Farm finance data : availability and requirements

The Royal Commission on the Monetary, Banking and Credit System (1956) first recommended that improvements should be made in the statistics relating to the agricultural sector in New Zealand. Since that time the need for improvements in both the quantity and quality of statistics relating to capital supply and investment, in order to provide a sound base for policy decisions, has frequently been noted (Agricultural Development Conference, 1966; Johnson, 1970; Lending to Farmers, 1972; Monetary and Economic Council, 1966). Such statistics are required not only to monitor the effects of policies aimed specifically at the agricultural sector, but also to determine the impact of broader monetary policies on the rural credit market. However, although the need for detailed information has been recognised it has not been determined exactly what the data requirements are with respect to agriculture, and the statistics available do not yet provide a comprehensive picture of agricultural financing. The objective of the study described in this paper was the identification of the data required in order to monitor rural finance, and the review of available data in the light of these requirements

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The economic benefits of the possum control area programme

The Possum Control Area (PCA) programme operated by the Hawke's Bay Regional Council under the Regional Pest Management Strategy (RPMS) is a subsidised ""selfhelp"" scheme for possum control in areas where 75 percent of landowners support formation of a PCA. All landowners within the area are bound by the conditions of the programme with respect to maintenance control once the PCA is established, while the HBRC is responsible for the initial knockdown operation. This study was commissioned into the economic impacts of the programme on the farming operations of its farmer stakeholders and their views on the operation and management of the programme. The study involved a review of the literature on the impacts of the possum in New Zealand, a series of interviews and focus groups with PCA farmers during November 2005, and a postal survey of all PCA members in early 2006

Protocol for the development of guidance for stakeholder engagement in health and healthcare guideline development and implementation

Stakeholder engagement has become widely accepted as a necessary component of guideline development and implementation. While frameworks for developing guidelines express the need for those potentially affected by guideline recommendations to be involved in their development, there is a lack of consensus on how this should be done in practice. Further, there is a lack of guidance on how to equitably and meaningfully engage multiple stakeholders. We aim to develop guidance for the meaningful and equitable engagement of multiple stakeholders in guideline development and implementation. METHODS: This will be a multi-stage project. The first stage is to conduct a series of four systematic reviews. These will (1) describe existing guidance and methods for stakeholder engagement in guideline development and implementation, (2) characterize barriers and facilitators to stakeholder engagement in guideline development and implementation, (3) explore the impact of stakeholder engagement on guideline development and implementation, and (4) identify issues related to conflicts of interest when engaging multiple stakeholders in guideline development and implementation. DISCUSSION: We will collaborate with our multiple and diverse stakeholders to develop guidance for multi-stakeholder engagement in guideline development and implementation. We will use the results of the systematic reviews to develop a candidate list of draft guidance recommendations and will seek broad feedback on the draft guidance via an online survey of guideline developers and external stakeholders. An invited group of representatives from all stakeholder groups will discuss the results of the survey at a consensus meeting which will inform the development of the final guidance papers. Our overall goal is to improve the development of guidelines through meaningful and equitable multi-stakeholder engagement, and subsequently to improve health outcomes and reduce inequities in health

Systemic inflammatory response predicts outcome in patients undergoing resection for ductal adenocarcinoma head of pancreas

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between the clinicopathological status, the pre- and postoperative systemic inflammatory response and survival in patients undergoing potentially curative resection for ductal adenocarcinoma of the head of the pancreas. Patients (n=65) who underwent resection of ductal adenocarcinoma of the head of pancreas between 1993 and 2001, and had pre- and postoperative measurements of C-reactive protein, were included in the study. The majority of patients had stage III disease (International Union Against Cancer Criteria, IUCC), positive circumferential margin involvement (R1), tumour size greater than 25 mm with perineural and lymph node invasion and died within the follow-up period. On multivariate analysis, tumour size (hazard ratio (HR) 2.10, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.20–3.68, P=0.009), vascular invasion (HR 2.58, 95% CI 1.48–4.50, P<0.001) and postoperative C-reactive protein (HR 2.00, 95% CI 1.14–3.52, P=0.015) retained independent significance. Those patients with a postoperative C-reactive protein ⩽10 mg l−1 had a median survival of 21.5 months compared with 8.4 months in those patients with a C-reactive protein >10 mg l−1 (P<0.001). The results of the present study indicate that, in patients who have undergone potentially curative resection for ductal adenocarcinoma of the head of pancreas, the presence of a systemic inflammatory response predicts poor outcome

Development of an amplicon-based sequencing approach in response to the global emergence of mpox

The 2022 multicountry mpox outbreak concurrent with the ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic further highlighted the need for genomic surveillance and rapid pathogen whole-genome sequencing. While metagenomic sequencing approaches have been used to sequence many of the early mpox infections, these methods are resource intensive and require samples with high viral DNA concentrations. Given the atypical clinical presentation of cases associated with the outbreak and uncertainty regarding viral load across both the course of infection and anatomical body sites, there was an urgent need for a more sensitive and broadly applicable sequencing approach. Highly multiplexed amplicon-based sequencing (PrimalSeq) was initially developed for sequencing of Zika virus, and later adapted as the main sequencing approach for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Here, we used PrimalScheme to develop a primer scheme for human monkeypox virus that can be used with many sequencing and bioinformatics pipelines implemented in public health laboratories during the COVID-19 pandemic. We sequenced clinical specimens that tested presumptively positive for human monkeypox virus with amplicon-based and metagenomic sequencing approaches. We found notably higher genome coverage across the virus genome, with minimal amplicon drop-outs, in using the amplicon-based sequencing approach, particularly in higher PCR cycle threshold (Ct) (lower DNA titer) samples. Further testing demonstrated that Ct value correlated with the number of sequencing reads and influenced the percent genome coverage. To maximize genome coverage when resources are limited, we recommend selecting samples with a PCR Ct below 31 Ct and generating 1 million sequencing reads per sample. To support national and international public health genomic surveillance efforts, we sent out primer pool aliquots to 10 laboratories across the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, and Portugal. These public health laboratories successfully implemented the human monkeypox virus primer scheme in various amplicon sequencing workflows and with different sample types across a range of Ct values. Thus, we show that amplicon-based sequencing can provide a rapidly deployable, cost-effective, and flexible approach to pathogen whole-genome sequencing in response to newly emerging pathogens. Importantly, through the implementation of our primer scheme into existing SARS-CoV-2 workflows and across a range of sample types and sequencing platforms, we further demonstrate the potential of this approach for rapid outbreak response.This publication was made possible by CTSA Grant Number UL1 TR001863 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded to CBFV. INSA was partially funded by the HERA project (Grant/ 2021/PHF/23776) supported by the European Commission through the European Centre for Disease Control (to VB).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The potential for horticultural development in Taranaki

The Taranaki horticultural sector is very small, and production areas have declined significantly over the last decade. A number of industries that were represented in the region in the past (kiwifruit, asparagus, berryfruit, feijoas, etc.) have not survived. In 2013 Venture Taranaki commissioned the AERU at Lincoln University to examine the opportunities for new horticultural industry development in Taranaki that could add value to the region’s economic base; the opportunities for Taranaki provided by new horticultural market trends and trends affecting the sustainability of existing land based enterprises (particularly dairy); and identify key issues for Taranaki in ensuring that the opportunities identified can be realised

An economic evaluation of changes in the allocation of water for irrigation from the Ashburton river

In this study the authors have investigated the economic implications for farmers in the area of changes in the availability of irrigation water from the Ashburton River. This report comprises part of a suite of reports commissioned by the Canterbury Regional Council in order to facilitate the drafting of the Ashburton Catchment Management Plan. The implications of changes in water allocation in terms of regional agricultural output and in terms of individual farm productivity, profitability and viability have been examined. An innovative approach to the issue of between season variability has been employed in the survey and analysis

Comparison of the productivity and profitability of organic and conventional farms in the New Zealand sheep/beef and kiwifruit sectors 2002/03 to 2007/08.

Organic industries world-wide have been expanding rapidly over the past decade but there has been comparatively little recent discussion of the relative financial performance of organic and conventional farming systems. If organic agriculture is to contribute to improved environmental and economic outcomes in New Zealand in future, this in an issue of considerable importance to farmers considering organic conversion. The Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability (ARGOS) has been examining the sustainability of organic and conventional land-use systems in New Zealand, by monitoring the comparative performance of these production systems with respect to a wide range of environmental, social, economic and management parameters over the last seven years. Financial data from matched clusters of sheep/beef farms from the east coast of the South Island and clusters of kiwifruit orchards, mainly located in the Bay of Plenty, have been analysed on their own and in conjunction with social data to identify differences in farm financial performance. In this paper a brief summary of international conclusions on relative organic profitability precedes the description of the results of the first six years’ ARGOS monitoring of farm financial performance in the sheep/beef and kiwifruit sectors. The results show that, while there are some significant differences in farm costs and revenues between farming systems within a sector, there is greater variability in the “bottom-line” indicators of profitability within farming systems than between them and few conclusions can be drawn about relative profitability. Analysis of the data suggests that the characteristics of individual farmers may have more influence on farm financial outcomes than the management systems they adopt

Energy use in New Zealand agricultural production

This paper reports estimates of the energy used in New Zealand agricultural production up to the farm gate during the decade 1972-1981. As well as a description of total energy usage, the paper shows how the most important energy intensive inputs, fuel and fertiliser, have varied in use over the period. Analysis of aggregate fuel use data suggests that New Zealand farmers have not decreased fuel use over the period in response to increasing real fuel prices. The most likely explanation for this lies in the facts that fuel costs still constitute only a minor part of total farm costs; and fuel is not easily substituted for by other inputs. On the other hand, fertiliser costs are responsible for a substantial proportion of total farm costs. Even so, fertiliser price is not the most important factor influencing fertiliser input levels. Farm Income appears the most important single factor influencing the varying level of fertiliser inputs from year to year. Higher energy prices on the farm have been only one factor influencing New Zealand aggregate agricultural output over the past decade. The implications of higher energy prices for agriculture emanate from far wider sources than just farm production technologies and direct effects on farm production economies. The success of conservation measures on changes in output or input mixes on New Zealand farms stemming from the higher energy prices have so far been mainly hypothetical or have not surfaced in available data. The lack of published data at the subsectoral level does not allow meaningful monitoring of changes that-may be taking place. Also, disaggregation of data on energy use is important if interest is in estimating future energy inputs and how these may be affected by various agricultural policies