Measuring the Sustainability of the UK Food Chain

Recent policy interest has been directed at the sustainability of food industries, in particular the post-farm gate food chain. This comprises of manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing and catering. In order to measure sustainability Byerlee and Murgai (2001) have argued that productivity measures, alongside key indicators of resource quality trends, should be used to indicate sustainable growth. This paper adopts this approach by presenting Fisher indexes of both Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index and for prominent externalities emerging from the food chain over the period 1998 to 2002. TFP shows an average annual growth rate of –0.52% per annum. Input growth, in particular intermediate purchases, has outstripped output growth over the entirety of this period. In addition, major externalities of environmental and social costs have increased over this period. Consequently, both sets of indicators give a somewhat bleak assessment of the sustainability of the UK food chain.Total Factor Productivity, Externalities, Sustainable Growth, Agribusiness,

A Total Social Factor Productivity Index for the UK Food Chain Post-Farm Gate

The UK post-farm gate food chain comprises manufacturing, wholesaling , retailing and catering. Current turnover is around £250 billion per annum. Total factor productivity measures the ratio of inputs to outputs. However, most studies have only included the marketable inputs and outputs within the system. Following criticisms of the negative effects of the food chain this paper adopts a n index based approach to measuring Total Social Factor Productivity, which includes the major externalities within the food chain. Generally, whilst TFP growth rates are low over the period 1998-2002, these have reduced even further when negative externalities are included.Food Chain, Total Factor Productivity, Total Social Factor Productivity, Externalities, Industrial Organization, Productivity Analysis, Q56,

INVESTIGATING USER PREFERENCES FOR SERVICES IN RURAL AREAS OF SCOTLAND: A TERRITORIAL APPROACH

Territorialisation of rural policies requires moving from a sectoral approach to service provision, and policies that focus exclusively on health and education, for example, to an understanding of overall service provision and quality, differentiated by rural area definition, not primarily by sector. An investigation of the expectations of stakeholders in rural Scotland, relating to availability, quality and accessibility of services, revealed that preferences were often different within different areas. The results input to the debate about the need to territorialise rural policy, and provide information for allocation decisions relating to resources aimed at creating sustainable rural communities in Scotland.Services, participatory methods, Scotland, user preferences, territorial rural policies, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

A Structural Equation Model of the Factors Influencing British Consumers’ Behaviour towards Animal Welfare

Results of national and pan-European consumer surveys and the growth in the demand for so-called “animal friendly” food products suggest that consumers within the European Union show a high level of concern for the welfare of farm animals. This paper analyses the determinants of British consumers’ behaviour towards animal welfare using structural equation models (SEM) with observed and latent variables. SEM is a statistical technique for testing and estimating relationships amongst variables, using a combination of statistical data and qualitative causal assumptions. We used a data set collected in 2005 through face-to-face interviews of 654 consumers in England. We analysed the range of statements in existing literature on consumers’ behaviour towards animal welfare and then used SEM to test and estimate these a priori determinants of behaviour. The models include observed and latent variables representing behaviour (stated purchases of free-range and organic chicken meat) and its underlying determinants (attitudes towards animal welfare and socio-economic factors). The models have an adequate overall fit to the data. The significance tests for the structural equation model on free-range chicken meat purchasing behaviour show socioeconomic group, education, attitudes towards animal welfare, reasons for buying chicken meat, access to information on animal welfare issues, number of children and price as significant determinants. All of these (with the exception of reasons for buying chicken meat) were found significant also in the model on organic chicken meat purchasing behaviour.animal welfare, consumers’ behaviour, structural equation models., Agricultural and Food Policy,

The non-market benefits of rural service provision

The provision of services in rural areas is constrained by a number of issues arising from the remoteness of such areas and the relative sparsity of rural populations. These factors combine to increase the cost of supply and reduce the demand for services, which consequently threatens the viability of service provision whether by the public or private sectors. A possible to solution to these issues lies in the co-location of rural services, which in general means that two or more distinct services are located within the same premises thus reducing the delivery costs associated with one or more of these services. Beyond the simple economics of service provision lies the existence of nonmarket elements of services in terms of benefits to local communities of service provision that might arise from the social elements of local provided services such as community cohesion. This paper applies non-market valuation to quantify these benefits in three case studies across Scotland. The results indicate that relative degree of these benefits can be related to the remoteness of rural communities in that more remote communities particularly value the community aspects of services whereas less remote communities are more resistant to increased distances to access services. More generally, the results provide evidence on the inherent trade-offs between factors such as opening hours, levels of service and distance that can be used in determining the optimal configuration of service provision.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

The economic viability of Environmental Management Systems: an application of Analytical Hierarchy Process as a methodological tool to rank trade-offs

Environmental management systems [EMS] are now a well established management tool in the ‘greening’ of industry. There is a large body of literature on methodological procedures and application strategies for implementing EMS. Associated with this proliferation of ‘how to’ manuals has been a limited discussion of why a firm ought to implement a management tool that inevitably affects the bottom line of profitability. We argue that there has been much less by way of methodologically rigorous and academically objective analysis of the motivation for EMS application. Much of this literature is coined in terms of the potential benefits (social, ethical and financial) with arguably an insufficient emphasis on potential real cost burdens. This arises in part because researchers and analysts in the field want firms to adopt EMS. This can be motivated by environmental zeal and/or an enthusiasm to promote the sales of ‘how to’ manuals by accentuating the positive. The aim of this research is provide an objective and methodologically robust motivational analysis in the field of EMS applications. The methodology that we apply - Analytical Hierarchy Process [AHP], a variant of multi criteria analysis- has not to our knowledge been applied in the ‘greening’ of industry. Most methodologies relating to semi-structured interviews of respondents who have applied environmental management tools are either open-ended or apply a 5 point Likert scale or equivalent, where 1-5 corresponds with how important the respondent considers a given factor(e.g. affect on longrun profitability) is in stimulating EMS adoption. The outcome of such studies in general is that many factors contribute but that the extent to which one factor is more or less important remains unresolved. Under AHP, respondents make pair-wise ratings of importance between various attributes (e.g. profitability, corporate social responsibility) as well as between the ‘qualities’ or levels within an attribute (e.g. long term profitability, short term profitability). The outcome of the AHP is a set of attribute and quality weights that reflect their relative importance as well as their implied ranking. In this study, five attributes (profitability; compliance with legislation; competitiveness; social impacts and environmental impacts) with a total of 13 qualities were tested across a sample of respondents from SMEs that already had an EMS in place. The attributes ranged from financial (e.g. increases in production efficiency), social (e.g. improved public perceptions) to environmental (e.g. reduced emissions). We chose to investigate the motivations for on-going EMS adoption as managers would then have had the time to learn the extent to which the potential benefits had actually been realised and the costs incurred.. The results are interesting in that the most important factors were increased long term profitability and the opportunity to enter new product niches. The latter may arise owing to ‘supplier challenges’ applied by larger firms to their SME suppliers. A high scoring was achieved for improving local community relations. The highest score for the environmental attribute was reduced resource usage, linked to decreasing production costs. This score was significantly higher than CSR-type global concerns such as emissions reductions. However, overall environmental outcomes were not rated highly which perhaps suggest that the case that CSR stimulates the adoption of corporate eco-change might be overstated in the literature.Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Public Preferences for Broiler Chicken Welfare: Evidence from Stated Preference Studies

Animal welfare presents particular policy challenges. Good welfare provides private productivity benefits to producers and some level of positive external benefits to people who care about animal welfare status. In enacting welfare legislation and setting regulatory standards, government needs to measure costs and benefits of welfare changes. While costs are generally observable, the nature of market failure means that welfare benefits are not truly observed in welfare related transactions. Accordingly non-market benefits assessment methods are required to measure the total economic value of welfare improvement. This paper compares the results of two stated preference methods to measure the policy benefits of the proposed EU broiler Welfare Directive. Contingent valuation presents the welfare improvement as a policy bundle and elicits willingness to pay in a referendum or one-off purchase decision. Choice experiments break down the welfare good into its constituent attributes, which may be of interest in designing policy. The methods provide divergence aggregate benefit estimates, which are an artefact of the methodology and the payment methods.Broiler welfare, choice experiments, contingent valuation, Livestock Production/Industries, Consumer/Household Economics,

The environmental benefits of investment in agricultural science and technology: an application of global spatial benefit transfer

Food security is a major current and future policy concern. The world population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050 and continuing growth in economic output and incomes is expected to result in changing food consumption patterns. In particular the wider adoption of ‘Western’ diets will result in both higher calorie intake and greater meat consumption. Continuing climate change is expected to add further pressures to agricultural production. This paper presents the results of a global analysis funded by the TEEB study on the environmental benefits of investment in agricultural knowledge, science and technology, specifically in terms of closing the gaps between developing and developed country agricultural productivity. The results show that by easing pressures on land use change on terrestrial biomes (forests and grasslands), and the ecosystem services they provide, investment in agricultural science and technology provides environmental benefits of US$161.3bn per annum in 2050. Between 2000 and 2050 these benefits amount to US$2,964bn in addition to US$6,343bn in carbon benefits and compare to costs of US$5,68bnResearch and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,