Aquaculture for African smallholders

Small scale aquaculture, Integrated farming, Aquaculture systems, Appropriate technology, Malawi, Agribusiness,

A model of commodity money, with applications to Gresham's Law and the debasement puzzle

We develop a model of commodity money and use it to analyze the following two questions motivated by issues in monetary history: What are the conditions under which Gresham's Law holds? And, what are the mechanics of a debasement (lowering the metallic content of coins)? The model contains light and heavy coins, imperfect information, and prices determined via bilateral bargaining. There are equilibria with neither, both, or only one type of coin in circulation. When both circulate, coins may trade by weight or by tale. We discuss the extent to which Gresham's Law holds in the various cases. Following a debasement, the quantity of reminting depends on the incentives oÃered by the sovereign. Equilibria exist with positive seigniorage and a mixture of old and new coins in circulation.Money ; Money theory ; Gresham's law

A model of commodity money, with applications to Gresham's law and the debasement puzzle

We develop a model of commodity money and use it to analyze the following two questions motivated by issues in monetary history: What are the conditions under which Gresham's Law holds? And, what are the mechanics of a debasement (lowering the metallic content of coins)? The model contains light and heavy coins, imperfect information, and prices determined via bilateral bargaining. There are equilibria with neither, both, or only one type of coin in circulation. When both circulate, coins may trade by weight or by tale. We discuss the extent to which Gresham's Law holds in the various cases. Following a debasement, the quantity of reminting depends on the incentives offered by the sovereign. Equilibria exist with positive seigniorage and a mixture of old and new coins in circulation.Coinage ; Gresham's law

Public Facilitation of Small Farmer Access to International Food Marketing Channels: An Empirical Analysis of the USDA Market Assistance Program in Armenia

With the continued globalization, rapid channel consolidation, increasing technology, capital, food safety and private grades and standards requirements, many small scale agricultural and horticultural producers from transitional and developing countries are rapidly becoming excluded from international agri-food marketing system. Consequently, governments and international agencies alike are reevaluating the structure, form, and delivery of their assistance programs as they search to identify new delivery mechanisms that can overcome the weaknesses that their traditional programs face within this new business environment. Their challenge is to design programs that facilitate the establishment of economically viable and sustainable market relationships and business models between small-scale producers and the international food marketing system that provide these financially distress producers access to the technological know-how, market knowledge and access, and financial and productive resources required to successively compete. Recent Central and Eastern European (CEE) experiences indicate that foreign direct investment and the entry of multinational firms have successfully facilitated small farmers access to international marketing channels. By entering markets with sufficient capital to ensure contract enforcement and support investment, multinational firms can overcome the pervasive hold-up and underinvestment problems plaguing the sector thereby stimulating investment and growth in agricultural production (Gow & Swinnen, 1998; 2001; Walkenhorst, 2000; Dries & Swinnen, 2004). For numerous reasons access to sufficient foreign direct investment or multinational firms may not be an option for many countries. The obvious question therefore becomes, can an alternative third-party facilitation mechanism for stimulating agriculture be identified apart from the private solutions found in Central and East Europe? Glover and Kusterer (1990), Porter and Philips-Howard (1997), Coulter et al (1999), Eaton and Shepherd (2001), and Simmons (2001) allude to the benefits of public agencies in facilitating firm farmer relationships. However as of now the literature has not identified nor extracted the critical processes and factors required in the design, development and establishment of long-run economically viable and sustainable business models that facilitate small producers' access to international food markets. In this research we develop a theoretical model explaining the critical processes and factors involved in the public facilitation of the establishment of economically sustainable marketing relationships between small producers and agroprocessors in the presence of financial distress and absence of effective enforcement mechanisms. The USDA Market Assistance Program (MAP) in Armenia is used to empirically test the theoretical model as it provides a natural experiment. Aremina's recovery is similar to those observed in other CEE countries; however Armenia's agricultural sector has not experienced the recovery found elsewhere. A key constraining factor has been the lack of foreign direct investment initiated solutions so successfully employed elsewhere (World Bank, 1999; 2002). Without the presence of private solutions that can create self-enforcing relationships and encourage relationship specific investment, the Armenian agricultural sector has remained in a sub optimal equilibrium characterized by deep financial distress and a general lack of investment. The only sub-sectors that have seen growth any growth have had MAP facilitation support. Thus what is unique is that the MAP project appears to provide a public solution rather than a private solution to the problem, as in all the previous research (Gow & Swinnen, 1998; 2001; Foster, 1999; Gow et al, 2000; Walkenhorst, 2000; Dries & Swinnen, 2004; Cocks & Gow, 2003). In order to examine the phenomena of establishment and development of sustainable inter-organizational marketing relationships within the context of Armenian agriculture, the USDA MAP project, and the goat industry, we have used mixed methodological approach combining qualitative and quantitative data collection. Approximately 100 semi-structured interviews were conducted with farmers, industry representatives, local experts, and USDA MAP personnel. In additional, an extensive enumerated survey was implemented questioning 2000 farmers in five sectors over 2003 and 2004. Based upon the extensive interviews 12 different business models and facilitation processes used by the USDA MAP were identified and a suitable stratified survey frame was designed to test the differences between these models. The theoretical model and empirical results indicate that the third party public facilitator, USDA MAP, is critical in facilitating the initial development of the channel and identifying a value proposition in a downstream market. However, economic sustainability requires that the public agency remain an arms-length third party facilitator, rather than being the leader in the development of the channel and thus an integral cog in the channel. The actual development of the marketing channel should be led by an entrepreneur who possesses both the ability to develop the marketing channel and who is trusted by the local community. By leading the development of the channel the private enforcement capital that is created through the development of the channel is created between the entrepreneur and the farmers. Over time this widens the self enforcing range of the relationship, therefore allowing greater shifts in market conditions and decreasing the risk of opportunistic behavior (Gow et al, 2000). By holding the trust and respect of the community the entrepreneur inherently holds private enforcement capital with the rest of the community equivalent to the present value of their reputation or trust individually and collectively with the community (Oliver & Gow, 2002). Additionally, the expectation of a value proposition of a downstream market creates the expectation of private enforcement capital between farmers the entrepreneur through the present value of future returns that the entrepreneur could earn from the value proposition (Gow et al, 2000). Thus the combination of the present value of the entrepreneur's reputation with the farmers in the short term combined with the longer term expectation of future returns through the value proposition and creates sufficient private enforcement capital for the immediate development of a self-enforcing relationship with the farmers.International Relations/Trade,

Sheep CRC Renewal Proposal: Economic Evaluation of the Proposed Scientific Themes

The Australian sheep industry and its associated research and development agencies have developed a proposal for the CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation. “Top-down” and “bottomup” procedures were used to assess the expected economic benefits from this proposal. Formal “with-CRC” and “without-CRC” scenarios were defined for each product and each research theme. Relevant costs were similarly defined. The requested investment by the Commonwealth and the Australian sheep industry in the CRC is assessed relative to a scenario where an alternative, lower cost research program into this industry is implemented. These extra resources have a discounted value of about $34 million over the 25-year period of this evaluation. These resources are sufficient to allow some new research components to be added to the portfolio, some existing components to produce better outcomes, and a more targeted approach to development and extension that speeds up and increases the adoption of the new technologies that are generated by the research program. The benefit from this extra investment and consequent research effort is estimated to be worth about$518 million in present value terms, which is far in excess of the marginal investment. Thus every $1 of these extra resources brought into the Australian sheep industry through funding the proposed CRC is expected to return around$15.30 to the industry in present value terms.wool, sheep meat, research and development, economic, evaluation, Australia, Agribusiness, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Q160,

Economic benefits of public investment in weed management: the case of vulpia in south-eastern Australia’s temperate pasture areas

The present paper reports an economic evaluation of the long-term benefits to Australia of research by the Cooperative Research Centre for Weed Management Systems (CRC) into the improved management of vulpia , the major annual grass weed of temperate pastures in New South Wales and Victoria. Vulpia reduces livestock production by competition with more desirable pasture species, by the production of low quality feed at critical times of the grazing cycle, and by injury to animals. A 20-year stochastic benefit-cost analysis indicated that reducing the impacts of vulpia in these pastures produced a mean net present value of # A58.3 million and a mean benefit-cost ratio of 33:1. Temperate pasture zone wool producers would capture the largest shares of these benefits, Australian consumers would gain, but wool producers in the rest of Australia would suffer welfare losses from vulpia reductions in the temperate pasture zones.Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management,

Iodine sorption study on the proposed use of Viton A in a shuttle galley water accumulator

The installation of a Viton A accumulator in the Shuttle galley has been proposed to prevent overpressurization of the hot water supply system. A laboratory study has been conducted to determine if there would be any interaction between the Viton A material and the iodine used to disinfect the water. Coupons of Viton A were exposed for 24 hours to aqueous iodine solutions similar in quality to the Shuttle's potable water. Changes in the iodine residual were monitored to determine the rate of iodine sorption by the coupon. Total organic carbon (TOC) was monitored to determine the rate of desorption of organic materials from the Viton A. The same coupons were then soaked in reagent-grade water for 24 hours, and iodine was monitored to determine the rate of iodine desorption. The coupons were again exposed to iodine solutions for 24 hours and iodine and TOC were monitored. No significant change in the iodine sorption rate was detected between the first and second exposures. A triangle taste test indicated at a 1 percent confidence level that the water exposed to Viton A had a different taste which was less acceptable to the panelists

Tactical Opportunities, Risk Attitude and Choice of Farming Strategy: an Application of the Distribution Method

When assessing farming strategies, it is important to account for the opportunities provided for tactically adjusting to outcomes of risk. The hypothesis that accounting for tactical adjustment is more important than accounting for risk attitude was supported in this study with regard to identifying the optimal drainage recirculation strategy for an irrigated dairy farm. Failing to account for tactical adjustment would lead to a sub‐optimal choice, costing the farmer about A$3 100 in present value terms. In contrast, failing to account for risk aversion would not affect the strategy chosen. The distribution method was found to be well suited to modelling tactical adjustment.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Genomic islands of divergence in the Yellow Tang and the Brushtail Tang Surgeonfishes.

The current ease of obtaining thousands of molecular markers challenges the notion that full phylogenetic concordance, as proposed by phylogenetic species concepts, is a requirement for defining species delimitations. Indeed, the presence of genomic islands of divergence, which may be the cause, or in some cases the consequence, of speciation, precludes concordance. Here, we explore this issue using thousands of RAD markers on two sister species of surgeonfishes (Teleostei: Acanthuridae), Zebrasoma flavescens and Z. scopas, and several populations within each species. Species are readily distinguished based on their colors (solid yellow and solid brown, respectively), yet populations and species are neither distinguishable using mitochondrial markers (cytochrome c oxidase 1), nor using 5193 SNPs (pairwise Φst = 0.034). In contrast, when using outlier loci, some of them presumably under selection, species delimitations, and strong population structure follow recognized taxonomic positions (pairwise Φst = 0.326). Species and population delimitation differences based on neutral and selected markers are likely due to local adaptation, thus being consistent with the idea that these genomic islands of divergence arose as a consequence of isolation. These findings, which are not unique, raise the question of a potentially important pathway of divergence based on local adaptation that is only evident when looking at thousands of loci