The Effects of Energy Price Increases on Dutch Horticulture

This paper elaborates on the effects of a rise in energy costs for Dutch glasshouse horticultural producers. The effects on production, bilateral trade and consumption in 25 European countries plus Morocco, Turkey and the Rest of the World, are estimated using a version of the HORTUS partial equilibrium supply and demand model. This model includes 11 sorts of fruit and vegetables, and two categories of ornamental plants and flowers. As energy, especially natural gas, is a major intermediate input in Dutch glasshouse horticulture, it has potentially large impacts on producers and trade. The results indicate that a 10 percent increase in energy prices could cause significant shifts in production and trade flows, as well as some changes in consumption patterns. The effects are larger for more export oriented products, and dependent on the nature of competition on foreign as well as domestic markets.energy costs, glasshouse vegetables and flowers, model of international trade, Crop Production/Industries, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, F15, F17, Q17,

The vegetables and fruit sector in Uganda : Competitiveness, investment and trade options

The study assess the competitiveness of the fruit and vegetable sector and suggests specific recommendations for further development. It also provides insights in market, trade and investment opportunities. A focus is applied to a limited number of crop specific case studies. In Uganda the production of fruit and vegetable is gaining importance. Despite agricultural practices being weak, farmers in Uganda can make a reasonable profit margin from their farm plots. In addition, key performances indicators of Uganda compared with Kenya show that most products for the domestic and regional markets are very competitive in terms of quality, price and yield

Internationaal Productie Potentie Model : modelbeschrijving sierteelt

The IPPMS model has been developed to map the global potential of floriculture production. For this purpose an overview of the relevant location theories was made and the development of floriculture production in a number of countries has been analysed. These insights have been used to develop a model structure in which factors, subfactors and indicators are determined by applying a phased approach. Subsequently, various experts have been ask to score the different factors, subfactors and indicators in order to weigh the model. With the IPPMS prototype various countries have been analysed in order to determine the attractiveness for floriculture production

The impact of labels on the competitiveness of the European food label supply chain

The report studies the impact of private labels on the competitiveness of the European food processing industry and investigates whether a system of producer indication may improve the functioning of the food supply chain. The impact is studied using economic theory and empirical and legal analysis. The study is completed with an impact assessment

Business opportunities Croatian fruit and vegetables growers

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has asked Wageningen Economic Research to carry out a study on the Croatian fruit and vegetables sector and value chain to make a contribution to the enhancement of the position of growers in the value chain. The study shows that the Croatian fruit and vegetables farming sector has opportunities in the development of the domestic supermarket channel and tourism markets. In the short run, growers will benefit from improving yields, efficiency and product quality. Increasing supply volumes and hence marketing efficiency can also be achieved by improved cooperation between farmers and further land reform measures. A good competitive position on the domestic market is a necessary pre-condition for increasing exports. In the longer term, in order to be able to develop export markets, the sector will benefit from the development of a buyers network, marketing, EU quality labels, and export logistics

CORE_TF: a user-friendly interface to identify evolutionary conserved transcription factor binding sites in sets of co-regulated genes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The identification of transcription factor binding sites is difficult since they are only a small number of nucleotides in size, resulting in large numbers of false positives and false negatives in current approaches. Computational methods to reduce false positives are to look for over-representation of transcription factor binding sites in a set of similarly regulated promoters or to look for conservation in orthologous promoter alignments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have developed a novel tool, "CORE_TF" (Conserved and Over-REpresented Transcription Factor binding sites) that identifies common transcription factor binding sites in promoters of co-regulated genes. To improve upon existing binding site predictions, the tool searches for position weight matrices from the TRANSFAC^{<it>R </it>}database that are over-represented in an experimental set compared to a random set of promoters and identifies cross-species conservation of the predicted transcription factor binding sites. The algorithm has been evaluated with expression and chromatin-immunoprecipitation on microarray data. We also implement and demonstrate the importance of matching the random set of promoters to the experimental promoters by GC content, which is a unique feature of our tool.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The program CORE_TF is accessible in a user friendly web interface at <url>http://www.LGTC.nl/CORE_TF</url>. It provides a table of over-represented transcription factor binding sites in the users input genes' promoters and a graphical view of evolutionary conserved transcription factor binding sites. In our test data sets it successfully predicts target transcription factors and their binding sites.</p

Expert Views on the Future Development of Biogas Business Branch in Germany, The Netherlands, and Finland until 2030

To be able to meet the European Union’s energy and climate targets for 2030, all member states need to rethink their energy production and use. One potential renewable energy source is biogas. Its role has been relatively small compared to other energy sources, but it could have a more central role to solve some specific challenges, e.g., to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from traffic, or to act as a buffer to balance electricity production with consumption. This research analyses how the future of the biogas business in three case study countries is developing until 2030. The study is based on experts’ views within the biogas business branch in Germany, The Netherlands, and Finland. Both similarities and differences were found among the experts’ answers, which reflected also the current policies in different countries. The role of biogas was seen much wider than just to provide renewable energy, but also to decrease emissions from agriculture and close loops in a circular economy. However, the future of the biogas branch is much dependent on political decisions. To be able to show the full potential of biogas technology for society, stable and predictable energy policy and cross-sector co-operation are needed

Monitoring of prices and margins in EU food supply chains

Unfair trading practices and other imperfections of food supply chains have been continuously discussed at EU and Member State level in recent years. Consequently, both the EU and many Member States have started operating price and margin monitoring systems in order to obtain a better insight into developments of prices, costs and profits along food supply chains. This study provides an inventory of the characteristics of food price and margin monitoring systems at EU and Member State level, in international organisations, the OECD and other countries. A typology of the existing monitoring approaches has been developed based on their quantitative in-detail evaluation. This is accompanied by a review of scientific literature empirically assessing asymmetric vertical price transmission along EU food supply chains. We have identified gaps in these existing methodologies and available datasets. Based on this comprehensive evaluation of the state of the art, three alternative food price and margin monitoring approaches have been proposed. The existing and alternative monitoring approaches have been ranked according to their cost efficiency. The practical use and value of two of these alternatives is illustrated by applying them to the supply chains of dairy, pig meat and apples in Bulgaria, France, Poland and the Netherlands.JRC.D.4-Economics of Agricultur

Determining the quality and complexity of next-generation sequencing data without a reference genome

Genomics, epigenetics, population genetics and bioinformatic

Bleeding phenotype and diagnostic characterization of patients with congenital platelet defects

Phenotypic characterization of congenital platelet defects (CPDs) could help physicians recognize CPD subtypes and can inform on prognostic implications. We report the analyses of the bleeding phenotype and diagnostic characteristics of a large cohort of adult patients with a confirmed CPD. A total of 96 patients were analyzed and they were classified as Glanzmann thrombasthenia, Bernard-Soulier syndrome, dense granule deficiency, defects in the ADP or thromboxane A2 (TxA2) pathway, isolated thrombocytopenia or complex abnormalities. The median ISTH-BAT bleeding score was nine (IQR 5-13). Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) (80%), post-partum hemorrhage (74%), post-operative bleeds (64%) and post-dental extraction bleeds (57%) occurred most frequently. Rare bleeding symptoms were bleeds from the urinary tract (4%) and central nervous system (CNS) bleeds (2%). Domains with a large proportion of severe bleeds were CNS bleeding, HMB and post-dental extraction bleeding. Glanzmann thrombasthenia and female sex were associated with a more severe bleeding phenotype