of water rights","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"96 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132421505","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":"PORK RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR THE ALBERTA HOG INDUSTRY","authors":"F. Novak, J. Unterschultz","doi":"10.7939/R3R49GC7K","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3R49GC7K","url":null,"abstract":"This study simulated and evaluated several different types of marketing strategies from 1981 to 1995 and 1990 to 1995 in the Alberta pork industry. The various types of strategies analyzed included cash marketing, routine and selective hedging, routine forward contracting, routine window contracting using either a confidence interval or a projected break-even cost to set the window floor, routine minimum price contracting and selective window contracting. No one marketing strategy stood out as superior in all measurement criteria; increased mean revenues, lowered the standard deviation of revenues, reduced the frequency of large losses and reduced the maximum loss in absolute value. There are two main reasons as to why this was so. In several circumstances, such as the periods of late 1988, early 1989 and late 1994, early 1995 feed prices sharply increased while hog prices sharply declined. Some marketing strategies allowed for the hog price to be somewhat controlled, but did not provide protection on the input side, that is feed prices. Other strategies that used window contracting or minimum price contracting did allow for the eventual price received to cover the projected break-even price, but were expensive in doing so due to the cost of price insurance. This study provides a framework in which to develop shortterm window contracts that are fair to both the contract provider and pork producer.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127632519","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 Social Networks of Rural Business Owners in East Central Alberta","authors":"M. Deans, D. S. Gill, L. P. Apedaile","doi":"10.7939/R3R785S7W","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3R785S7W","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116781120","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":"Assessing the Consumer Acceptance and Market Potential of Alternative Meats","authors":"Bodo Steiner, L. Srivastava, Fei Gao","doi":"10.7939/R37P8TD5P","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R37P8TD5P","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction, project objectives and project background: This initiative to this project, including the original project proposal, goes back to Professor Kevin Chen (he is no longer with the Department of Rural Economy). The project was initially scheduled to begin on 2004/05/01. When I took over this project and started to work as Principal Investigator on January 1, 2005, the following objectives were to be fulfilled (taken from Professor Kevin Chen's initial proposal): 1) Documentation of consumer awareness, attitude, and choice regarding alternative meats \"At what level and to what extent are consumers aware of alternative meats?\" What is consumer interest level in alternative meats and their willingness to change consumption behavior (i.e. how much are they willing to pay for alternative meats)? \"What kinds of alternative meats are consumers eating?\" What kinds of alternative meats are consumers most likely to try in the future? \"Where are consumers buying and eating alternative meats (meat specialty store, direct market, supermarket, restaurant, and others)?\" What attributes do consumers find desirable in alternative meats (leanness, nutrition, adventure, taste, and others)?\" What are the main barriers affecting purchase of alternative meats (price, awareness of availability, exotic nature, cooking instructions, nutrition labeling, and others)? 2) Compilation of a consumer profile related to purchase of alternative meats \"How do various socioeconomic and demographic factors affect consumer awareness, attitude, and acceptance of alternative meats?\" What are the distinct consumer market segments that Alberta's alternative livestock and meat producers might target? 3) Development of marketing strategies and implications for the Alberta alternative livestock industry \"What are the implications of the findings in 1) and 2) for developing effective advertising and promotion strategies to support the further development of Alberta's alternative livestock industry?\"What are the implications of the finding in 1) and 2) for producing alternative meat products that are consumer friendly? \"What are the implications of the findings in 1) and 2) for selecting the main marketing and distribution channels for alternative meat products? 1 A decision was made together with the DLFOA to focus our research efforts on three species: bison, elk and lamb. The overall purpose of our research was to improve the understanding of consumer perceptions towards the consumption of alternative meats, notably the above three species. More specifically, the objectives were to: 1) Document the attitude and purchasing choices for three alternative meats which are strategically important to Alberta's alternative livestock industry. 2) Analyze the effects of socio-economic factors of Alberta consumers in purchasing the above alternative meats. 3) Explore possibilities for market segmentation and marketing implications, also for other alternative meats (other than bison, elk and","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132826376","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":"Canadian Chicken Industry: Consumer Preferences, Industry Structure and Producer Benefits from Investment in Research and Advertising","authors":"E. Goddard, B. Shank, C. Panter, Tomas Nilsson, S. Cash","doi":"10.7939/R3WW77572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3WW77572","url":null,"abstract":"The Canadian chicken industry has operated under supply management since the mid-1970s. Canadian consumer preferences for chicken have grown dramatically since then possibly in response to concerns about health and the levels of fat and cholesterol in red meats. However Canadian consumers are also looking for convenience with their food purchases. Canadians are buying their chicken in frozen further processed forms, fresh by cut without skin and bone and in a variety of other different ways reflecting their unique willingness to pay for various attributes. There is also an increasing trend for retailers and processors to brand the fresh chicken product sold through grocery stores (for example, Maple Leaf Prime). The preferences Canadian consumer have for various chicken products, the prices they are comfortable paying and the strategies followed by processors/retailers can directly affect the outcomes of industry wide strategies such as investment in generic advertising and research or the impact of international market changes such as border closures. This research is an initial attempt to quantify Canadian consumer preferences – for fresh product by type – for product by level of processing – for chicken product by cut - for fresh chicken by brand - to examine the impact of substitutability on a variety of market shocks. The various different disaggregations of Canadian chicken consumption are used in a number of simulation models to illustrate how important preferences are to producer returns when there are market shocks. If Canadians found all chicken products available in the grocery store to be perfectly substitutable then previous policy analysis assuming chicken is one homogeneous product would be sufficient for industry policy analysis purposes. If Canadians view all the different chicken products as imperfectly substitutable and given that various chicken products are produced in relatively fixed proportions (white and dark meat, for example) further understanding of how consumers make their purchase decisions could enhance the industries ability to predict outcomes. For example, border closing to Canadian exports ( as a result of an Avian influenza outbreak, for example) would result in a significant increase in the dark meat products available for sale through Canadian grocery stores. The results presented in this research could provide a clue as to how much dark meat prices might decline while white meat prices might remain unaffected. The results reported suggest that at the consumer level, chicken fresh and frozen products are not perceived to be perfect substitutes, within a narrow category such as fresh chicken breasts, they are not perceived as even close substitutes, within the fresh category branded products such as those developed by Lilydale and Maple Leaf are not perceived as perfect substitutes. As well, an initial look at the demand for individual chicken products by household suggests that there is far from a common buyi","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"102 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133288765","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":"Returns to Farmland Investment in Alberta, 1964-89","authors":"W. Phillips, L. Bauer, Kojo M. Akabua","doi":"10.7939/R3CV4BZ8Z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3CV4BZ8Z","url":null,"abstract":"The objective of this study was to analyze the performance of Alberta farmland relative to investment opportunities from financial securities. It is an extension of an earlier study undertaken by Mercier (1988) and Phillips et al. (1989). This study re-examines the period from 1964 to 1985, and extends the data series to 1989. The results show that Alberta farmland out performed the stock market in both nominal and real terms, but with greater volatility. In nominal terms, farmland had an annual return of 19.8% as opposed to 12.2% in the stock market. The standard deviation of returns in farmland was 20.6% compared to 16.2%. The real return for farmland was 12.6% whereas the stock market earned 5.9%. About 55% of the total return to investment in Alberta farmland was due to capital gain; measured in real terms, income accounted for the major portion at about 66%. Farmland and stock market returns were found to be uncorrelated in both nominal and real terms. Beta values, which measure the degree of association, were estimated at -0.1632 and -0.1351 for nominal and real terms respectively. Neither nominal nor real beta values were significantly different from zero at the 5% probability level. These results are not inconsistent with earlier studies, and are attributed to the fact that returns in agriculture are subject to a different set of economic and environmental influences than are present for the stock market generally. This suggests possibilities for risk reduction by including stock market investments in conjunction with farmland ownership. Whereas no correlation was found between farmland and the stock market, returns in excess of what can be explained by compensation for risk were detected. The estimated alpha values of 11.27% and 10.21% for the nominal and real situations were significantly different from zero at the 5% level of probability. These values may be due, partially, to the fact that real estate taxes were not deducted in computing the results. Furthermore, the costs of administration in farmland investments, because of the much less formal market environment in which they are held, may be considerably greater than for the stock market. In addition,' stock market investments are considerably more divisible and liquid than is the farmland counterpart. Factors such as these bear further study.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114103061","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 Nutraceutical Industry: Policy Implications for Future Directions","authors":"J. Unterschultz, M. Lerohl, Yanning Peng, R. Gurung","doi":"10.7939/R3N29P765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3N29P765","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115851763","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 ECONOMICS OF RIPARIAN MANAGEMENT: A LITERATURE REVIEW","authors":"D. Watson, Jamie Miller, P. Boxall, J. Unterschultz","doi":"10.7939/R3513TX6T","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3513TX6T","url":null,"abstract":"The potential for impact by grazing livestock on unprotected watercourses may vary with climate, landscape level factors (including the landform within which the pasture is located), biophysical characteristics of the watercourse itself, and with pasture and grazing management practices. Policies seeking to implement cost-effective measures to protect downstream water quality need to acknowledge large-scale as well as 8 small-scale processes which can moderate or exacerbate potential sources of pollution. Evidence suggests that unrestricted livestock access accounts for a relatively modest share of watercourse pollution in humid temperate regions. This is compared with such watershed-specific factors as leaking septic tanks and confinement feeding systems. A wide variety of evidence suggests that the degree of compatibility of grazing livestock with a healthy riparian ecosystem should be viewed as a hypothesis that is testable on a site-specific basis. Greater understanding of the factors causal to livestock behavior in, and impact on, watercourses may help to better focus prevention and remediation efforts by both producers and policymakers. Crouse, M.R. and R.R. Kindschy. 1984. A method for predicting riparian vegetation potential of semiarid rangelands. Range watersheds, riparian zones, and economics: interrelationships in management and use: Proceedings, 1984 Pacific Northwest Range Management Short Course, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. 18-24. Dickard, M. 1998. Management Strategies for Improved Cattle Distribution and Subsequent Riparian Health. M.S. Thesis. University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho. summary: This was a Masters thesis in two chapters. The first chapter outlined riparian ecosystems. It included discussions of grazing distribution and behaviour. The author discussed the roles of habitat type, water, and shade. Dickard then discussed management strategies and opportunities. These included off-stream water and salt placement. The second chapter outlined a research project by the author, which involved assessing off-stream water and salt as management strategies, for improved cattle distribution and subsequent riparian health. Sixty cow/calf pairs were allotted to three pastures, with three grazing strategies: 1) stream access, with access to off-stream water and salt, 2) stream access, with no access to off-stream water and salt, and 3) ungrazed control. Overall, the author found that cattle distribution was affected by the presence of off-stream water and salt. However, no changes were noted for grazing activity, travel distances, forage utilization, or water quality (in any of the three treatments). Elmore, W. and P. Cuplin. 1984. Use of color infrared photography in stream habitat inventories. Range watersheds, riparian zones, and economics: interrelationships in management and use: Proceedings, 1984 Pacific Northwest Range Management Short Course, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. 6-12. Findley, J. 1984. Rip","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123668501","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 Comparison of Risk Between Continuous and Fallow Cropping Regimes","authors":"L. Bauer, S. Jeffrey, Charles C. Orlick","doi":"10.7939/R3J679421","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3J679421","url":null,"abstract":"The focus of this study is to examine the risk and return trade-offs for various crop rotations and tillage systems. The geographic area represented in this study will be that contained within four soil, and five climatic zones with in the Province of Alberta. The predominant crops grown in these areas (i.e. spring wheat, barley, and canola) were used to derive cost estimates that reflect agronomic processes. The results obtained frome ach of these areas indicate that several generalizations can be made about the interactions of crop rotations, tillage system and farm size. Firstly, the size of predicted net revenue increases and the probability of generating a negative net revenue decreases as one moves north from the Brown soil zone into the Dark Brown and Black soils. Secondly, as one moves from the Brown soil zone through the Black soil zone, less significance can be placed on fallow crop rotations. Lastly, at the current price of the fallow herbicides, conventional tillage systems have a cost advantage over the alternatives tested here.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123960880","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}