Heterogeneity in irrigators’ wtp and wta for water reliability

This paper is focused on the valuation of irrigation water supply reliability. We assess WTP and WTA for improvements and worsenings in irrigation water supply reliability, checking for the first time the disparity between average WTA and average WTP for this attribute of irrigation water supply. This assessment relies on a field experiment among farmers in an irrigated area located in southern Spain that is suffering a serious deterioration of water supply reliability because of climate change. Results obtained show average WTP estimates for moderate and significant improvements are €16.5 and €18.5/ha/year, respectively, while the average WTA estimates for moderate and significant worsenings are €765.6 and €881.1/ha/year. This indicates a very high WTA/WTP ratio of 46.4 and 47.6 for moderate and significant changes, much higher than those obtained in previous studies. Possible reasons which may explain such a disparity include reasons within neoclassical economic theory and endowment effects

Heterogeneity of farmers’ preferences towards agri-environmental schemes across different agricultural sub-systems

Specialised literature on the uptake of agri-environmental schemes (AES) has paid little attention to how this can be influenced by the different types of agricultural systems. This paper analyses the heterogeneity of farmers’ preferences towards these schemes, distinguishing between different sub-systems within the same agricultural system. We use the choice experiment method to analyse the case study of three olive grove sub-systems in southern Spain, with the sub-systems ranging from extensive to intensive. The results reveal inter and intra sub-system heterogeneity of farmers’ preferences towards AES both in general and specifically related to scheme attributes. A variety of factors appear to lie behind inter sub-system heterogeneity, especially those associated with sub-system specificities (principally, the type of joint production). Likewise, numerous factors play a role in intra sub-system heterogeneity, most of them related to farm/farmer socioeconomic and physical characteristics. These findings will help in the design of more efficient AE

Factors influencing farmers’ adoption of ecological reconversion agri-environmental schemes in mountain olive groves

Mountain olive groves are characterized by low profitability, mainly due to their location in high steep-slope areas with poor, shallow soils. Consequently, they present a high risk of abandonment of the productive activity, which would be eventually associated with high potential environmental and socio-cultural losses. As an alternative, an ecological reconversion scheme is proposed to increase the provision of ecosystem services from this agroecosystem while reducing the socio-economic impacts related to the abandonment. Two alternative schemes are proposed, which differ in the possibility or not of harvesting the olive production. A double-bounded contingent valuation exercise is used in a sample of Andalusian mountain olive growers to assess their willingness to accept (WTA) for participating in these schemes, using a difference-in-utility model with a linear utility function with correlation between the participation choices in the two schemes as econometric specification. The results show high levels of mean WTA, higher for the scheme precluding harvesting, indicating that higher levels of payment are needed to get some acceptance from farmers. Results also show that structural (e.g., yield) and attitudinal factors (e.g., opinion about setting-aside low productivity olive groves for environmental reasons), among others, significantly influence farmers’ WTA for these schemes

Retos y oportunidades de la implantación de los bancos de agua en España

Con el fin de conseguir una buena gobernanza del agua, que trate de alcanzar un equilibrio entre los objetivos de eficiencia económica y sostenibilidad ambiental, durante las últimas décadas se ha potenciado el uso de instrumentos económicos para una mejor gestión de la demanda de los recursos hídricos, dada la dificultad de seguir aumentando la oferta de los mismos. En este contexto, este trabajo se centra en los bancos de agua como mecanismo de mercado que aporta la necesaria flexibilidad institucional en la asignación de los recursos hídricos entre los diferentes usuarios. La investigación realizada en este sentido ha permitido desarrollar una tipología de los bancos de agua que actualmente operan a nivel mundial en base a sus características operativas. Esta caracterización ha permitido igualmente realizar un análisis crítico de las experiencias de bancos de agua implementadas hasta la fecha, con el fin poder valorar el desempeño de este instrumento económico para la mejora de la gestión pública del agua. La investigación llevada a cabo revela que los bancos de agua son un instrumento útil para la gestión de los recursos hídricos, aportando sugerencias para la mejora de su implementación operativa en España mediante la correspondiente reforma de la Ley de Aguas.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) AGL2013-48080-C2-1-RFondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) AGL2013-48080-C2-1-

Unraveling determinants of inferred and stated attribute non-attendance: effects on farmers’ willingness to accept to join agri-environmental schemes

Attribute non-attendance (ANA) has received very little attention in the context of willingness to accept (WTA), although an increasing number of studies analyze the preferences of ecosystem service providers towards incentive-based schemes. We add to the understanding of ANA behavior by analyzing stated and inferred ANA in a choice experiment investigating farmers’ WTA for participating in agri-environmental schemes (AES) in southern Spain. We use mixed logit models, following Hess and Hensher (2010) for the inferred ANA approach. Evidence is found of ANA behavior for both stated and inferred approaches, with models accounting for ANA clearly outperforming those that do not account for it; however, we produce no conclusive results as to which ANA approach is best. WTA estimates are only moderately affected, which to some extent is consistent with the low level of non-attendance found for the monetary attribute. Stated and inferred approaches show very similar WTA estimates. Additionally, we investigate sources of observed heterogeneity related to ANA behavior by using a sequence of bivariate probit models for each attribute. Overall, our results hint at a positive relationship between ease of scheme adoption and non-attendance to attributes. However, further research is still needed in this field

The design of agri-environmental schemes: Farmers’ preferences in southern Spain

Paper accepted to be published in Land Use Policy (ISSN: 0264-8377)Agri-environmental schemes (AES) play a key role in promoting the production of environmental public goods by European Union agriculture. Although extensive literature has analyzed AES, some important issues remain understudied. This paper performs an ex-ante assessment of AES in permanent cropping, analyzing several issues that have received little attention from researchers, such as ecological focus areas (EFA) and collective participation. For this purpose, a choice experiment was used to assess farmers’ preferences toward AES in a case study of olive groves in southern Spain. Results show high heterogeneity among farmers, with different classes being identified, from potential participants to non-participants. As regards EFA, almost half of the farmers would be willing to accept it for low monetary incentives (€8-9/ha per additional 1% of the farmland devoted to EFA) while the rest would do it for moderate-to-high monetary incentives (€41-151/ha per additional 1% of EFA). However, for a high share of EFA (e.g., 5-7%) higher incentives would presumably be required due to the intrinsic spatial restrictions of olive groves. With regard to collective participation, we find that it is unlikely that farmers would participate collectively with the incentive of the up-to-30% EU-wide bonus. These results are relevant for policy-making now when new AES are being designed for the next programming period 2014-2020.This research is co-financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the project MERCAGUA (AGL2013-48080-C2-1-R)

Agricultura, desarrollo rural y sostenibilidad medioambiental

In addition to its traditional purpose of producing food and raw materials, agriculture plays an important role in terms of supplying public goods, generally in the form of externalities deriving from farming activities. These goods may be predominantly economic and social –rural development– or environmental –protection of biodiversity or landscape preservation. This study analyses the economic basis of agricultural multifunctionality associated with the joint production of private and public goods in farming and its implications in terms of economic policies. We also explain and assess the legislation –and its financing– that currently makes it possible to develop a multifunctional concept of farming in Spain. Finally, we present the results of recent research regarding the production of environmental goods by certain farming systems in Spain.Agriculture, multifunctionality, public goods, rural development, environmental services.

Spatial analysis of demand for sparsely-located ecosystem services using alternative index approaches

This study is focused on the effects of spatial discounting and substitute sites on the demand for ecosystem services (ES) provided by scattered agroecosystems. New ways of modelling these two effects are proposed, relying on area-based and density-based indexes. Data from discrete choice experiments are used, based on a case study of Andalusian olive groves (southern Spain). The results show that model fit is significantly improved by the introduction of these spatial indexes, with the best outcome found for the area-based index combined with the inverse of the distance. Results provide evidence of substantial spatial heterogeneity depending on the ES (carbon sequestration, soil conservation and biodiversity), indicating different economic jurisdiction

Optimizing Phase Settings of High-Frequency Voltage Regulators for Power Delivery Applications

Every new computer server introduced to the market aims at delivering the best tradeoff between performance and power consumption. This goal is crucial in the case of servers for cloud computing hardware infrastructure. In this context, power delivery (PD) experts are adopting higher frequency switching voltage regulators (VR) to reduce platform’s cost as well as total cost of ownership (TCO). Because of this fact, the real estate of components, such as voltage regulators and output inductors, is shrinking as VR frequency increases. As a consequence, achieving the best performance of the VR implies looking into phase shedding schemes, as well as EM coupled inductor design, among other techniques, to mitigate power losses. This paper focuses on the study of the best angle arrangement possible for high frequency VR applications, by exploring angle settings under light load scenarios, aiming to minimize VR’s power loss and output’s voltage ripple