A Demand System Analysis of Food for Poor and Non Poor Households. The Case of Argentina

The purpose of this paper is to provide some microeconomics tools to discuss and evaluate public policies that imply transfers of income from the public sector to the poor and their impact on their food demand and calories and nutrient intakes. This study is concerned with the differences in subsistence expenditures, own-price elasticities and income elasticities for two households groups segmented by income: those people below the poverty guideline and those above it. The attention of our research is focused on a demand system for all food groups included in a National Consumption Survey and examines the household food consumption behavior by partitioning the sample. A complete system of demand equations, the Linear Expenditure System (LES), has been used due to its relative empirical expediency. Some additional econometric techniques to correct the bias in the parameter estimates were also applied because of the large number of zero observations in the data. Preliminary estimations following the procedure suggested in the Park et al. (1996) paper, gave some results that they were not as good as we expected and we finally use an alternative one based on Shonkwiler and Yen (1999).Food Demand System, Censored Sample, Own-Price and Income Elasticities, Poverty Status, Demand and Price Analysis,

Quality Warranties and Food Products in Argentina. What Do Consumers Believe In?

Consumers increasingly demand multiple-quality attributes in food products and value reliable means to identify them. For producers, the effective communication of their products quality is a marketing strategy. Therefore, another market of information associated with the new food markets emerges. This market is closely linked to the institutional environment and the level of trust in different information sources. In this article the emphasis will be put on how the different quality signals provided by the firms in their products affect the consumers´ behaviour. The objective is to investigate domestic consumers' perceptions and beliefs about food quality information in Argentina to identify the mechanisms that fully guarantee this quality. The results indicate that domestic consumers´ perceptions about high quality products are more related to brand names than seals and certifications in labels. This has consequences upon the competitiveness of domestic food market. Quality certification and seller´s reputation are quality warranties restringed only to certain domestic market niches. The households´situation and occupational status seem to be more complex variables that resume the interaction between attitudes, information-processing and actions.food quality, quality warranties, consumers, Argentina, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, D12, L15,

What Determines the Economic Links among Organic Farmers? Empirical Evidence from Argentina

Farming and consumers` decisions are affected by markets globalizations, products differentiation, agricultural industrialization at the retail level and new organizational forms. The linkages among farmers emerge as a viable strategy to compete in this new context. Producers must develop skills to maintain market positioning and access to high value added niches. In Argentina, organic production has been an alternative for farmers to increase revenues, since the nineties, due to the major demand of developed countries and the price premiums. The objective of the paper is to investigate the extent to which Argentinian organic producers operate in an associated way and which the determinants of these linkages are. A count model regression is used to estimate the links among producers. The extent to which producers choose to operate in an associated way is mainly determined by the number of marketing channels used by the farmers, processing activities carried out, public support received, the scale of the farm and the kind of goods produced. This study may contribute to understand farmers` decisions about association. The issue is particularly relevant to policy makers in developing countries where associations are promoted due to the emerging role of the social capital in the rural development policies design.Horizontal Links, Organic producers, Count Model, Farm Management, D7, C21,

Effect of leg conformation of Duroc sow longevity

Ponencia publicada en ITEA, vol.104Caracteres morfológicos como la conformación de los aplomos pueden tener un papel clave en la longevidad de las cerdas. Dentro de este contexto, se evaluó el efecto de los aplomos sobre la longevidad de 587 cerdas Duroc, analizándose tanto la supervivencia global de las cerdas (SG) como la supervivencia bajo tres causas de fallida distintas (competing risk): muerte (BM), baja productividad (BP) y baja fertilidad (BF). La conformación global de los aplomos influyó (p < 0,001) la longevidad de las cerdas en los análisis SG, BP y BF, aumentado el riesgo de fallida a medida que empeoraban los aplomos. El crecimiento anormal de las pezuñas (p < 0,001) y la presencia de golpes o bultos en las patas (p < 0,05) incrementaba el riesgo de fallida en los análisis SG, BP y BF. Las cerdas plantígradas tenían un riesgo mayor de fallida en los análisis SG (p < 0,001) y BP (p < 0,05), las cerdas con hiperextensión de las patas tenían un riesgo mayor en el análisis BF (p < 0,05), mientras que la presencia de pies abiertos aumentaba el riesgo de fallida en el análisis SG (p < 0,05). Las estimaciones de heredabilidad para la longevidad de las cerdas fueron de 0,07 (análisis SG), 0,02 (análisis BP) y 0,08 (análisis BF).Morphologic traits such as leg conformation can play a key role on sow longevity. Within this context, the effect of leg conformation was evaluated on longevity data from 587 Duroc sows, longevity being characterized as overall longevity (OS) or sow failure due to death (DE), low productivity (LP) or low fertility (LF; competing risk analyses). Overall leg conformation score influenced (P < 0.001) sow longevity in OS, LP and LF analyses, impairing sow longevity when leg conformation got worse. Abnormal hoof growth (P < 0.001) and presence of bumps or injuries in legs (P < 0.001) increased the risk of failure in OS, LP and LF analyses. Plantigrade sows showed a higher culling risk in OS (P < 0.001) and LP (P < 0.05) analysis, sows with sickle-hooked leg had a higher culling risk in the LF analysis (P < 0.05), whereas splayed feet increased sow failure in the OS analysis (P < 0.05). Estimates of heritability for sow longevity were 0.07 (GS analysis), 0.02 (LP analysis) and 0.08 (LF analysis)

Effects of human pharmaceuticals on cytotoxicity, EROD activity and ROS production in fish hepatocytes.

Pharmaceuticals are found in the aquatic environment but their potential effects on non-target species like fish remain unknown. This in vitro study is a first approach in the toxicity assessment of human drugs on fish. Nine pharmaceuticals were tested on two fish hepatocyte models: primary cultures of rainbow trout hepatocytes (PRTH) and PLHC-1 fish cell line. Cell viability, interaction with cytochrome P450 1A (CYP1A) enzyme and oxidative stress were assessed by using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrasodium bromide tetrazolium (MTT), 7-ethoxyresorufin-o-deethylase (EROD) and dichlorofluorescein (DCFH-DA) assays, respectively. The tested drugs were clofibrate (CF), fenofibrate (FF), carbamazepine (CBZ), fluoxetine (FX), diclofenac (DiCF), propranolol (POH), sulfamethoxazole (SFX), amoxicillin (AMX) and gadolinium chloride (GdCl(3)). All substances were cytotoxic, except AMX at concentration up to 500 microM. The calculated MTT EC(50) values ranged from 2 microM (CF) to 651 microM (CBZ) in PLHC-1, and from 53 microM (FF) to 962 microM (GdCl(3)) in PRTH. CF, FF, and FX were the most cytotoxic drugs and induced oxidative stress before being cytotoxic. Compared to hepatocytes from human and dog, fish hepatocytes seemed to be more susceptible to the peroxisome proliferators (PPs) CF and FF. In PLHC-1 cells none of the tested drugs induced the EROD activity whereas POH appeared as a weak EROD inducer in PRTH. Moreover, in PRTH, SFX, DiCF, CBZ and to a lesser extend, FF and CF inhibited the basal EROD activity at clearly sublethal concentrations which may be of concern at the biological and chemical levels in a multipollution context

Multisource data verification of a weather radar surface precipitation type product

Póster presentado en: 10th European Conference on Radar in Meteorology and Hydrology celebrado en Wageningen, Países Bajos, del 1 al 6 de julio de 2018.This study was partly supported by projects CGL2015-65627-C3-2-R (MINECO/FEDER), CGL2016-81828-REDT (MINECO) and DI065/2017 (Industrial Doctorate Programme of the Regional Government of Catalonia

Characterisation of activated sludge by automated image analysis : validation on full-scale plants

Automated methods based on the analysis of macro- and meso-scale images has been developed to characterise activated sludge in terms of size and shape (fractal dimension) of flocs and abundance of filamentous bacteria. After tests on pilot-scale reactors, the method has been validated on full-scale samples from twelve different wastewater treatment plants in France and Portugal