Economics of organic farming: economic modelling OF0125

This report represents results from research work carried out for the MInistry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) on the financial performance over the years 1995/96 to 1997/98. The work was initially funded under the code OF0125 and was extended into Project OF0190, with this reported representing both satges of the project. The aim of the research was to assess the financial performance of organic farms differentiated by farm type, in order to inform MAFF policy-making with respect to organic farming, and to provide a basis for assessents by farmers, advisers and other interested parties of the farm-level implications of conversation to, and continued organic farming. The specific objectives were the provision of information on different organic farm types. This was achieved through the collation of financial data collected under three different MAFF-funded research projects supplemented by data collected on other farm types, including data on dairy farms in the process of converting to organic production. Organic farm data is presented for LFA cattle and sheep farms for 1997/8 only. The samples of organic farms are small because of the limited number of organic holdings over 8 European Size Units with identifiable holding numbers in 1996 and farms with more than 50% of their land under organic management in 1997/98. Although the organic sample is small, it represents nearly 14% of organic farms with identifiable holding numbers registered with UKROPFS in 1996, and this work gives an indication of the relative profitability of diferent organic and conventional farms of different types in the late 1990s. Detailed financial input, output, income, liabilities and assets and some physical performance measures are presented for each of the years studied. Outputs on organic dairy, horticulture and mixed farms increased each year. Outputs on organic lowland cattle and sheep farms were stable, but increasing inputs reduced Net Farm Income (NFI) each year in the study period. Outputs from organic cropping farms increased in 1996/97 and decreased in 1997/98, but results rom this group are affected by the high levels of conventional cropping (25% of land area on average) and reduced conventional prices. To provide an indication of the likely performance of the organic farms if they were under conventional production, data from conventional farms are given. Conventional farms wereselected by cluster analysis from the Farm Business Survey (FBS). In 1997/98 the average NFI (pounds sterling/farm) of the organic farms exceeded that of the conventional farms for all farm types except cattle and sheep farms

Organic farm incomes in England and Wales 1995/96 - 1997/98

This report is associated with the less detailed final report of Defra project OF0190, on the same theme, archived at https://orgprints.org/6606 This report presents results from research work carried out for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) on the financial performance of organic farms over the years 1995/96 to 1997/98. The aim of the research was to assess the financial performance of organic farms differentiated by farm type, in order to inform MAFF policy-making with respect to organic farming, and to provide a basis for assessments by farmers, advisers and other interested parties of the farm-level implications of conversion to, and continued organic farming. The specific objectives were the provision of information on different organic farm types. This was achieved through the collation of financial data collected under three different MAFF-funded research projects supplemented by data collected on other farm types, including data on dairy farms in the process of converting to organic production. Organic farm data is presented for LFA cattle and sheep farms for 1997/98 only. The samples of organic farms are small because of the limited number of organic holdings over 8 European Size Units with identifiable holding numbers in 1996 and farms with more than 50% of their land under organic management in 1997/98. Although the organic sample is small, it represents nearly 14% of organic farms with identifiable holding numbers registered with UKROFS in 1996, and this work gives an indication of the relative profitability of different organic and conventional farms of different types in the late 1990s. Detailed financial input, output, income, liabilities and assets and some physical performance measures are presented for each of the years studied. Outputs on organic dairy, horticulture and mixed farms increased each year. Outputs on organic lowland cattle and sheep farms were stable, but increasing inputs reduced Net Farm Income (NFI) each year in the study period. Outputs from organic cropping farms increased in 1996/97 and decreased in 1997/98, but results from this group are affected by the high levels of conventional cropping (25% of land area on average) and reduced conventional prices. To provide an indication of the likely performance of the organic farms if they were under conventional production, data from conventional farms are given. Conventional farms were selected by cluster analysis from the Farm Business Survey (FBS) (MAFF, 1999)1. In 1997/98 the average NFI (£/farm) of the organic farms exceeded that of the conventional farms for all farm types except cattle and sheep farms

Adult Adoption: A New Legal Tool for Lesbians and Gay Men

This Comment explores the current statutory framework for adult adoption, the parameters of the legal relationship created, and the scope of the right to privacy issues involved in the exercise of this statutory right. In addition, possible motives individuals may have for utilizing adult adoption, the need for attorneys to identify potential problem areas for their clients, and the potential disadvantages of such a legal relationship, particularly with respect to the dynamics of the individuals\u27 relationship, are discussed

Adult Adoption: A New Legal Tool for Lesbians and Gay Men

This Comment explores the current statutory framework for adult adoption, the parameters of the legal relationship created, and the scope of the right to privacy issues involved in the exercise of this statutory right. In addition, possible motives individuals may have for utilizing adult adoption, the need for attorneys to identify potential problem areas for their clients, and the potential disadvantages of such a legal relationship, particularly with respect to the dynamics of the individuals\u27 relationship, are discussed

Attitudes Towards Conversion To Organic Production Systems: A Study Of Farmers In England

This report describes the attitudes of converting and conventional producers in England to organic production. In 2000, a telephone survey was conducted of farmers in three groups: those who were converting, those who had contacted OCIS but decided not to convert, and a random sample of conventional farmers. The majority of converting farmers gave concerns about agrochemicals and fears about the future profitability of conventional farming as their main reasons for going organic. Marketing was not seen as an obstacle to conversion. Conventional farmers thought that advice and information on organic production were easily obtained, but converting farmers did not agree, suggesting that there was a shortage of more advanced knowledge. Non-converters gave financial viability, environmental aspects and the Organic Farming Scheme as important factors in any future decision to convert

On a generalized quantum SWAP gate

The SWAP gate plays a central role in network designs for qubit quantum computation. However, there has been a view to generalize qubit quantum computing to higher dimensional quantum systems. In this paper we construct a generalized SWAP gate using only instances of the generalized controlled-NOT gate to cyclically permute the states of d qudits for d prime

Observation impact in data assimilation: the effect of non-Gaussian observation error.

Data assimilation methods which avoid the assumption of Gaussian error statistics are being developed for geoscience applications. We investigate how the relaxation of the Gaussian assumption affects the impact observations have within the assimilation process. The effect of non-Gaussian observation error (described by the likelihood) is compared to previously published work studying the effect of a non-Gaussian prior. The observation impact is measured in three ways: the sensitivity of the analysis to the observations, the mutual information, and the relative entropy. These three measures have all been studied in the case of Gaussian data assimilation and, in this case, have a known analytical form. It is shown that the analysis sensitivity can also be derived analytically when at least one of the prior or likelihood is Gaussian. This derivation shows an interesting asymmetry in the relationship between analysis sensitivity and analysis error covariance when the two different sources of non-Gaussian structure are considered (likelihood vs. prior). This is illustrated for a simple scalar case and used to infer the effect of the non-Gaussian structure on mutual information and relative entropy, which are more natural choices of metric in non-Gaussian data assimilation. It is concluded that approximating non-Gaussian error distributions as Gaussian can give significantly erroneous estimates of observation impact. The degree of the error depends not only on the nature of the non-Gaussian structure, but also on the metric used to measure the observation impact and the source of the non-Gaussian structure