The Niger Food Crisis: Causes and Implications for Research and Development from an Integrated Agricultural Economics Perspective

During the 2004 food crisis in Niger, the weakness of the main production system, millet, to produce enough food to sustain short term crises, has been revealed. Questions arise how the Nigerian smallholder systems can be assisted by research and development policies to intensify production and improve food security. The paper assesses technical options according to their economic sustainability. A sequence of models is applied: On plot level, production functions of inter cropping systems were estimated to determine yields and their variability of the major crops. These data were fed in a nonlinear program to test the inn ovations, first at stable prices, then at declining prices that were obtained from an interregional trade model. The latter was shocked by the excess obtained from the innovations' surpluses. Results show that due to risk aversion and price volatility of output markets, farmers adopt intensive innovations less than expected. Instead, they switch to low-input techniques. Recommendations derived from the study are that research has to develop low-risk technologies to intensify Nigerian millet systems, and that domestic market policies have to stabilize prices in order to reduce market risks and set incentives for intensification. Price stabilization has to be done in a market-conform way, through buying and selling of millet, but not through price fixing or subsidizing.Food security, Niger, small scale farming, risk management, Food Security and Poverty, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, O13, Q01, Q12, Q16,

Subsistence agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe: how to break the vicious circle?

Subsistence agriculture is probably the least understood and the most neglected type of agriculture. In a globalised, market-driven world, it remains at the same time a myth and a marginal phenomenon. CONTENTS: Subsistence Agriculture in Development: Its Role in Processes of Structural Change; Franz Heidhues, Michael Brüntrup. Institutions and Technologies for Subsistence Agriculture: How to Increase Commercialization; Zvi Lerman. Policy Options to Overcome Subsistence Agriculture in the CEECs; Joachim von Braun, Daniela Lohlein. Decision Making Patterns of Subsistence Farmers in Bulgaria; Plamen Mishev, Philip Kostov. Commercialisation of Subsistence Agriculture in Transition Economies: On Imperfect Competition, Market Development and Support Policies; Ernst-August Nuppenau. Development Perspectives of Subsistence Farms in Southeastern Poland: Social Buffer Stock or Commercial Agriculture? Martin Petrick, Ewa Tyran. The Market Potential and Patterns of Contemporary Agriculture in Romania's Northwestern Plain; Csaba M. Kovács. Subsistence Farming in Bulgaria: Between Tradition and Market Requirements; Diana Kopeva, Nivelin Noev. The Significance of Subsistence Farming in Georgia as an Economic and Social Buffer; Hannah Kegel. Agrarian Reform and Subsistence Agriculture in Russia; Vladimir Yefimov. Economic Background and Development Opportunities of Individual Subsidiary Holdings in the Ukraine: Some Empirical Evidence; Andriy Nedoborovskyy. Modeling Subsistence Agriculture in Russia: Effects of Total Productivity Changes and Reduction of Marketing Margins; Peter Wehrheim, Peter Wobst --

Subsistence Agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe: Determinants and Perspectives

Subsistence agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has only recently gained interest from agricultural economists. Their origin, their future and even their definition is still not well elaborated. This paper tries to throw light on the issue of subsistence farming in CEE. It first discusses the theoretical and empirical background of subsistence agriculture. This part is followed by a typology of subsistence farming as found in CEE. Analysis considers several hypotheses on the cause of subsistence agriculture, among them the structure of land ownership, market imperfections and lack of alternative income sources or low opportunity costs of labour respectively. Of all these hypotheses, only the latter can be proofed empirically, which is done by a nonlinear regression analysis. The paper concludes that this gives reason to argue that rather economic problems than specific problems related to the agricultural structure in CEE determine the degree of subsistence farming. Consequently, structural and social policies rather than agricultural policies like market intervention are to be considered.Subsistence agriculture, transition, Central and Eastern Europe, Food Security and Poverty,

The Efficiency-Equity Tradeoffs in Agricultural Research Priority Setting: The Potential Impacts of Agricultural Research on Economic Surplus and Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

Public agricultural research has come under increasing pressure to redefine its strategic priorities to contribute to poverty alleviation goals. However, the issue of whether the poor benefit more from agricultural research that pursues efficiency or equity objectives remains unresolved, largely due to lack of empirical evidence on the nature and magnitude of the efficiencyequity tradeoffs. This paper estimates the potential impacts of agricultural research on economic surplus and poverty reduction in Nigeria, identifies strategic priorities according to both efficiency and equity criteria, and examines the nature and magnitude of the efficiencyequity tradeoffs. The results show that there are no significant efficiencyequity tradeoffs because the rural poor in Nigeria depend mainly on the production of food staples for both consumption and household income. Although introducing a poverty dimension does not result in a significant shift in strategic priorities, greater benefits to the poor are possible through poverty-based targeting without compromising total benefits. However, efforts made towards the realization of potential benefits to the poor from pursuing either efficiency or equity objectives would be more important than mere targeting of research. Therefore, both agricultural research and support services, including extension, credit, input supply, and infrastructure, should be targeted to the poor to achieve poverty alleviation goals through agricultural research.poverty reduction, economic surplus, research priority setting, Nigeria, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, I32, I38, O13, O32, Q16,

Biogas production vs. dung combustion as household energy in rural Ethiopia

The objective of the study was to investigate the potential of dung as primary and secondary energy source, i.e. direct combustion of dung and combustion of its secondary products biogas or dried digestate, under consideration of its quality as fertilizer. The results of the analysis show the similarity of dung and digestate regarding combustion characteristics. Fertilizer values proved better for digestate. However, calorific value of dung proved much lower than those of biogas. Thus, biogas represents a good alternative energy source with double benefit. Besides its better combustion characteristics compared to dried dung, it also delivers a superior fertilizer

Development of Agricultural Market and Trade Policies in the CEE Candidate Countries.

This synthesis report focuses on the evolution of agricultural market and trade policies in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) candidate countries in the period 1997 to 2001. The developments were crucially influenced by (OECD, 2000a): ⢠the situation in world agricultural markets; ⢠the overall macroeconomic development in the countries considered; ⢠the prospective EU accession; ⢠bringing domestic agricultural policy in line with the Uruguay Agreement on Agriculture (URAA). High 1997 agricultural prices on world commodity markets were followed by a marked depression in 1998. With the exemption of milk products this trend continued in 1999. Likewise the economic and financial crisis in Russia had a considerable impact on agricultural policies. It hit the regions´ exports resulting in a decline in industrial as well as agricultural output1. Thus, compared to the previous years most of the CEE candidate countries experienced a slow down or even negative rates of growth in their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1998 and 1999. In addition those countries felt increased budgetary pressures. Agricultural market and trade policies largely reacted to these developments. Border protection was increased in many countries in 1998. This was combined in some cases with export subsidies, and ad hoc producer aids to mitigate the adverse effects. The prospect of EU accession also had an influence on the agricultural policy design in the region with many countries implementing EU-type policy instruments. Thus, the importance of per hectare and per head payments increased in the region, quota like measures were implemented in some countries and as part of this development Estonia introduced tariffs for agro-food imports. Finally, many countries also continued to adjust their policies to comply with their commitments agreed to in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Despite these general tendencies there are also differences in the development of agricultural policies between the various CEE candidates. Chapter 2 therefore provides an overview of the changes of agricultural market and trade policies in each of the 10 accession countries. It addresses the policy issues market access (e.g. tariffs, special safeguard measures), export subsidies (value and quantities) and domestic support (intervention policies, direct payments, input subsidies, production quotas). Chapter 3 provides a brief assessment of recent policy developments in the region in the light of EU accession and WTO commitments. The development of prices and values, e.g. export subsidies, agricultural support expenditure, were presented in the background papers provided by the country experts in current prices in national currencies. In this synthesis report they are in addition converted in Euro. This firstly allows for a better comparison among the CEE candidate countries as well as between those countries and the EU. Some of the accession countries still suffer from high inflation and thus a strong depreciation of their currency. Thus secondly, the conversion to Euros allows the comparisons to be made in real terms.Industrial Organization, International Development, Productivity Analysis,

ECMO for COVID-19 patients in Europe and Israel

Since March 15th, 2020, 177 centres from Europe and Israel have joined the study, routinely reporting on the ECMO support they provide to COVID-19 patients. The mean annual number of cases treated with ECMO in the participating centres before the pandemic (2019) was 55. The number of COVID-19 patients has increased rapidly each week reaching 1531 treated patients as of September 14th. The greatest number of cases has been reported from France (n = 385), UK (n = 193), Germany (n = 176), Spain (n = 166), and Italy (n = 136) .The mean age of treated patients was 52.6 years (range 16–80), 79% were male. The ECMO configuration used was VV in 91% of cases, VA in 5% and other in 4%. The mean PaO2 before ECMO implantation was 65 mmHg. The mean duration of ECMO support thus far has been 18 days and the mean ICU length of stay of these patients was 33 days. As of the 14th September, overall 841 patients have been weaned from ECMO support, 601 died during ECMO support, 71 died after withdrawal of ECMO, 79 are still receiving ECMO support and for 10 patients status n.a. . Our preliminary data suggest that patients placed on ECMO with severe refractory respiratory or cardiac failure secondary to COVID-19 have a reasonable (55%) chance of survival. Further extensive data analysis is expected to provide invaluable information on the demographics, severity of illness, indications and different ECMO management strategies in these patients

The Niger Food Crisis: Causes and Implications for Research and Development from an Integrated Agricultural Economics Perspective

During the 2004 food crisis in Niger, the weakness of the main production system, millet, to produce enough food to sustain short term crises, has been revealed. Questions arise how the Nigerian smallholder systems can be assisted by research and development policies to intensify production and improve food security. The paper assesses technical options according to their economic sustainability. A sequence of models is applied: On plot level, production functions of inter cropping systems were estimated to determine yields and their variability of the major crops. These data were fed in a nonlinear program to test the inn ovations, first at stable prices, then at declining prices that were obtained from an interregional trade model. The latter was shocked by the excess obtained from the innovations' surpluses. Results show that due to risk aversion and price volatility of output markets, farmers adopt intensive innovations less than expected. Instead, they switch to low-input techniques. Recommendations derived from the study are that research has to develop low-risk technologies to intensify Nigerian millet systems, and that domestic market policies have to stabilize prices in order to reduce market risks and set incentives for intensification. Price stabilization has to be done in a market-conform way, through buying and selling of millet, but not through price fixing or subsidizing

Subsistence Agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe: How to Break the Vicious Circle?

Subsistence agriculture is probably the least understood and the most neglected type of agriculture. In a globalised, market-driven world, it remains at the same time a myth and a marginal phenomenon. Empirically, subsistence agriculture for a long time seemed to be restricted to developing countries, with only a few cases reported in Western Europe (CAILLAVET and NICHELE 1999; THIEDE 1994). Governmental support offered to subsistence agriculture was mainly done through agricultural development policies, the main objective being to have subsistence farmers participate in markets. The strategy was to make farmers produce more by introducing new technologies and consequently bring their output to the market. Failures of such attempts were numerous, yet attempts to understand the failures were few. This lack of understanding led to the change of politics towards already developed and market-oriented systems, hence to the neglect and marginalisation of subsistence-oriented systems. This picture changed when subsistence agriculture started to appear right at the door of the European Union: With the fall of the Iron Curtain, subsistence agriculture in Eastern Europe turned out to be an urgent case. Suddenly, there were and still are a large number of vulnerable small scale farmers, many of which will, at least by the date of EU enlargement, be entitled to receive funds from the CAP and thus compete with western farmers. Moreover, these poor rural people were subject to social discrimination, as no one likes to have a poor house right next to him in his neighbourhood. One of the now quite numerous attempts to address the problem of subsistence agriculture in Eastern Europe was a workshop held at the Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO) in May 2001. It gathered scientists from Western and Eastern Europe to discuss problems of subsistence agriculture, ways of analysing such systems and approaches to overcome subsistence agriculture. The workshop's overall objective was to contribute some answers to the main questions regarding subsistence agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe, but also everywhere else on the globe. These questions are: What is the definition of subsistence agriculture, and what are its characteristics? Is there a conclusive theoretical approach research can rely on? Is subsistence agriculture really a problem or is it, as so many other economic phenomena, just another efficient equilibrium? And if it is agreed upon among scientists to be a problem, what are possible solutions? We shall provide a brief overview of these issues and how they are addressed in the following contributions. Let us therefore start with the definition of subsistence agriculture. One of the major problems in dealing with subsistence agriculture is defining the term as such. Many of the authors in this book offer a definition, amongst them HEIDHUES and BRÜNTRUP, VON BRAUN and LOHLEIN, as well as LERMAN. It seems that the preferred definition of subsistence agriculture relates it to the share of marketed produce. The lower this share, the higher is the degree of subsistence orientation. Still, this definition is a relative one, as it can be assumed that there is no longer "one hundred percent" subsistence agriculture, either in Eastern Europe or elsewhere in the world. This assumption should be kept in mind, as it is important for the following theoretical discussion. The assessment of the characteristics of subsistence agriculture based on the above definition provides a link to theoretical aspects and political options to develop this form of agriculture. The first and most prominent characteristic is the high degree of own consumption of produce, mostly more than 50 percent. Subsistence farms are small (although smallness does not necessarily imply subsistence farming, as, for example, suburban horticulture farms may be small but quite market-oriented and efficient), and they have low capital endowment, which often contributes to low competitiveness. They also suffer from remoteness to urban centres and have poor access to markets, be it in physical terms (roads as well as other transportation routes and telecommunication infrastructure), or in terms of accessing factor markets, especially capital markets (which is a prerequisite for starting market-oriented production), and low on- and off-farm income. The latter especially shows an important aspect: Off-farm income opportunities are scarce and of low revenue for subsistence farmers (see especially the macro-economic assessment by VON BRAUN and LOHLEIN). This hints that macro-economic conditions are also important factors driving subsistence agriculture (which will be important for both the theoretical and the political discussion). We will find these characteristics throughout the contributions. KEGEL provides a case study on the problems of defining subsistence agriculture in Georgia. KOVÁCS gives a geographically based index system to categorize farming systems in Romania. Another question is the one whether farming systems in transition countries are really subsistence-oriented, and if yes, to what degree. The latter question is especially closely related to the definition of subsistence agriculture, as LERMAN points out. In YEFIMOV's argumentation, we will find that the lack of market attendance found, especially in the former Soviet Union countries, is due to the institutional set-up of former Soviet agriculture, which, in terms of institutional economics, used hierarchies instead of markets to organise production and commodity exchanges. But that means that they do exchange products and factors, so are they really subsistence-oriented in the narrow sense of above, or do they just use other institutions to interact with the outside world? NEDOBOROVSKYY gives an appealing quantitative description of such hierarchy-integrated systems. The next problem is to provide a theoretical framework for subsistence agriculture. In theory, subsistence is seen as just an early stage of development that will perish once Ricardos' comparative advantages are perceived and result in wealth-generating trade (ROSE and SAUERNHEIMER 1995). Newer approaches provide different theoretical models to subsistence agriculture which are somewhat contradictory to each other; a broad scope of them is given by HEIDHUES and BRÜNTRUP. One of the theories described is based on the assumption of inverse supply reaction due to satisfactory behaviour in production which does not go beyond consumption needs, or (assuming that some share of the produce is marketed) liquidity requirements. This behaviour is seen as caused by strong preferences for leisure and has been brought up by authors like Chayanov, cited by HEIDHUES and BRÜNTRUP. Yet, this should be discussed critically, as incorporating leisure implies that people would reject higher incomes for the same labour input for the sake of more leisure and thus act irrationally in the strict sense of the homo oeconomicus model. Nonetheless, backward sloping supply functions have been explained by authors who point out that short-term post-harvest sales may increase with decreasing prices due to liquidity constraints, but that in the longer run, even subsistence farmers will react positively to increasing prices (HENZE 1994; ABELE 2001). Another, argument strengthened by HEIDHUES and BRÜNTRUP is the transaction cost approach, which says that high transaction costs in marketing make selling unattractive, and keep people from buying expensive products, which adds up to self-produced consumption. This may be so, and one could even add mere transportation costs to the list of trade impediments. But, at least as far as transaction costs and the resulting margins are concerned, one could as well assume that, when supply decreases, and farmers turn to their own subsistence production, traders would offer higher prices to producers and lower prices to consumers. This would then cover the transaction costs or reduce the margins, respectively, for consumers. Consequently, transaction costs can only be seen as a temporal explanation for subsistence agriculture. The next issue raised by HEIDHUES and BRÜNTRUP is that risk keeps subsistence farmers from developing their business, be it production risk based on climatic factors or market risks based on price volatility. But it seems that risk has to be considered as a two-way process, affecting and being caused by subsistence agriculture: autarchy is prone to production risks that cannot be buffered by functioning markets. In fact, this argument may rather hold for developing countries in the tropics than for of mid-European climate. However, PETRICK and TYRAN show, in their contribution about Polish subsistence farmers, that market-oriented farmers are less risk averse than subsistence-oriented farmers. This is most probably because market-oriented farmers can afford to take risks – they are covered by markets, cash reserves earned from markets or based on credit lines from banks. Both MISHEV and KOSTOV and KOPEVA and NOEV emphasize the function of subsistence agriculture to buffer hardships arising from the economic transition process. This means that subsistence agriculture can also be seen as insurance against economic risks – albeit a fragile one. The latter argument brings us back to the macro-economic environment of subsistence farmers that has already been addressed above: subsistence agriculture is applied because there are no alternatives. To conclude this section, we may come back once again to HEIDHUES and BRÜNTRUP who discuss this "fuzziness" of theoretical approaches to subsistence agriculture and the research gaps that still exist. The decisive point in their discussion is the statement about the presumed non-economic behaviour of subsistence farmers, which they prove to be wrong. In the words of Ruttan, "They claim that one has to understand economic systems before judging them." One of the first steps of organising this workshop was to justify why subsistence agriculture is a problem at all. Some authors see subsistence agriculture as a sustainable economic system because of its autarchy (DOPPLER 1991). Others would argue that it cannot be a problem because if it were inefficient, it would not exist. Finally, a third group would argue that subsistence agriculture is no problem at all but rather a solution, as it provides relief from the curses of globalisation and modernisation. In fact, the subsequent contributions to the seminar will prove that all of them are wrong. In the first place, the organisers of the seminar argued that subsistence agriculture is critical for two reasons: First, autarchy is prone to production risks that cannot be buffered by functioning markets. This has already been discussed in the theory section. The second argument raised by the organisers was that subsistence agriculture yields lower incomes than market-oriented agriculture. It is again PETRICK and TYRAN who point out the relationship between income on- and off-farm and subsistence orientation: Subsistence farms seem to have a lower agricultural income than market-oriented farms, but they also seem to have lower income from off-farm employment. LERMAN comes to the same conclusions. The same phenomenon is picked up on the macro-economic level by VON BRAUN and LOHLEIN, who prove that the lower the national income is, the higher is the number of subsistence plots. It is thus easy to conclude that subsistence farmers are overall disadvantaged, and that subsistence agriculture really is a problem. The next point to discuss is the future of subsistence agriculture: in the contributions from Central Europe by PETRICK and TYRAN, as well as NOEV, ways of getting out of this stage of farming are discussed: investment in agriculture and subsequent farm growth will help subsistence farmers to become market-oriented. The same findings are highlighted for both Central European and Central Asian countries assessed by LERMAN. He also describes ways and solutions for the development of subsistence farmers, namely, improved access to input and output markets, but also to credits as well as services (especially extension) to ensure the potential for farm size growth. This also requires the proper functioning of factor markets, both land and labour, as both factors have to be re-allocated during the commercialisation process. Organisations are seen as a crucial factor of farmers' empowerment, as they may strengthen farmers' positions on markets, and they may also provide the utilization of economies of scale without the need to re-allocate factors. A last point to improve agriculture and make it more market-oriented is given by WEHRHEIM and WOBST: They claim an improvement of institutions, namely markets and trade policies, would foster trade and reduce transaction costs, so that incentives for farmers would be given to producing and marketing more of their product. Making farms more efficient is a necessary but not a sufficient solution to the problem of subsistence agriculture. As many of the authors will show, subsistence agriculture is also driven by a lack of alternative income sources, mainly in rural areas but also in urban sites. YEFIMOV points out that Russian subsistence farmers might as well resist a restructuring of post-Soviet agriculture, because that would, even while making agriculture more efficient, make them lose their only income source, as there is no alternative in Russian rural areas. That leads to the point that creating income alternatives in rural areas is a decisive prerequisite for overcoming subsistence agriculture. This argument is strengthened by the analysis of VON BRAUN and LOHLEIN as cited above. But how to address this? NUPPENAU's contribution provides an overview: better linkages of agriculture to the downstream sector will increase both primary production profits and create off-farm jobs, thus increasing economic wealth in rural areas. This might be feasible, but it has to be stated that this cannot be done by agricultural policies alone. Structural policies must aim to develop rural areas, improve infrastructure and the climate for investments, and finally create a favourable environment for the downstream sector and other industries that will provide a labour market for those who have to quit agriculture. Structural policies also have the task of facilitating factor mobility, which is a crucial point for rural development. But let us now leave the introductory remarks and go for a journey through Eastern Europe and its subsistence farming systems. We will start with the keynotes, which discuss theoretical approaches of subsistence agriculture, and possible institutional and political solutions. We will then go from the West to the East, starting in Poland, down to the Balkans, crossing over to Central Asia and ending up in Russia, where the most interesting systems, but also a tremendous pace of change, are found. By travelling this way, we shall, so is the hope of the editors, find some answers to the questions raised above, and also find some sympathy for those who have to struggle for their livelihood by farming their small plots. These people probably need the assistance of scientists and politicians more than anybody else

Holistic Simulation Environment for Energy Consumption Prediction of Machine Tools

Resource efficiency and energy consumption more and more become high-profile quality attributes of modern machine tools. The energy consumption of machine tools, plants and facilities must be significantly reduced related to the value added in order to stay competitive, but not least in liability towards our environment. This article presents a model based simulation and prediction of the expected energy consumption of machine tools using a comprehensive simulation environment, which serves as a basis for energetic optimizations. The simulation system will be exemplarily presented by reference to turning and milling operations. This system is extended by adaptive control and optimization of the energy states of the machine tool through application of artificial neuronal network controller networks and additional expert knowledge data-base