Production costs across the EU in 2006

We have recently been involved in an EU project which is looking at farm accountancy cost estimation, the FACEPA (Farm Accountancy Cost Estimation and Policy Analysis of European Agriculture) project. Our part of this project was a relatively small section but very interesting as it involved looking at costs of production for a variety of organic products across several EU countries. The main products considered were milk, wheat and potatoes and the countries were UK, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, France, Italy, and Netherlands. The data were obtained for the year 2006 and all currencies were converted to Euros for ease of comparison. The main lessons learnt from this project (and found by previous authors prior to this) were that there is great variation between countries both in terms of costs and in terms of data collection

GOVERNMENT MARKET INTERVENTION: AN ECONOMETRIC STUDY OF TANZANIAN FOOD GRAIN MARKETS

The paper is organized into six major sections. Background and trends in agricultural production and trade are presented in Section II. The extent of government intervention in food grain production and trade is described in Section III. This provides a foundation for Section IV where the behavioral equations for defining government intervention in food grain markets are specified. These equations, along with the retail demand and farm level supply equations, yield six equations in six endogenous variables for each of the food grain crops, maize, wheat and rice. It is shown in Section V that the model provides a good fit to the data. In the concluding sections, simulations are performed to obtain insights into the effect on and motivation for government intervention in food grain markets.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Inventory of data collecting and publishing institutions(= Deliverable 2.1 of the OrganicDataNetwork project: Report on data collectors)

Despite the continuous growth of the organic market in Europe, in most countries only very basic statistics about this sector exist. Individual country governments collect data which are published nationally and by EUROSTAT (the statistical office of the European Union), on the number of certified organic holdings, organic and in-conversion land areas and livestock numbers. Important market statistics, however, such as the amount of production, consumption, retail sales, international trade and prices at the farm or consumer level are lacking in most European countries. To understand the availability of data on the organic market and to assist in improving data quality and availability, it is first necessary to be aware of the organisations that currently collect, analyse and/or disseminate such data across Europe and the methods that they use. To assess the current status of organic market data collection in the EU and its neighbours, an online survey was developed and nearly 600 organisations within the EU27, EFTA, the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean were invited to participate. The useable response rate was 28% once very incomplete responses had been removed from the sample. Based on this survey it is difficult to state definitively that no data collection/analysis/publication occur within certain countries or within certain areas of the market. The survey may not have detected any, but there may still be some carried out that have not been detected by the survey. The survey has been used to produce an inventory table, summarising the data collection effort in each country to inform further work in the project. The data were analysed for the entire sample and were split into responses from EU27+EFTA, other European and non-European countries to provide an overview of the data collection effort in each of these country groups. A comparison of EU15 and newer member states was also carried out and Mediterranean countries (MOAN) were considered separately. The relatively low response rate made comparisons difficult and means that only general observations can be made. The data types that are most commonly collected are production data, especially land area, followed by production volume; whereas production value is much less commonly collected. However, production area data are not the main focus of the survey or of the OrganicDataNetwork project. Price data and retail sales data are the next most commonly collected market data. Export data are more commonly collected in non-European countries than in the EU, perhaps reflecting a higher importance to their economies. The product categories most often represented in EU27+EFTA market data collection are meat, milk and dairy products, fruit and vegetables. Across the other groups of countries (e.g. other European, non-European) the pattern of data collection of individual product categories varies with regards to the most popular products. Data on non-food products are rarely collected. Data collection methods vary with the type of data collected, but surveys are a commonly used method across data types. Censuses are often used to collect production volume data and other types of data such as international trade data (they are not used to collect data in non-European countries). Expert estimates are occasionally used across most of the country categories. For retail data and consumer price data, consumer/household panels or retail panels (scanner data) are likely to be used, whereas catering sales data are collected by surveys. Import and export data are generally collected using surveys and sometimes censuses but some reliance is also placed on expert estimates. The data analysis carried out in the different countries (across all of the categories) tends to be compilation or basic analysis (such as averages, and ranges). Other methods mentioned include time-evolution, comparison to averages or totals, and sense-checking with other data (particularly for export data). The responses to the question about data publication suggest generally low publication rates (especially for data other than production data); with less than 50% of the sample in each disaggregated group of countries giving a positive answer. Of all the data types that were asked about, production data are most likely to be freely available, but not all production data that are collected are also published. Data are usually published annually; price, retail or export data are occasionally published more frequently. Conclusions The purpose of this survey was to produce an inventory and an overview of collectors of organic market data in Europe and its neighbouring countries. The results have delivered a good picture of the situation in Europe and have shown that the recent claims, coming from various sources,regarding a lack of organic market data were definitely justified. Overall it can be concluded that the market data collection effort remains very varied across Europe and that not all data that are collected are also published. This is problematic, as without good quality, accurate and timely information it is difficult for stakeholders to make decisions about the risks and benefits of investment. There is also a need to understand the reasons why there is currently not more organic market data collection undertaken as well as to understand the barriers to good quality data collection and dissemination. This is the basis for further work on harmonisation of data collection approaches and for improvement in data quality, which is planned as part of the OrganicDataNetwork project

Organic farm incomes in England and Wales 2010/11 (OF 0373)

This report presents results of research on the financial performance of organic farms in the 2010/11 financial year (with 2009/10 data for reference. Carried out for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), this research continues project OF0373. An analysis of the FBS/Defra Data Archive for 2010/11 found a total of 250 businesses with some organic land. To ensure the analysis undertakes a reasonable comparison of organic and conventional farms, the organic sample comprises holdings with at least 70% fully organic land (>=70% of UAA ha). Farms identified as “in-conversion” or those with less than 70% fully organic certified land were excluded from the analysis, providing a sample of 217 organic holdings. In total, data from 212 organic farms were suitable for inclusion in the analysis, as it was not possible to identify comparable conventional businesses for four organic farms, and one organic specialist pig farm was also not utilised (due to minimum sample size restrictions). The data was analysed as two samples; a full sample and an identical sample. The full sample analysis utilised data from all 212 organic farms and provides the best comparison of organic and comparable conventional farm income data in 2010/11, (2009/10 data is only provided for reference). The identical sample identifies year to year changes within systems, though the sample sizes are smaller as not all farms will be part of the FBS dataset for two years

The Aftermath of a King Renouncing his Citizenship: A Closer Look at Recent Trends of Corporate Inversions in America

Article published in the Michigan State Journal of Business and Securities Law

UK consumer reactions to organic certification logos

Purpose - This paper considers the question of whether UK consumers recognise and trust organic certification logos and whether the presence of these logos on a product increases consumer willingness to pay for that product. Methodology/approach - To ascertain the reaction of UK consumers to organic certification logos commonly used in the UK, this study makes use of three methods: focus groups, a consumer survey and a willingness to pay experiment (choice experiment). Findings - These three approaches reveal that UK consumers associate certain benefits with organic foods but are generally unaware of how the industry is regulated. With regards to trust of the logo, the standards they think underlie the logo and the inspection system that they think is associated with the logo, UK consumers rate the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers logos more highly than the EU logo or products labelled with just the word “organic”. They appear willing to pay a premium for the additional assurance that these two logos provide, suggesting that where they are recognised, certification logos are valued. Originality – To the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies exist on whether UK consumers recognise and trust different organic certification logos. These findings show that where such logos are recognised they can help to give some assurance to the UK consumer and this is reflected in a willingness to pay a premium for foods labelled with the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers certification logos as opposed to no logo or the (less well known) EU logo

Organic farming: implications for costs of production and provisioning of environmental services

The report is part of the project 'Farm Accountancy Cost Estimation and Policy Analysis of European Agriculture' (FACEPA). The overall aim of this report is to contrast organic and conventional forms of commodity production in terms of costs and environmental performance. Specific objectives are to apply the General Cost of Production Model (GECOM) developed in the FACEPA project to organic farms, to compare GECOM results for organic farming to data from other national studies as part of a (quasi-)validation, to discuss production costs in organic farming in the light of the structure of the organic farming sector and the respective policy environment in selected EU Member States, and to explore the potential of FADN systems for deriving environmental impacts at farm level, calculating and comparing selected indicators for organic farms. The report is structured as follows: First, a short overview is given of the structure of the organic farming sector and the respective policy environment in selected study countries (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 provides a description and discussion of production costs in organic farming collected from various other national sources, paying specific attention to the impact of different methodological approaches used in the available studies. In Chapter 4, the GECOM estimations for fully organic farms of EU FADN are illustrated and compared to other national production cost data to provide a quasi-validation of the GECOM estimates. Chapter 5 presents a comparison of the GECOM estimates for production costs in organic and conventional farming. The final Chapter 6 then illustrates the potential of identifying environmental impacts based on FADN data

OCIS Public Goods Tool Development

There has recently been an increase in interest amongst policy-makers in the question of whether farming provides a “public good” beyond the simple production of food, which justifies support from, for instance, EU agricultural policy. Benefits such as an improved environment or better water quality can be perceived to be public goods. It is the provision of these sorts of benefits which may be used in the future to justify continued support of the agricultural sector through subsidies. Given the current level of interest in this topic Natural England, with the approval of Defra, through OCIS (Organic Conversion Information Service), wished to create a tool which could be used by an advisor or an informed land owner to assess the public good provided by a/their farm. Thus, the OCIS Public Good Tool was developed

Communicating feminist politics? The double-edged sword of using social media in a feminist organisation

Media coverage of violence against women and girls (VAWG) has increased in recent years, due to high-profile investigations such as the 2012 Jimmy Savile case in the UK, and in response to the #MeToo movement in the USA. Feminist organisations are likely to be asked for comment by the media as a result, but journalistic interest in case details rather than systemic causes of VAWG means that political messages focused on ending VAWG remain difficult to communicate. In contrast, social media is frequently celebrated as a channel through which the politics of feminist organisations can be promoted more directly, bypassing mainstream media agendas. In this article, we present the results of participatory research that explored the tensions inherent in social media use by one UK feminist organisation, Rape Crisis England & Wales (RCEW). The findings challenge the utopian view of social media as a panacea for news media shortcomings. Rather than being unequivocally positive, integrating social media into a feminist organisation’s communication work is a double-edged sword, bringing significant challenges that users must negotiate on a daily basis

Assessing the sustainability of EU dairy farms with different management systems and husbandry practices

The EU funded SOLID project supports research which will contribute to the competitiveness of organic and low input dairy systems, and increase their sustainability. There are many aspects of the sustainability of dairy farms, relating to economic, environmental and social dimensions, and methods of animal husbandry can affect all of these. A UK spreadsheet based tool for rapid assessment of the whole farm was adapted for application on a range of organic and low input dairy farms across the EU. This tool was used to assess approximately ten organic dairy farms in each of four EU countries. Data on farm management practices collected in face to face interviews with farmers were entered and the tool then calculated a composite score for each of 11 separate “spurs” or dimensions contributing to stainability. The results can be used to stimulate discussion between farmers and point to areas where farm sustainability might be improved or topics that would benefit from further research