FIRMS’ RESPONSES TO NUTRITIONAL POLICIES

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of nutritional policies on the behavior of firms, particularly in terms of food quality and prices, and to assess the potential impacts of such policies from a public health point of view. We determine how new products that are nutritionally improved can emerge in a market where incumbent firms offer competing unhealthy products. We also highlight a non-intentional effect of such policies: if consumer heterogeneity is high, then an information policy may simultaneously provide health benefits to the population as a whole but worsen the health of consumers that are less aware of nutritional effects. For a given level of nutritional tax, we determine the optimal threshold that firms must meet to avoid taxation. It appears that this threshold must not be too high if the goal of nutritional policies is to increase total health benefits without increasing health disparities between consumers. An increase in the tax level has two opposing effects. On one hand, it improves health benefits for consumers that are less aware of nutrition issues. On the other hand, because it leads to an increase in prices as a result of a reduction in the competition intensity, it decreases the cost-effectiveness of the policy.Nutrition policy, product differentiation, firms’ strategies, taxation, quality standards, public health, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy, L15, I18, H23,

Objectives’ alignment between members and agricultural cooperatives

Members’ commitment lessens when agricultural cooperatives grow larger. Their organization becomes more complex and their membership more heterogeneous, which threatens their sustainability and leads them to implement specific mechanisms for collective decisions. We explore how the alignment of objectives between a multi-purpose cooperative and its members influences member commitment. We estimate a multinomial probit model on a cross-section sample of 3,205 members from a large agricultural cooperative in France. We assess the determinants of member commitment through four factors: the offer of new agricultural practices, the availability of outlets and supplies to members, the farm distance to the cooperative headquarters and the farm governance. We show that the adoption of new agricultural practices has a small but significant effect. The availability of outlets and supplies has the strongest effect on the economic involvement of the farmers. Other determinants, such as farm governance or geographical distance to the cooperative headquarters, also reinforce member commitment.L'engagement des adhérents diminue lorsque la taille des coopératives agricoles augmente. En effet, à mesure que la taille des coopératives augmente, leur organisation devient plus complexe, leur sociétariat plus hétérogène, ce qui menace leur durabilité et les conduit à mettre en oeuvre de nouveaux mécanismes de décisions collectives. Nous explorons comment l'alignement des objectifs entre une coopérative polyvalente et ses adhérents influence leur engagement. Nous estimons un modèle probit multinomial sur un échantillon transversal de 3 205 adhérents d'une grande coopérative agricole française. Nous évaluons les déterminants de l'engagement des adhérents à partir de quatre critères: l'offre de nouvelles pratiques agricoles, la disponibilité des débouchés pour l’adhérent au sein de la coopérative, la distance entre le siège social de l’exploitation et celui de la coopérative et la gouvernance de l’exploitation. Nous montrons que l'adoption de nouvelles pratiques agricoles a un effet faible mais significatif sur l’engagement. La disponibilité des débouchés est le facteur qui a le plus d’impact sur l’engagement des adhérents. D'autres déterminants, tels que la gouvernance de l’exploitation ou la distance au siège social de la coopérative renforcent également l'engagement des adhérents

Contract design for improving membership commitment in French cooperatives

Diffusion du document : INRA Station d'Economie et Sociologie rurales 65 rue de Saint-Brieuc 35042 Rennes Cedex (FRA)Market deregulation and growing membership heterogenity affect the relationship between cooperatives and their members. We study, using a quantitative model, how French marketing cooperatives can develop for their members a set of contracts adapted to the environment. These contracts should maintain global membership commitment

Le marché des broutards en France. Organisation de la filière, transmission de l’information et qualité

La filière française viande de jeunes bovins de boucherie mâles est la première productrice d’Europe. Cet article s’intéresse plus spécifiquement à la filière des jeunes bovins mâles de boucherie de race à viande et à la structuration de la filière en France. Cet article résulte d’une enquête auprès d’acteurs de la filière et explique (i) l’organisation du marché des broutards entre élevage naisseurs et engraisseurs, spécifiant le rôle clef des intermédiaires commerciaux ; (ii) les caractéristiques des transactions (modes de coordination verticale, préférences des éleveurs) ; et (iii) les facteurs d’incertitude pour la traçabilité (sanitaire notamment) liés à cette organisation.The French young male beef cattle sector has the highest production in Europe. This article focuses specifically on the sector of young male beef cattle and the organization of this sector in France. We conducted a survey among producers and commercial intermediaries to examine how the supply chain organization influences information transmission and health management practices. This article explains: (i) The organization of the weanling market (and the paramount role of commercial intermediaries); (ii) The characteristics of the transactions (vertical coordination, farmers’ preferences); (iii) The information transmission and quality standards of weanling health management practices

Stratégie d'approvisionnement des coopératives laitières

Diffusion du document : INRA Station d'Economie et Sociologie rurales 65 rue de Saint-Brieuc 35042 Rennes Cedex (FRA)Cette communication a été préparée pour les journées européennes des thèses en économie et en gestion agricoles et agroalimentaires et rurales, L'objectif principal de la thèse présentée ici est d'étudier les formes d'un nouvel engagement coopératif en développant un modèle économique de coopérative laitière.Dans ce document, nous centrons notre étude sur les conséquences de l'obligation d'achat de toute la matière première pour les coopératives laitières. Dans la situation actuelle où les prix des produits de base, beurre et poudre de lait, sont faibles, les entreprises positionnées sur ces marchés ont des difficultés. Ce contexte a des effets différents sur l'entreprise privée et sur la coopérative. Nous étudions donc comment gérer le volume d'achatde la matière première agricole dans la coopérative et nous comparons sa situation à celle de l'entreprise privée

European farmer perspectives and their adoption of ecological practices

Delivering an agricultural policy which meets ecosystem and climatic pressures and addresses weaknesses in our current food system presents complex challenges for food producers. Adoption of ecological practices will reduce the dependence on imports into the farm and is one way to meet some of these policy ambitions. Understanding why farmers do or don’t adopt these practices is key to enabling this transition. This study outlines a series of investigations into the key barriers, values and perceptions towards ecological practice adoption across European farming. We find that personal, technical and institutional forces influence the adoption of more sustainable practices but these forces have varying levels of influence. The tensions between environmental, compared to purely production orientated motivations, may be a key barrier to ecological practice adoption. We also find a strong influence of commodity supply chains which may either encourage or limit adoption of these approaches. Promoting efforts for co-ordinated approaches between the public and private sectors may mitigate some of the dissonance in messaging towards these practices and alleviate these tensions. We also identify a great deal of heterogeneity within the European farming community and argue for a more targeted approach that would encourage adoption of ecological approaches and promote the scaling up of these practices. <br/

Stratégie de différenciation de la coopérative laitière

Diffusion du document : INRA Station d'Economie et Sociologie rurales 65 rue de Saint-Brieuc 35042 Rennes Cedex (FRA)Les négociations de l'Organisation Mondiale du Commerce et l'élargissement de l'Union Européenne aux Pays d'Europe centrale et orientale déstabilisent l'environnement économique des coopératives agricoles. Pour ces entreprises, cette instabilité remet en question deux de leurs fondements. Le premier concerne l'obligation d'accepter toute la quantité de produit agricole livrée par leurs adhérents. Le second concerne le traitement égalitaire qu'elles doivent appliquer à leurs adhérents.Pour traiter ce problème qui conjugue les dimensions prix et quantité, nous utilisons un modèle de gestion des stocks basé sur celui du marchand de journaux. Nous analysons ainsi l'effet d'un relâchement partiel de la contrainte d'obligation d'achat de l'approvisionnement sur la coopérative. Nous introduisons également l'incertitude sur les prix des marchés agricoles en utilisant la technique de la simulation. Nous examinons ensuite l'incidence de l'introduction de contrats individualisés au sein de ces entreprises. Le contrat étudié porte sur une meilleurerémunération du produit agricole de qualité spécifique

Decreased photosynthesis and growth with reduced respiration in the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum grown under elevated CO2 over 1800 generations:diatom in elevated CO2 over 1800 generations

Studies on the long-term responses of marine phytoplankton to ongoing ocean acidification (OA) are appearing rapidly in the literature. However, only a few of these have investigated diatoms, which is disproportionate to their contribution to global primary production. Here we show that a population of the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, after growing under elevated CO2 (1000 matm, HCL, pHT: 7.70) for 1860 generations, showed significant differences in photosynthesis and growth from a population maintained in ambient CO2 and then transferred to elevated CO2 for 20 generations (HC). The HCL population had lower mitochondrial respiration, than did the control population maintained in ambient CO2 (400 matm, LCL, pHT: 8.02) for 1860 generations. Although the cells had higher respiratory carbon loss within 20 generations under the elevated CO2, being consistent to previous findings, they down-regulated their respiration to sustain their growth in longer duration under the OA condition. Responses of phytoplankton to OA may depend on the timescale for which they are exposed due to fluctuations in physiological traits over time. This study provides the first evidence that populations of the model species, P. tricornutum, differ phenotypically from each other after having been grown for differing spans of time under OA conditions, suggesting that long-term changes should be measured to understand responses of primary producers to OA, especially in waters with diatom-dominated phytoplankton assemblages

Producer organisations in the meat sector

For the French market Dr Duvaleix-Tréguer noted striking differences between the number ofrecognised POs in the F&V sector (254) and in the pig sector (37). However, whereas the recognisedPOs in the F&V sector cover only 50% of production, in the pig sector 89% of the productionare covered. Dr Duvaleix-Tréguer also described how each sector organises itself differently.Whereas in the French dairy sector 50% of production is done by cooperatives, the other 50% aredone by POs, which negotiate framework agreements with industry. In the pork sector, there is ahigh prevalence of economic POs, but not all of them are organised in the form of a cooperative.She presented a case study on the marginal costs in hog production that distinguished between‘independent’ POs that concentrate supply (horizontal cooperation), ‘marketing’ POs that havelinks with downstream operations (slaughterhouse), and ‘supply & marketing’ POs that have alsolinks with upstream operations (feed). Members of supply & marketing POs have the lowestmarginal costs (i.e. the costs of increasing or decreasing production by one head), possibly becausethey are mostly joined by large and efficient farms or because they can realise economiesof scale for their members. Compared to the marginal costs, the output price that members ofsupply & marketing POs receive is relatively high. More generally, membership in POs can increasethe efficiency of producers and, in particular, quality schemes that are operated by POs canincrease the overall value-added in the food supply chain