Measuring Market Integration in Mozambican Maize Markets: A Threshold Vector Error Correction Approach

The primary objective of this research was to measure the extent of market integration between major surplus and deficit maize markets in Mozambique namely, Chimoio-Maputo, Chimoio-Beira, Ribaue-Nampula, and Mocuba-Nampula. To achieve this objective, Threshold Vector Autoregressive models were applied. The choice of the model was motivated by unobservable transaction costs and the import ant influence that their presence may exert on equilibrium spatial price relationships. The following are some of the major findings of the study. Firstly, threshold values (i.e. estimates of transaction costs) are found to be correlated positively with distance and inversely with the condition of the roads connecting markets. Secondly, market integration analysis revealed that out of the four surplus and deficit market combinations studied, Chimoio- Maputo and Mocuba-Nampula market pairs are integrated. However, the degree of integration was found to be the strongest in the former. Finally, results from the impulse response suggested that deficit/surplus markets, in the integrated market combinations, are relatively more responsive to shocks emanating from surplus/deficit markets.Mozambique, market integration, maize market, transaction cost, threshold vector error correction, Crop Production/Industries, Marketing, C21, C22, D4, E3, Q13,

Causes of Household Food Insecurity in Koredegaga Peasant Association, Oromiya Zone, Ethiopia

The main objective of the study is to examine the determinants of households food security using a logistic regression procedure. Initially the model was fitted with eleven factors of which six were found to be significant and all had the expected signs. These include farm land size, ox ownership, fertilizer application, education level of household heads, household size, and per capita production. The result obtained was further analyzed to compute partial effects and to conduct simulation studies on significant factors. Analysis of partial effects revealed that an introduction to fertilizer use and an improvement in the educational level of household heads give relatively higher changes in the probably of food security. On the other hand, simulations conducted on the basis of the base category of farmers, representing food secure households, revealed that both educational levels of household heads and fertilizer applications by farmers have relatively high potential to more than double the number of food secure households in the study area following improvements in these factors.Food Security and Poverty,

Causes of household food insecurity in Koredegaga Peasant Association, Oromiya Zone, Ethiopia

The main objective of the study was to examine the determinants of households' food security using a logistic regression procedure. The model was initially fitted with eleven factors, of which six were found to be significant, and all exhibited the expected signs. These include farmland size, ox ownership, fertilizer application, education level of household heads, household size, and per capita production. The result was analyzed further to compute partial effects and to conduct simulation studies on significant determinant factors. Analysis of partial effects revealed that an introduction to fertilizer use and an improvement in the educational levels of household heads lead to relatively greater probability of food security. On the other hand, simulations were conducted on the basis of the base category of farmers, representing food secure households, revealed that both educational levels of household heads and fertilizer application by farmers have relatively high potential to more than double the number of food secure households in the study area following improvements in these factors.Food Security and Poverty,

Grain-supply response in Ethiopia: An error-correction approach

This paper quantifies the responsiveness of producers of teff, wheat, maize and sorghum to incentives using an error-correction model (ECM). It is found that planned supply of these crops is positively affected by own price, negatively by prices of substitute crops and variously by structural breaks related to policy changes and the occurrence of natural calamities. It has found significant long-run price elasticities for all crop types and insignificant short-run price elasticities for all crops but maize. Higher and significant long-run price elasticities as compared to lower and insignificant short-run price elasticities are attributable to various factors, namely structural constraints, the theory of supply and the conviction that farmers respond when they are certain that price changes are permanent. The paper concludes that farmers do respond to incentive changes. Thus attempts, which directly or indirectly tax agriculture with the belief that the sector is non-responsive to incentives, harm its growth and its contribution to growth in other sectors of the economy.Crop Production/Industries,

IS INCREASED INSTABILITY IN CEREAL PRODUCTION IN ETHIOPIA CAUSED BY POLICY CHANGES?

In Ethiopia, growth in cereal production is accompanied by a more than proportionate increase in the standard deviation of production. This study applies descriptive and variance decomposition procedures to determine the sources of increased instability in cereal production in order to show whether they are caused by policy changes. It was found that production instability was caused more by increased yield instability. Considering the fact that use of high-powered inputs is limited to a small number of farmers, production is at subsistence level and that farmers' responsiveness to policy changes is constrained by infrastructural and institutional constraints and by the existing land policy, instability in yield is predominantly attributed to weather variability.Cereals, detrending, differencing, production instability, variance decomposition, Ethiopia., Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries,

THE EFFECT AND PERSISTENCE OF MAJOR CHANGES IN ECONOMIC POLICIES ON THE LONG-TERM PERFORMANCE (TREND) OF ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURE

Agriculture in the Ethiopian economy has survived three major structural breaks, namely the 1974 change of policy in favour of a command-based economic system, the 1984 famine and the 1992 change of policy that introduced a market economy. A regression procedure was applied to analyze the effect of these breaks on the slope and intercept of agricultural GDP. In addition, statistical properties were studied to measure the degree of persistence of shocks in agricultural GDP. In the regression equation, only the 1984 famine was found to be significant. The non-significance of policy parameters in the regression equation could be associated with a lack of infrastructural facilities and the subsistence nature of Ethiopian agriculture. The study of the statistical property of agricultural GDP revealed that agricultural GDP is a trend stationary process, which implies that fluctuations on agricultural GDP series, which mostly occur due to good or bad weather conditions, are temporary and dissipate in a short period of time.Political Economy, Productivity Analysis,

The demand for meat in South Africa: An almost ideal estimation

A Linear Approximated Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS), estimated in first differences, was used to anticipate the demand relations for meat (beef, chicken, pork and mutton) in South Africa from 1970 – 2000. Two tests for weak separability, including an F and Likelihood ratio version, failed to reject the null hypothesis of weak separability, confirming that the four meat products are separable, and should be modelled together. According to the Hausman exogeneity test, the expenditure term in the South African meat demand model is exogenous. As a result, a Restricted Seemingly Unrelated Regression (RSUR) was used to estimate the model, whereafter the parameters were used as to calculate compensated, uncompensated and expenditure elasticities.Demand and Price Analysis,

Choosing between the AIDS and Rotterdam models: A meat demand analysis case study

Due to the inability of economic theory to choose ex ante between the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) and the Rotterdam model, a non-nested test was used. The results of the non-nested test points to the Linearized-AIDS model applied to 31 years of meat consumption data in South Africa. When comparing the estimated demand relations of the two models, the LA/AIDS model also proved to be better fit for South African meat demand.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

A Linearized Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS) Estimation of the Demand for Meat in South Africa

A linear approximated Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS), estimated in first differences, were used to estimate the demand relations for meat (beef, chicken, pork and mutton) in South Africa from 1970 2000. Two tests for weak separability, including an F and Likelihood ratio version, failed to reject the null hypothesis of weak seperability, confirming that the four meat products are separable, and should be modelled together. According to the Hausman exogeneity test, the expenditure term in the South African meat demand model is exogenous. As a result, a Restricted Seemingly Unrelated Regression (RSUR) was used to estimate the model, whereafter the estimated parameters were used to estimate compensated, uncompensated and expenditure elasticities.Consumer/Household Economics,

An Electronic Framework to Shepherd the Pastoral Livestock (Resolve Conflicts in Pastoral Communities)

This paper proposes a tracking framework based on GPS enabled location sensors, the GSM/WCDMA wireless network, and algorithms running in an edge clouds to resolve deadly conflicts that arise in the Africans pastorals community. The paper also proposes an automatic digital identification mechanism that helps resolve conflicts during animals mixup. This algorithmic based solution would totally relief the community from using the traditional identification mechanisms such as hot branding which are known to be cruel to animals. To communicate with the pastorals, the framework takes into consideration the low level literacy of the community as well as their use of low end mobile devices. Moreover, very low economy status, different environments of three kinds of livestocks, day and night variations of animal movements are all factored into the design of the algorithms. This paper shows the general architecture of the system and algorithms to shepherd camels. In a subsequent paper we will add algorithms to shepherd sheep, goats and cattle. Moreover, we will evaluate the solution using simulated as well as real deployments