Farm production diversity: is it important for dietary diversity? Panel data evidence from Uganda

Open Access Article; Published online: 31 Jan 2020The substantial existence of malnutrition globally, especially in developing countries, has usually driven policy initiatives to focus on improving household food security and nutrition primarily through prioritizing farm production diversity. Although indeed some empirical evidence has pointed to farm production diversity remedying malnutrition, other evidence has pointed to markets. Therefore, evidence is mixed and may be country or region variant. To contribute to closing such a gap in the literature, we used three waves of national panel survey data from Uganda and panel regression models to investigate associations between farm production diversity and dietary diversity, as well as impact pathways. We found that farm production diversity was positively and significantly associated with household dietary diversity. Farm production diversity influenced dietary diversity through own farm production, and market consumption food security pathways. The own farm production pathway showed a stronger associated impact. Increasing food expenditure by 1000 UGX via own farm production yielded an eight percentage point increment in household dietary diversity, while an equal expenditure via markets yielded a 5.3 percentage point increment. We also found existence of gender effects. Male headed households were associated with relatively poorer household dietary diversity. These findings could have broader implications for countries practicing smallholder agriculture

CH-FARMIS - An agricultural sector model for Swiss agriculture

This working paper gives an overview of the farm group model CH-FARMIS - a comparative static, process analytical, non-linear programming model that allows a separate assessment of the impacts of policies on organic and non-organic farming in Switzerland. In CH-FARMIS, the agricultural sector is represented by thirty farm groups, which can be char-acterised by their farming system, farm type and geographic location. Book keeping data from the Swiss FADN was used as a primary source for the model. By applying farm-specific weight-ing factors, farm data were aggregated to sector accounts. The technical coefficients of the farm model were either taken directly from farm accounts or calculated on the basis of normative data. Agricultural production is represented by 29 crop activities and 15 livestock activities. The factor allocation and production of each farm group is optimised by maximising farm income under policy and management restrictions. The restrictions cover the area of land and labour use, livestock feeding, fertiliser balance, rearing of young stock, allocation of direct payments and requirements with respect to the organic production system. A positive mathematical pro-gramming approach (PMP) was used to calibrate the production activities in the base year to observed activity levels

Biogas on-farm: energy and material flow

Objectives: European countries are committed to reduce CO2 emission originating from fossil fuels. On-farm produced biogas may replace energy produced from fossil fuels and so contribute to achieve the target. Up to now only in Germany a greater number of on-farm biogas plants has been established. The data of these plants can be used to evaluate cost and benefit of on-farm biogas production in other European countries. This paper concerns the following questions: Which parameters of biogas plant construction and operation have an influence on profit and sustainability of biogas production on-farm? Hypothesis: A biogas plant integrated within a self-contained farm organism is economically more competitive and more sustainable than an industrial biogas production unit of a mainstream farm. Method: First, a model is established that describes energy and material flow of two farm types. Farm type one produces biogas from slurry of 100 adult bovine units (ABU) and 10% co-ferment. Biogas powers a diesel engine of 26 kW electric power capacity using 10% ignition diesel fuel. Electric power production covers farm consumption and the surplus is supplied to the main grid. Heat is used for the farm estate surplus remains unused. Farm type two produces the same amount of biogas, but uses a gas motor. Additionally the farm includes a glasshouse of 1000 m2 to make use of electric power surplus and heat surplus. Further, the exhaust of the gas motor substitutes CO2 fertiliser procurement to the glasshouse. Second, cost and benefit analysis of biogas production and application is done using empirical data of the most recent biogas plant survey in Germany. These data are adjusted to Finnish conditions where necessary. Third, parameter variation is employed to find out the sensibility of the most important variables in terms of marginal profit and interest yield of investment for the biogas plant. Results: Farm type one delivers a positive interest yield of 2,6 % under German conditions. Under Finnish conditions there is no profit possible. Concerning methane production the marginal profit sensibility decreases in the following order: dry matter of slurry > quantity of co-substrate > reactor efficiency in terms of CH4 kg-1 organic dry matter (oDM) > fermentation period > number of ABU. Concerning electric power and heat production the marginal profit sensibility decreases in the following order: Level of electric power compensation > efficiency of energy conversion methane to electric power > price level of fuel oil and electric power. Farm type two delivers a positive interest yield of 8 % under Finnish conditions. Concerning methane production the marginal profit sensibility does not differ from farm type one except with regard to CO2 fertiliser costs. Concerning electric power and heat production the marginal profit sensibility decreases in the following order: price level of light and heavy fuel oil and electric power > efficiency of energy conversion of methane to electric power > process energy > heating energy and heating period of the farm estate > operating time in h d-1 of the gas motor. Discussion: The better economic performance of farm type two under Finnish conditions mainly bases on substitution of CO2 fertiliser by the gas motor exhaust gas. The interest yield is very sensitive on energy input prices; however less sensitive than the interest yield of farm type one in respect of electric power compensation level. Further use of reactor digestion residues as organic fertiliser may improve sustainability of farm type two

Off-farm Work, Technical Efficiency, and Production Risk: Empirical Evidence from a National Farmer Survey in Taiwan

The objective of this paper is to investigate the differences in yield production, production efficiency, and yield risk for farmers with and without off-farm work. Using a nationwide survey of Taiwanese rice farmers, we estimate a stochastic production frontier model accommodating the technical inefficiency and the production risk simultaneously. Applying the stochastic dominance criterion to rank the estimated technical efficiency and yield risk between professional farmers and farmers with off-farm jobs, our empirical analysis shows that off-farm work is significantly associated with lower technical efficiency. Additionally, farmers with off-farm work face higher production risks. Comparing the marginal effects of input uses on technical inefficiency and yield risk between these groups of farmers, we found a substantial heterogeneity of input uses between these two groups of farmers.Off-farm work, technical efficiency, production risk, Taiwan, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management,

Energy balance of different organic biogas farming systems

The ecological impact of biogas plants depends on their integration into a given farming system. Therefore only farm-specific and no general statements are possible. In this paper, two different concepts of biogas production for an organic cash crop farm have been energetically balanced using a model software. The analysis of input and efficient use of fossil energy carriers provides information on the environmental relevance of the farm operations. Apart from this, renewable energy production in the farming systems is compared to food production, and changes in the farm output are described. It turns out that organically run cash crop farms can benefit from a reasonable integration of a biogas plant, both in food crop and energy production. An increased orientation on the growing of energy crops, however, leads to worse utilization of fossil energy carriers and reduced food production

The Conservation Reserve Program, Off-Farm Work, and Farm Household Technical Efficiencies

Using data from a national survey of farm households in the United States, this paper examines the effects of farm households’ decisions to participate in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and to work off the farm on the technical efficiency of farm household production. After controlling for the self selection bias in estimating the multiple output-oriented distance functions, results show that operators’ decisions to work off the farm (both separately and combined with participation in CRP) lead to higher technical efficiencies for farm household production— implying improvements in the resource allocation between farm and other productive activities by farm households. The technical efficiencies of household production of those farm households participating only in the CRP are lower.Conservation Reserve Program, off-farm work, household technical efficiency, Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,

Alternative Cropping Systems for Traditional Monoculture Wheat Acres in the Southern Plains for Two Farm Sizes

The economics of five alternative crop production systems for the Southern Plains winter wheat production region, for both conventional tillage and no-till, for two farm sizes, was determined. Yield data were obtained from a three-year experiment conducted on three farm fields in the region. Tillage costs differ across farm size.Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management,

An LC inventory based on representative and coherent farm types

There is a need for valid and representative data regarding the production, resource use and emissions from typical farming systems in Denmark for analysis of the environmental impact of different systems and as input to product oriented analyses such as Life Cycle Assess-ments of basic food items. An inventory of 31 farm types was constructed on the basis of 2138 farm accounts from 1999 selected and weighted to be representative for the Danish farming sector. The farm accounts were grouped according to the major soil types, the num-ber of standard working hours, the most important enterprise (dairy, pig, different cash crops) and the stocking rate (livestock units per hectare). For each group the account data on the average inputs and outputs, land use and herd structure was used to establish a farm type model with coherency between livestock production, total feed use, land use, yields, im-ported feed, home-grown feed, manure production, fertiliser use and crop production. The set of farm types were scaled up to national level thus representing the whole Danish agricul-tural sector for the included products. The sum of area and yield by crop, number and pro-duction by livestock type and the use of fertiliser, energy and concentrated feed was checked against national level statistics and corrected accordingly across all farm types. Resource use and emissions in each farm type was established using standard nutrient concentrations and models for nutrient cycling, energy use and emissions of e.g. ammonia, nitrous oxides and methane. For LCA the product oriented inventory was established using system expan-sion rather than allocations to account for the secondary enterprises in the livestock farm types. Data are made available on a web-based database and may be used for analyses of the primary production systems or as input for LCA across the whole production chain

Commodity Payments, Farm Business Survival, and Farm Size Growth

In the last 25 years, U.S. crop farms have steadily declined in number and grown in average size, as production has shifted to larger operations. Larger farms tend to receive more commodity program payments because most payments are tied to a farm’s current or historical production, but whether payments have contributed to farm growth is uncertain. This study uses farm-level data from the census of agriculture to determine whether there is a statistical relationship between farm commodity program payments and greater concentration in production. The analysis indicates that, at the regional level, higher commodity program payments per acre are associated with subsequent farm growth. Also, higher payments per acre are associated with higher rates of farm survival and growth.agricultural payments, farm size, farm survival, concentration, consolidation, government payments, commodity programs., Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management,

THE ECONOMIC POTENTIAL OF VEGETABLE PRODUCTION FOR LIMITED RESOURCE FARMERS IN SOUTH CENTRAL ALABAMA

The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of vegetable production to enhance the declining farm income of limited resource farmers. A survey of 60 limited resource farmers in south central Alabama was undertaken to carry out this evaluation. Results of the survey show that 95% of the farmers had an annual farm income of less than $12,000. Linear programming methodology was applied to perform a whole-farm analysis of a representative farm developed from the data. The overall results show that vegetable production will significantly increase the annual income of these farmers. Some specific conclusions are that: (a) the total return from vegetable production depends on vegetable mixes; (b) vegetable production is labor intensive and sensitive to change in labor cost, implying that an increase in minimum wage might affect the return from vegetable production; and (c) development of labor-saving technology in vegetable production could be considered as a long-term solution to increase the returns of vegetable producers.enterprise budget, farm analysis, farm income, limited resource farmers, linear programming, minimum wage, vegetable production, Production Economics,