A Reappraisal of the Role of Agriculture in Economic Growth in Melanesian Countries

Fortunes in the agricultural sectors of four of the largest South Pacific countries are traced in recent decades by estimating the single factoral terms of trade index. The single factoral terms of trade are measured for agriculture in four Melanesian countries-Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu-over the period, 1970 to 2002. This index provides a useful method to assess changes in returns to factors employed in agricultural production in these countries. Except in Solomon Islands, farmers experienced a deteriorating index, indicating that they have reaped progressively lower returns to their resources. In Solomon Islands, returns to resources are shown to have increased slightly. A sustained contribution by the agricultural sector to economic growth requires a major improvement in returns to farm resources. Of the three components of the factoral terms of trade index, product price increases and cost decreases are argued to be unlikely to yield great dividends in the foreseeable future. Most potential lies in increasing TFP, which will depend on more effective work from the national research and extension services, and greater transfer of improved technologies from international research centres than achieved to date.factoral terms of trade, Melanesia, smallholders, total factor productivity, International Development, D24, O12, O47, Q17,

Evidence on trends in the single factoral terms of trade in African agricultural commodity production

The ability of African countries to achieve sustained improvements in agricultural incomes depends on their ability to generate total factor productivity (TFP) change in their agricultural sectors and adjust to movements in agricultural output and input prices. The single factoral terms of trade index measures these changes, calculated as changes in the product of TFP and the agricultural terms of trade. Estimates of the single factoral terms of trade index for the selected commodities over the period 1970-2002 are reported and discussed for 33 African countries for which data sets are available. The index is estimated for producers of coffee, cocoa, copra, palm kernel oil, coconut oil, palm oil, rice, cotton and sugar using annual agricultural sector data. Few countries managed to achieve an increase in the index over this period and it declined in many countries. In the light of the empirical evidence assembled, three broad strategic options are considered, covering agricultural trade reform, economic diversification strategies and strategies to improve total factor productivity in commodity production.Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade,

Evaluating the Impacts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on Trade in Fruit and Vegetables within the APEC Countries

The global food marketing network is being constantly reshaped, providing opportunities and challenges to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to develop international trade in food products. ICT is likely to be especially important for food products such as fresh fruit and vegetables that are differentiated and sensitive to timeliness in supply, possess varied quality dimensions, and involve considerable supply accumulation and assortment. Digital ICT (Internet and mobile phones), in particular, is expected to facilitate international trade and encourage efficiency in the fruit and vegetables marketing system in two main ways. First, it reduces communication and search costs through cheaper and more effective media. Second, it improves market information and corrects information externalities along the supply chain, by promoting greater price transparency and enabling consumer preferences and tastes to be more precisely met. We employed a gravity model of international trade to test the hypothesis that ICT positively affects bilateral international trade in fruit and vegetables between member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies in the period from 1997 to 2006. Explanatory variables include the usage of the Internet, mobile telephones and fixed telephone lines, and a broad range of factors that might determine the value of bilateral trade such as income per capita, population, distance between trading partners and common language. A Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood model was estimated in order to handle zero trade observations and reduce biases caused by heteroskedasticity. Empirical results were not quite as expected, with relatively minor impact of digital ICT. They suggest that using digital ICT has significant positive effects on trade in fruit and vegetables between APEC countries only for the Internet in exporting countries. A stronger positive impact was discerned for the traditional form of ICT, fixed telephone lines in exporting importing countries. Nevertheless, fostering the development of digital ICT infrastructure and its diffusion should make exporters in APEC countries more competitive in the fruit and vegetables supply chain through the Internet effect, and boost their trade values in these products.International Relations/Trade,

Measuring Regional Productivity Differences in the Australian Wool Industry: A Metafrontier Approach

Using panel data, we estimate technology gaps for four distinct sheep-producing regions in Eastern Australia (Northern New South Wales, Central and South-Eastern New South Wales, South-Western New South Wales and South-West Victoria) that reflect spatial environmental and technological differences in wool production. A deterministic stochastic metafrontier production function model is estimated that envelops the stochastic frontiers of the four regions. This metafrontier approach enables us to estimate the environment-technology gap ratio that reflects these spatial differences in the environment and variations in production technologies in the wool enterprise for benchmarked farmers in each region. As a result, a more accurate estimation is possible of changes in total factor productivity on farms in the different regions. The major findings are that environment-technology gaps do exist between regions but they are relatively small. Greater variation is apparent within regions. Variation in technical efficiency seems to depend on the harshness of the production environment and whether consultancy advice is regularly received by the benchmarking group.Efficiency, Productivity, Metafrontier, Technology Gaps, Wool Production, Spatial, Livestock Production/Industries, Productivity Analysis, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Evidence of Scope Economies in Australian Agriculture

Scope economies can be used in studies of farming systems to provide a measure of synergies between different farm enterprises and between activities within farm enterprises. In this paper, they are reported for farms in three benchmarking groups in Australia by estimating stochastic input distance functions and calculating an 'economies of scope parameter'. Evidence of significant scope economies between sheep and crop enterprises, and between beef and crop enterprises, is presented and discussed. Similar evidence is reported between wool and lamb activities and wool and mature sheep trading activities within the sheep enterprise.Australia, Crops, Livestock, Sheep, Scope Economics, Crop Production/Industries, Livestock Production/Industries, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Industrial Organization,

Evidence of Scope Economies in the Australian Wheat-Sheep Zone

Scope economies can be used in studies of farming systems to provide a measure of synergies between different farm enterprises and between activities within farm enterprises. In this paper, they are reported for farms in a benchmarking group in the Wheat-Sheep Zone in New South Wales, Australia, by estimating a stochastic input distance function and calculating an ‘economies of scope parameter’. Evidence is presented of scope economies between sheep and beef enterprises, sheep and crop enterprises, and beef and crop enterprises.Australia, crops, livestock, scope economies,

Animal Efficiency in an Intensive Beef Production System

A stochastic input distance function is estimated to analyse the efficiency with which physical characteristics of individual lot-fed beef cattle in Australia are combined with conventional inputs to produce a final product possessing defined quality attributes. High mean technical efficiency estimates are reported for all animals and by breed. All partial output elasticities with respect to inputs are of expected sign. Of four outputs included in the analysis, carcass weight and moisture retention in meat after cooking have highly significant coefficients of expected sign, but two meat quality variables have coefficients of unexpected sign indicating that they decline as inputs increase. Some evidence is detected of scope economies between moisture retention in meat and the inverse of meat compression.efficiency, intensive agriculture, scope economies, Livestock Production/Industries, Q12, C51,

The Confidential Inquiry into premature deaths of people with intellectual disabilities in the UK: a population-based study

SummaryBackgroundThe Confidential Inquiry into premature deaths of people with intellectual disabilities in England was commissioned to provide evidence about contributory factors to avoidable and premature deaths in this population.MethodsThe population-based Confidential Inquiry reviewed the deaths of people with intellectual disabilities aged 4 years and older who had been registered with a general practitioner in one of five Primary Care Trust areas of southwest England, who died between June 1, 2010, and May 31, 2012. A network of health, social-care, and voluntary-sector services; community contacts; and statutory agencies notified the Confidential Inquiry of all deaths of people with intellectual disabilities and provided core data. The Office for National Statistics provided data about the coding of individual cause of death certificates. Deaths were described as avoidable (preventable or amenable), according to Office for National Statistics definitions. Contributory factors to deaths were identified and quantified by the case investigator, verified by a local review panel meeting, and agreed by the Confidential Inquiry overview panel. Contributory factors were grouped into four domains: intrinsic to the individual, within the family and environment, care provision, and service provision. The deaths of a comparator group of people without intellectual disabilities but much the same in age, sex, and cause of death and registered at the same general practices as those with intellectual disabilities were also investigated.FindingsThe Confidential Inquiry reviewed the deaths of 247 people with intellectual disabilities. Nearly a quarter (22%, 54) of people with intellectual disabilities were younger than 50 years when they died, and the median age at death was 64 years (IQR 52–75). The median age at death of male individuals with intellectual disabilities was 65 years (IQR 54–76), 13 years younger than the median age at death of male individuals in the general population of England and Wales (78 years). The median age at death of female individuals with intellectual disabilities was 63 years (IQR 54–75), 20 years younger than the median age at death for female individuals in the general population (83 years). Avoidable deaths from causes amenable to change by good quality health care were more common in people with intellectual disabilities (37%, 90 of 244) than in the general population of England and Wales (13%). Contributory factors to premature deaths in a subset of people with intellectual disabilities compared with a comparator group of people without intellectual disabilities included problems in advanced care planning (p=0·0003), adherence to the Mental Capacity Act (p=0·0008), living in inappropriate accommodation (p<0·0001), adjusting care as needs changed (p=0·009), and carers not feeling listened to (p=0·006).InterpretationThe Confidential Inquiry provides evidence of the substantial contribution of factors relating to the provision of care and health services to the health disparities between people with and without intellectual disabilities. It is imperative to examine care and service provision for this population as potentially contributory factors to their deaths—factors that can largely be ameliorated.FundingDepartment of Health for England

A randomised controlled feasibility study of group cognitive behavioural therapy for people with severe asthma

Objectives: Evidence for the efficacy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in asthma is developing but it is not known if this translates to benefits in severe asthma or if a group approach is acceptable to this patient group. This study aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of Group-CBT in severe asthma. Method: This was a two-centre, randomised controlled parallel group feasibility study. Eligible participants (patients with severe asthma and a clinically significant diagnosis of anxiety and/or depression – Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD) score greater than 8 for the anxiety or depression sub-scale) received Group-CBT in weekly sessions for eight consecutive weeks and usual care or usual care only. Follow-up was for 16 weeks and end points were: Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire, Asthma Control Questionnaire, HAD, Dyspnoea-12, EuroQual-5D and EuroQuol-VAS. Results: 51 patients were randomised: 36% (51 out of 140) consent rate and 25% (13/51) attrition at week 16. Screening logs indicated that study take-up was influenced by patients living long distances from the treatment centre and inability to commit to the weekly demands of the programme. Drop-out was higher in Group-CBT compared due to inability to commit to the weekly programme because of poor health. Participants who contributed to focus group discussions reported that Group-CBT contributed to a better understanding of their illness and related approaches to anxiety management and acceptance of their asthma condition. Although weekly face-to-face sessions were challenging, this was the preferred method of delivery for these participants. Conclusions: This feasibility study shows that Group-CBT warrants further investigation as a potentially promising treatment option for patients with severe asthma. It has been possible but not easy to recruit and retain the sample. Options for a less demanding intervention schedule, such as less frequent face-to-face visits and the use of web-based interventions, require careful consideration

Coronal Structure of Low-Mass Stars

We investigate the change in stellar magnetic topology across the fully-convective boundary and its effects on coronal properties. We consider both the magnitude of the open flux that influences angular momentum loss in the stellar wind and X-ray emission measure. We use reconstructed maps of the radial magnetic field at the stellar surface and the potential-field source surface method to extrapolate a 3D coronal magnetic field for a sample of early-to-mid M dwarfs. During the magnetic reconstruction process it is possible to force a solution towards field geometries that are symmetric or antisymmetric about the equator but we demonstrate that this has only a modest impact on the coronal tracers mentioned above. We find that the dipole component of the field, which governs the large-scale structure, becomes increasingly strong as the stellar mass decreases, while the magnitude of the open (wind-bearing) magnetic flux is proportional to the magnitude of the reconstructed magnetic flux. By assuming a hydrostatic and isothermal corona we calculate X-ray emission measures (in magnitude and rotational modulation) for each star and, using observed stellar densities as a constraint, we reproduce the observed X-ray saturation at Ro < 0.1. We find that X-ray rotational modulation is not a good indicator of magnetic structure as it shows no trend with Rossby number but can be useful in discriminating between different assumptions on the field geometry.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, Published in MNRA