Impacts of future biological-technological progress on arable farming

This article deals with biological-technological developments in crop production and their impacts on arable farming within the next 20 years. Possible future technological developments are evaluated with the help of a Delphi survey. The impacts of promising new technologies are estimated by means of a Linear Programming model under three different scenarios. An important outcome of the model calculations is that crop production is strongly influenced by the economic and political environment. The most promising improvements are offered by new technologies which enhance labour productivity. Competitive new technologies can cause unbalanced crop rotations with non-desirable ecological effects and substantial changes in agricultural commodity market

Dynamic Supply Response and Welfare Effects of Technological Change on Perennial Crops: The Case of Cocoa in Malaysia

Modern biotechnology will generate crops with higher yields and enhanced resistance to pests and diseases. In the case of perennial crops, the age composition of the present stand, the farmers' willingness to invest, and the yield profiles of old and new trees determine the speed of adoption of the new technology and the timing of the effects on supply and demand conditions. We adapt conventional welfare measures to account for these factors in the assessment of research induced supply shifts. The application to cocoa in Malaysia shows that consumers and adopting producers gain and non-adopters lose. Overall, 72% of the welfare gains go to the consumers. Copyright 2001, Oxford University Press.

Fungicide use under risk in Swiss wheat production

The short-run effects of fungicide application on economic risk and the effects of risk on fungicide use in Swiss wheat production are empirically explored. A quadratic production function model is developed. With the help of the moment-based approach, marginal contributions of fungicides (representing controlled inputs) and of rain (representing uncontrolled inputs) to the variances of yield and revenue are analyzed. It is not possible to show risk-reducing effects of fungicides on yield or revenue. At low rain quantities during the vegetation period fungicides have a statistically significant risk-increasing effect on revenue. Increasing risk leads Swiss wheat growers to use more fungicide. This increase is statistically significant at higher levels of revenue. For example, when risk is doubled fungicide inputs are raised by 44% at the highest revenue quartile

Socio-economic and ecological effects of alternative direct payment regimes on different Swiss Alpine regions

Differences in land productivity, input and technology requirements and production costs are functions of topographic, climatic, environmental, agronomic and infra-structural characteristics which lead to considerable variations in land-use intensity. Land-use also offers obvious examples of spatial environmental externalities. Policy-makers concerned with regional rural development face an increasing need for indicators which encompass a wide diversity of attributes and environmental assets in a spatial setting. In this paper, a spatial sectoral linear programming model is described and implemented for two Swiss Alpine regions. The effects of different policy assumptions for land-use payments are investigated. Special reference is made to the effects of varying types of direct payments on the amount of fallow land in various topographic situations. It can be shown that ecological effectiveness can be improved, at lower costs for the taxpayer, by giving due consideration to regional and spatial aspects when designing agricultural policy measures. At the same time, the results show that the elimination of the actual income-supporting direct payments (the so-called base payments ) may cause a collapse of agriculture in Swiss mountain regions.Effets socio-économiques et écologiques de systèmes alternatifs de paiements directs dans deux régions des Alpes suisses D'une région à l'autre, les niveaux de productivité de la terre, les besoins en moyens et techniques de production, ainsi que les coûts à produire diffèrent, ils sont fonction des caractéristiques topographiques, climatiques, environnementales, agronomiques et structurelles de la région et conduisent à des formes d'utilisation de la terre très variées. En outre, l'utilisation des terres offre des exemples évidents d'externalités environnementales et de nouveaux indicateurs couvrant une large diversité d'attributs et d'actifs environnementaux ont dû être élaborés afin de répondre à la demande des responsables régionaux de développement rural. Un modèle spatial de programmation linéaire est présenté dans cet article. Il porte sur deux régions des Alpes suisses et permet d'analyser les effets de différentes options de paiements directs sur l'utilisation de sols, notamment leurs conséquences sur le nombre de sols mis en jachère, selon leur situation topographique. L'étude démontre également que l'efficacité écologique peut être améliorée si les aspects régionaux et spatiaux sont pris en compte lors de l'élaboration des nouvelles mesures de politique agricole, et ce à un moindre coût pour le contribuable. Il apparaît enfin que la suppression des paiements directs actuels, qui visent au maintien du revenu agricole, pourrait être à l'origine d'un effondrement de l'agriculture dans les régions des Alpes suisses.Flury Christian, Gotsch Nikolaus, Rieder Peter. Socio-economic and ecological effects of alternative direct payment regimes on different Swiss Alpine regions. In: Cahiers d'Economie et sociologie rurales, N°57, 4e trimestre 2000. pp. 5-26

Changing future: expected development in Alpine farming

In the coming years, significant changes are to be expected in agriculture in mountain regions due to the changing general environment. It can be assumed that product prices will sink while production costs remain unchanged at their present high level. Therefore, a more incisive structural change will be necessary if additional direct payments are not forthcoming. Economic survival can only be assured if the number of farms, and in particular the number of workforce, decrease even further. This will also lead to a decline in agriculture's contribution to decentralised settlement. On the other hand, if this structural adaptation is impeded, the result will be a major decline in the per capita income of the workforce and, consequently, social problems. The reduction in the number of workforce is an economic necessity and in turn will lead to changes in production strategies. Given the anticipated price relationships, dairy farming will become less competitive compared to meat production. If the workforce is mobile and economic decisions are based on labour costs, labour-intensive production systems in animal husbandry and land use will be cut back in favour of extensive meat production on large pastures. The undesirable consequences are higher emissions of volatile nitrogen or changes in the botanical composition on meadows that were previously mown