Agricultural Budget Research Articles

Impact of drivers of change, including climatic factors, on the occurrence of chemical food safety hazards in fruits and vegetables: A Bayesian Network approach

The presence and development of many food safety risks are driven by factors within and outside the food supply chain, such as climate, economy and human behaviour. The interactions between these factors and the supply chain are complex and a system or holistic approach is needed to reveal cause-effect relationships and to be able to perform effective mitigation actions to minimise food safety risks. In this study, we demonstrate the potential of the Bayesian Network (BN) approach to identify and quantify the strength of relationships and interactions between the presence of food safety hazards as reported in Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) for fruits and vegetables on one hand, and climatic factors, economic and agronomic data on the other. To this end, all food safety notifications in RASFF (i.e. 3781 notifications) on fruits and vegetables originating from India, Turkey and the Netherlands were collected for the period 2005–2015. In addition, climatic factors (e.g. temperature, precipitation), agricultural factors (e.g. pesticide use, fertilizer use) and economic factors (e.g. price, production volumes) were collected for the countries of origin of the product concurrent with the period of food safety notification in RASFF. A BN was constructed with 80% of the collected data using a machine-learning algorithm and optimised for each specific hazard category. The performance of the developed BN was determined in terms of accuracy of prediction of the hazard category in the evaluation set comprising 20% of the total data. The accuracy was high (95%) and the following factors contributed most: product category, notifying country, yearly production, number of notification, maximal residue level (MRL) ratio, country of origin, and the annual agricultural budget of a country. The assessment of the impact of interactions within the BN showed a significant interaction between the presence and level of a hazard as reported in RASFF and several drivers of change but at present, no definite conclusions can be drawn regarding the climatic factors and food safety hazards.

Myths and realities about input subsidies in sub‐Saharan Africa

AbstractUsing a recent public expenditure dataset, this article proposes a ‘reality check’ of the level and composition of input subsidies in nine African countries between 2006 and 2013. Results show that input subsidies (1) received close to 35% of agricultural‐specific expenditure on average and (2) cover a variety of interventions, including investments in capital, such as on‐farm irrigation, and in on‐farm services, such as inspection or training. Further, the figures show that input subsidies tended to become entrenched in agricultural budgets over time, leading to sub‐optimal execution rates, and were primarily funded by the national taxpayer, while donors invested more in public goods. Findings confirm that input subsidies crowded out other spending categories likely to be more supportive of long‐term agricultural development objectives. The article concludes that the political economy of input subsidies should be directed to making more concrete efforts to attain a better balance of public expenditure on agriculture. Furthermore, policy‐makers should aim to increase the efficiency and policy coherence of input subsidies, since merely abolishing them is likely to be unfeasible in the short term.

Does Late Delivery of Subsidized Fertilizer Affect Smallholder Maize Productivity and Production

Farm input subsidy programs have once again become a popular policy tool that many African governments use to improve agricultural productivity and address rural poverty. Zambia is one of the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that over the past decade has devoted a considerable share of its agricultural budget to the Farmer Input Support Program (FISP). Input subsidy programs have received considerable research attention in recent years. Unfortunately, the issue of late delivery of inputs under government subsidy programs has received little or no research attention even though it has been a longstanding problem in many countries, including Zambia. This paper examined the effects of late delivery of fertilizer on technical efficiency of smallholder maize producers and on foregone national maize output in Zambia. Using cross-sectional household survey data for the 2010/11 agricultural season, a plot-level maize yield response model was estimated using a Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) while controlling for the endogeneity of whether farmers received their FISP fertilizer on time. Results indicate that late delivery of fertilizer reduces technical efficiency and maize yield by 4.2%. The estimated results are then extrapolated to quantify the loss in national maize output. The foregone maize output due to late delivery of fertilizer in the 2010/11 farming season was 84,924 metric tons. When valued at the government’s maize purchase price, the forgone income is equivalent to USD 21.2 million. Furthermore, by limiting the sample to only households that obtained fertilizer from FISP, we found that households with large landholding size and high value of productive assets were more likely to receive fertilizer on time, ceteris paribus. It was also found that households with family connections with village headmen/chiefs were more likely to receive fertilizer on time compared to other households.

CHANGES IN THE POLISH AGRICULTURAL BUDGET FOR 2017

The purpose of the analyzes was to indicate the quantitative and qualitative changes that took place in the expenditures of the budgetary act for 2017 in the sections on agriculture, rural development, agricultural markets, together with the ASIF and the Budget of the European Funds in comparison with the previous year. It is reasonable to conclude that after many years of relatively consistent national agricultural policy, the legislator’s approach to financing many agricultural sectors has been noticeable. One may ask whether we are dealing with renationalisation of expenditure in the National Agricultural Budget, in the condition of a falling pool of funds from the Budget of the European Funds or not yet.

Perencanaan Pembangunan Ekonomi Wilayah Berbasis Pertanian dalam Rangka Pengurangan Kemiskinan di Kalimantan Barat

Agriculture-based economic development planning is one of the efforts to reduce poverty in West Kalimantan by synergizing the performance of regional finance and agriculture sectors. The present study aimed at identifying relationship between the performance of regional finance, the performance of agriculture sector and poverty level of West Kalimantan. Analytical tools used to achieve the objectives of this research were descriptive statistics and panel data methods. The results show a positive relationship between the performance of regional finance and agriculture sectors. Gradual reallocation of agricultural budget can be an option for government to determine annual budget. Increase in preparatory investment and reallocation of regional government investment is a necessary policy to give allocation priority for agriculture sectors development. The agriculture sectors, in this case the segment of agriculture sectors on GRDP of West Kalimantan, negatively affect the poverty level. The development of agriculture sectors run by the government should be followed by the increase in human resources quality.

Agricultural budget and agriculture development in Republic of Serbia

Considering that agriculture is signifcant activity in the Republic of Serbia, the country pursues the politics of encouraging it through the agricultural budget in order to develop and bring greater effects. The aim of paper is to depict the state of agriculture in the Republic of Serbia and agricultural budget, as an instrument of agricultural politics in function of agricultural sector development. Tendency is to explore whether the amount and structure of agricultural budget is adequate to objectives of the Strategy for agriculture development of the Republic of Serbia. By application of historical and descriptive method, the impact of agricultural budget to the agriculture development in the Republic of Serbia is reviewed. On the other hand, comparative analysis of statistical data provided the adoption of conclusions on the structure and amount of agricultural budget for the future. Graphical methods, indicators, logical methods and other standard methods are also used. For the more dynamic agriculture development of the Republic of Serbia, the resources of agricultural budget are not suffcient. The reform of agricultural policy is necessary, where the agricultural budget will gain in signifcance. The most effective is to direct the resources to new investments, infrastructural projects in rural areas, to stimulate intensive and export-oriented production, processing, as well as systems of sustainable agriculture.

Possibility of rural sector development in Serbia using IPARD program

For the countries of the Western Balkans, especially in Serbia, whose economy is largely dependent on agriculture, strategically, within the accession negotiations with the European Union, topics concerning the rural sector are of great importance. In this sense, it is very important for all countries in the region, including Serbia to create the conditions for the implementation of IPARD - Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance for Rural Development as the EU pre-accession program. This European instrument which helps countries that are at the door of the EU is actually a preparation for future participation in the complex and clearly defned Common agricultural policy of the European Union (CAP – Common agriculture policy), which is a set of rules equal for all and that means common agricultural budget. The importance of being well-prepared for the CAP, is expressed in the fact that this budget is more than half of EU cash. When a country joins the EU, it is given a quota in the common agricultural budget through two funds - EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) and EAGF (European Agricultural Guarantee Fund), and for a national agriculture to effectively adopt the mode of operation of these instruments, it is important that the funds which are at its disposal in the pre-accession period are better utilized, and to master the principles on which CAP is based. First steps in the use of further more generous funds for agriculture and rural development are laid down through IPARD.

Comparative Analysis of Support to Agriculture in the QUAD Countries in 1986-2014

The purpose of this paper is a comparative analysis of support provided to agriculture sector by the QUAD countries in 1986-2014. The authors examined the changes in levels and structures of this support and tried to assess it from the point of view of its impact on the QUAD economies and markets. In the analysis conducted there were used especially the OECD data and indexes measuring state support to agriculture including: Total Support Estimate, Producer Support Estimate, General Services Support Estimate and Consumer Support Estimate. In the last three decades in all the examined economies, there has been a reduction in agricultural support in relation to GDP, although no distinct change has occurred in terms of the amount of aid in absolute terms (in the US its value even increased almost twice). As regards the changes in structure of support, the most favorable tendencies took place in the European Union where the market price support (MPS), i.e. the most distorting aid to the functioning of the market mechanism, was significantly reduced. One can also positively assess the support structure in the United States where about half of the agricultural budget is earmarked to consumers. Canada has very good economic outcomes as regard the agriculture sector even though it allocates the least amount of financial resources to support agriculture in relation to GDP among all the QUAD economies. However, despite a large part of this support is in the form of general services (GSSE), the country is characterized by an unfavorable trend of increasing expenditure on price support. Throughout the period considered the most harmful support policy from the point of view of market competition was led by Japan though it has affected to a lesser extent the functioning of international agri-food markets due to the lower importance of Japanese agricultural production and exports in the world economy in comparison to the EU and the US.

EU COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY AND AGRICULTURAL POLICY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA (BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA)

One of the most challenging issues for the countries that are in the process ofaccession to the European Union is the reform of agriculture, precisely agriculturalpolicy and its compliance with the Common Agricultural Policy of the EuropeanUnion (CAP). The strategic orientation of the Republic of Srpska and Bosnia andHerzegovina is a full EU member status, which is defined with signatory to theStabilization and Accession Agreement in 2008 and confirmed with Applicationfor membership in the European Union, submitted in February 2016. Consideringthe upcoming accession negotiation process, the reformation of agricultural sectoris necessary in all areas of development: production, policy and legal frameworkand institutional development. Until 2015 Republic Srpska made and adopted twokey strategic documents that determine the directions, objectives and measures fordeveloping of agriculture and rural areas. Recently the Republic of Srpska adopteda new strategic plan for the development of agriculture and rural areas for theperiod 2016- 2020. Considering that agriculture budget represents a first indicatorof the countries sector priorities, objective of this paper is to provide analysis ofagricultural policy through the agricultural budget of the Republic of Srpska and itscompliance with Common Agricultural Policy of the EU. Comparative analysis isrelated to the period 2006 – 2014 using EU methodology for the classification ofagricultural measures (pillars and axis). Research results show that the structure ofmeasures and scope of budgetary support, defined within agricultural policy of theRepublic of Srpska is not compatible with Common Agricultural Policy of the EU.

Partitioning N2O emissions within the U.S. Corn Belt using an inverse modeling approach

AbstractNitrous oxide (N2O) emissions within the US Corn Belt have been previously estimated to be 200–900% larger than predictions from emission inventories, implying that one or more source categories in bottom‐up approaches are underestimated. Here we interpret hourly N2O concentrations measured during 2010 and 2011 at a tall tower using a time‐inverted transport model and a scale factor Bayesian inverse method to simultaneously constrain direct and indirect agricultural emissions. The optimization revealed that both agricultural source categories were underestimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) inventory approach. However, the magnitude of the discrepancies differed substantially, ranging from 42 to 58% and from 200 to 525% for direct and indirect components, respectively. Optimized agricultural N2O budgets for the Corn Belt were 319 ± 184 (total), 188 ± 66 (direct), and 131 ± 118 Gg N yr−1 (indirect) in 2010, versus 471 ± 326, 198 ± 80, and 273 ± 246 Gg N yr−1 in 2011. We attribute the interannual differences to varying moisture conditions, with increased precipitation in 2011 amplifying emissions. We found that indirect emissions represented 41–58% of the total agricultural budget, a considerably larger portion than the 25–30% predicted in bottom‐up inventories, further highlighting the need for improved constraints on this source category. These findings further support the hypothesis that indirect emissions are presently underestimated in bottom‐up inventories. Based on our results, we suggest an indirect emission factor for runoff and leaching ranging from 0.014 to 0.035 for the Corn Belt, which represents an upward adjustment of 1.9–4.6 times relative to the IPCC and is in agreement with recent bottom‐up field studies.

Struktura dochodów i wydatków budżetowych na rolnictwo, rozwój wsi i rynki rolne w 2016 roku

The aim of the article was to compare the structures of income and expenditure on agriculture, rural development and agricultural markets in 2016 compared to the previous year (and in some analyzes – for earlier years). There was analyzed in detail spending on various budget headings, taking into account, among others budget of European funds. It was noted that real spending in agricultural budget for 2016 are noticeably higher, with the exception of the budget of provincial governors, where in the year under perform their decline. One highlights the multiplication of the national agricultural budget through the budget the European funds.

Konwergencja czy dywergencja wydatków krajowych i unijnych w budżecie rolnym Polski po 2010 roku

The purpose of the article was to assess whether between expenditure targeted from the national and the EU’s budget for the implementation of the agricultural policy in Poland in the years 2010-2015 undergoing convergence or divergence. There was analyzed overall expenditure in the national and EU agricultural budget on the agricultural sector in Poland. This provided a basis to conclude that neither convergence nor beta sigma does not happen. We can found only divergence between expenses, manifested in increasingly conditionality linked to the development of domestic agriculture and rural areas with those from the EU.

Proposal for the EU CAP compliant agricultural budgeting model in Montenegro

After the official start of the Montenegrin accession negotiations with the EU in June 2012, it is important to plan a significant increase in the agricultural budget financing well ahead of the accession. Considering the structure and economic importance of agriculture for the generation of Montenegrin GDP, the balanced trade deficit, the reduction of poverty and the regional disparities in development and reversing the negative demographic trends, the proposed reformed agricultural budget of Montenegro in the period 2014–2018 outlines significantly higher levels of the funding both as a share of the state budget and the GDP. The proposed proportions of financing of the key measure groups in the subsequent tables utilize as a starting point the model defined in the Montenegrin National Program of Food Production and Rural Development 2009–2013. Some changes in the proportion of the measures are also proposed according to the agricultural sector needs and the institutional capacity building for the next phase of the EU accession negotiations. In order to prepare the Montenegrin agriculture to cope with the competitive pressures of the EU single market, the indisputable conclusion of this study is that the proposed future levels of agricultural funding in the agricultural budget should be at least near to those (in the relative terms) of the comparable economies of the Western Balkans countries.  

Integration of spendings on the agricultural sector in the national budget and the budgets of voivodes in Poland in the long term (2000-2013)

Integration of spendings on the agricultural sector in the national budget and the budgets of voivodes in Poland in the long term (2000-2013) The purpose of this article is to identify the areas of integration spendings on the agricultural sector in the national budget and the budgets of voivodes in the years 2000-2013, with an indication of the processes of their complementarity and substitutability. There was analyzed the expenditures of national and the EU budget flowing to the agricultural sector in Poland, showing their significant increase after the Polish integration with the EU. Was noticeable, however, that increasing spendings on the agricultural sector from the national budget could be „enforced” by increasing funding from the EU. This indicates the integrity understood as complementary to each other. Then shown the complementarity and substitutability spendings on the agricultural sector in the central agricultural budgets and the budgets of voivodes with regard to the financing of projects involving EU funds, noting ongoing trends.

Making agricultural support objective-oriented: a linear programming approach for Ukraine

The overall aim of the paper is to analyse the distribution of state agricultural support in Ukraine with the purpose of drawing up proposals on how to make it more objective-oriented. The investigation is based on the results of a case study conducted in Zdolbuniv district3, in the Rivne region of Ukraine, where interviews with local agricultural experts were held. The research is founded on the Linear Programming (LP) methodological approach, which is applied to calculate an objective-oriented agricultural budget allocation. This approach also integrates judgements from district agricultural experts. The outcomes show that agricultural support should have been redistributed in a slightly different way from the district perspective. However, the calculated changes in most cases match with the overall development directions in the Ukrainian agricultural support policy. Furthermore, the developed model has proved to be a useful and, at the same time, quite simple tool in application support, and one which could have been used by the agricultural decision-makers in the process of the distribution of agricultural support.

What Determines Public Expenditure Allocations? A Review of Theories, and Implications for Agricultural Public Investment

This paper addresses the determinants of public expenditure policies, by reviewing theories and empirical investigations of what features explain the budget process and how the various attributes of actors — including politicians, bureaucrats, interest groups, and donors — and of institutions and political and economic governance environments affect the prioritization of public investments. It draws conclusions with regard to the determinants of agricultural public investments.Studies that explicitly examine the budget process as it pertains to agricultural ministries and agencies in developing countries question the relevance of the formal budget process to understanding how decisions are actually made. There exists a body of work, adhering to the so-called garbage can budgeting model, which, although clearly rejecting the notion of a textbook budget process in empirical reality, seems to also reject the notion that there are any systematic politico-economic or other influences on how public expenditures are apportioned across competing needs. The budgetary model of incrementalism, at the other extreme, models budget makers as backward looking and changes in budget allocation as incremental. Another body of literature focuses on nature in which budgetary trade-offs are or are not made. The passage of the final budget — however it is arrived at — is not the end of the budget process, as there is still the implementation and execution of that budget. Discrepancies between the approved agricultural budget and the executed budget in the sector can come in the form of leakages, or they can occur because of a lack of capacity to execute or because of changing priorities mid–fiscal year.One conception of the budget allocation process prevalent in the economics literature offers an economistic view of public resource allocation undertaken by a benevolent and autocratic (in the sense of unencumbered) social planner seeking to maximize aggregate welfare. Other distinct branches have developed within the public choice literature, including those that depart from the notion of an unencumbered policymaker. One such branch of this literature analyzes budget outcomes emerging from the interface between budget-maximizing bureaucrats and vote-seeking politicians. In the collective action literature, characteristics of interest groups (in the broadest sense of the term) affect these groups’ ability to press for public policies, including agricultural investments, subsidies, and other public interventions, that are favorable to them. An interesting phenomenon in policy processes is the seeming existence of a status quo bias among policymakers, such that policies that have outlived their usefulness, such as agricultural input subsidies, appear to often fail to be discontinued. A diverse literature examines donors as actors, with their sets of incentives, constraints, and preferences, and the reach of their influence over public spending in developing countries.It is often difficult to attribute to policymakers’ actions the creation or improvement of certain services. Incorrect or imperfect attribution, in turn, dampens policymakers’ (political) incentives to undertake effort in improving services and infrastructure and drives the prioritization of investments. The extent to which attribution is achieved depends on the visibility of the investments, and on the length of lag between the time when resources are allocated to provide a good or service and the time when the good or service is created. This helps explain the underinvestment in agricultural research.Areas of public spending in which large infrastructural or other capital investments are undertaken lend themselves more to rent-seeking activities by public officials. The prevalence of corruption in a society thus affects the composition of public spending, by increasing aggregate public investments, although the quality of these investments will be lower. The effect of wider political governance features of countries on the composition of public investments is more complex, nonlinear and not fully conclusive in the literature.

Agricultural Nitrogen Budget in the Yangtze River Basin from 1990 to 2000

For the purpose of estimating the amount of nitrogen (N) added to the agroecosystem by human activities in the Yangtze River Basin, and analyzing temporal and spatial changes of N budget in the Yangtze River Basin from 1990 to 2000. Following the mass balance model, a complete N budget was established for the Yangtze River Basin. N input sources include inorganic fertilizer, atmospheric deposition, biological fixation, excrement as fertilizer, crop residue used as fertilizer and combustion of crop residue. N output sources include crop harvesting, denitrification of soil nitrate, and NH3 volatilization. The budget had been calculated as the difference between all inputs and outputs. The total N input was 13.03 Tg N and 17.71 Tg N in 1990 and 2000, respectively. The total N output was 6.83 Tg N in 1990 and 8.76 Tg N in 2000, respectively. The N budget was 6.20 Tg N in 1990 and 8.95 Tg N in 2000 in agricultural fields of the Yangtze River Basin.

Whatever Happened to the Farm Problem?

The “farm problem” was a phrase that appeared on the scene in the 1930s after a continued inability of the market to absorb what farmers were producing. Actually, there had always been a farm problem, mostly one of overproduction, and lack of rural employment. Short-term crises were treated with short-term remedies. Banking “panics” came and went; tariff policy was a principal worry for farmers, and land policy (the public domain) had affected farmers since the time of Thomas Jefferson. It was not until the Great Depression that the federal government intervened directly in the market place to affect prices and incomes. The government also intervened in labor markets and foreign trade to benefit the farm sector. Government has never been able to extract itself. The farm problem is that too many resources being committed to agriculture, and farmers and the rural sector are unable to adjust. Ultimately, the issue became political: how much (or how little) money should be spent on agriculture, and in what way should it be spent? So long as the agricultural budget dominated the federal budget there was “war.” Today, agriculture has a smaller share of the budget but the farm problem remains. Henry Wallace, US Secretary of Agriculture under FDR, would be astounded!

Areas and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Feed Crops Not Used in Canadian Livestock Production in 2001

Estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Canada's four main livestock industries were integrated with the Canadian Economic and Emissions Model for Agriculture (CEEMA) which operates at the census district level. The livestock crop complex (LCC), which defines the crop area required to feed Canada's livestock, was disaggregated from provincial to district level. The LCC areas were subtracted from the crop areas stored in the CEEMA database to define the maximum area available for non-meat food, fiber, and biofuel feedstock production. The resulting non-livestock residual (NLR) area estimates were 18.7 Mha in the west (excluding rangeland, summerfallow, irrigated cropland and any crops not associated with livestock diets) and 1.0 Mha in the east. The GHG emissions from the NLR in the west were 13.7 Tg CO2e, or 30% of the total GHG emissions from those crops associated with livestock diets. The 1.6 Tg CO2e of GHG from the NLR in Eastern Canada represented 8% of the total GHG emissions from those livestock-related crops. The eastern NLR crop areas were more sensitive to changes in livestock populations than the Western Canada NLR areas because of the more dominant role of livestock production in eastern Canadian agriculture than in the west. The total agricultural GHG emissions budget showed direct but muted sensitivity to changes in Canadian livestock populations in both eastern and Western Canada. The methodology will link agricultural GHG emissions with district level land use decisions.

農村地域の持続可能な発展とクリエイティブ産業

This paper aims to examine sustainable development in rural areas from the point of view of culture and creative industries. Through expansion of civil engineering since the 1980s, the finance of rural areas has become heavily dependent on national public finance. Income from agriculture has been only around 20% of all income in rural areas since the 1980s. Besides, the agricultural budget has become dependent on public finance. For example, the agricultural budget from national public finance was only 9% of all agricultural production in the 1960s, while it was 28% of agricultural production in the 1970s, and it became around 50% in the 1980s. Therefore, it is a very important issue to transform civic engineering in rural areas as well as to reform agriculture itself. Traditional research rather focuses on manifold functions of agriculture and discusses what policy should be in agriculture itself. Another approach is to focus on the distribution process and to recommend developing alternative industries relating to processing and distributing agricultural products which produce added value. Added value seems to be necessary for financial dependency of agricultural areas. However, I will discuss transformation of civil engineering in rural areas focusing on creative industries. Creative industries including tourism and vacation were rather neglected in traditional research in Japan. However, a small business producing beautiful leaves for cooking in Kamikatsu-Cho in Tokushima prefecture is a good example of a successful small creative business in an agriculture area. More generally, I will examine the role of culture for sustainable development in rural areas. Culture seems to play an important role for development not only in developed countries but also in developing countries. Culture has the potential to encourage people and their ability. Besides, cultural landscape and cultural heritage compose amenities which breed people's abilities and new businesses. For example, designation as cultural landscape relating to traditional tea production might raise the value of tea in an area. To rethink the role of culture in rural areas, I will criticize the definition of culture in traditional rural research and will discuss it from the point of view of network function.