Projecting Livestock Numbers

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) undertakes forecasts and projections of livestock numbers as part of the twice yearly contribution to The Treasury’s economic and fiscal updates. MAF’s Pastoral Supply Response Model (PSRM) was recently re-developed and used for the first time in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update round of 2004. The PSRM projects annual inventory numbers as at 30 June, births and livestock numbers for slaughter. The paper discusses the PSRM, the post-model adjustments process, and the feed through to a simplistic assessment of land use changes within pasture areas.Livestock numbers, forecasting, supply response, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Livestock Production/Industries, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Productivity in the New Zealand primary and downstream sectors

In New Zealand, there has been increasing interest in productivity growth, both at economywide and sector levels. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry maintains a total factor productivity series for the primary sectors. As part of the ministry's flagship project on growth and productivity, we are reviewing the methodology and extending productivity derivation to downstream industries. This paper presents our research results to date.total factor productivity, New Zealand, agriculture, forestry, downstream sectors, Productivity Analysis,

Magnetic resonance imaging protocols for paediatric neuroradiology

Increasingly, radiologists are encouraged to have protocols for all imaging studies and to include imaging guidelines in care pathways set up by the referring clinicians. This is particularly advantageous in MRI where magnet time is limited and a radiologist’s review of each patient’s images often results in additional sequences and longer scanning times without the advantage of improvement in diagnostic ability. The difficulties of imaging small children and the challenges presented to the radiologist as the brain develops are discussed. We present our protocols for imaging the brain and spine of children based on 20 years experience of paediatric neurological MRI. The protocols are adapted to suit children under the age of 2 years, small body parts and paediatric clinical scenarios

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Forecasting of New Zealand whole milk powder prices

This paper explains a short term forecasting approach that uses whole milk powder prices from Fonterra’s globalDairyTrade. The latter provides forward contract prices eight months out from each event. The cumulative impact of up to seven successive events provides reasonable expectations around future turning points for Statistics New Zealand’s FOB export prices expressed in United States dollars

Recent Trends in New Zealand Agricultural Productivity and its Measurement

This paper updates the results of an earlier paper (Johnson 1996) exploring productivity trends 1972-92 prepared for the OECD. Tornqvist indexes are used to compensate for changes in the mix of outputs and inputs. Capital is charged at service prices. Present indications are that labour and capital inputs have not increased in the last ten years but total factor productivity has increased at the rate of around 4 per cent per year reflecting past investments and adaptation to new challenges. Comparisons are made with indexes based on static factor shares and suggestions are made on the construction of more ideal index numbers for measuring productivity change where the data is available

Productivity in the New Zealand Primary and Downstream Sectors

In this paper, we report our results in measuring total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the New Zealand primary and downstream manufacturing sectors. Our results showed strong TFP growth in the agriculture sector during 1988-2006 (2.7 percent per year). Forestry and logging’s TFP grew at a lower rate (1.5 percent) which is similar to that of the economy average. Both downstream manufacturing sectors’ TFP grew at lower rates than the primary sectors and the economy average (being 1.1 and -0.1 percent respectively)