Cereal Sector Research Articles

Kenya's Cereal Sector Reform Programme: managing the politics of reform

The political aspects of reform have been underplayed in structural adjustment programmes. The problematic and inconsistent implementation of Kenya's Cereal Sector Reform Programme (CSRP), it is argued here, is substantially the result of failing to manage the politics of reform. Good political management of the reform process would have included ensuring a clear understanding by interest groups of the likely consequences of liberalisation, and full involvement of the President and Cabinet from the outset in order to create an ongoing reform culture.

Formation et répartition des gains de productivité dans l'agriculture française. Analyse par produit

Productivity increases in some French agricultural sectors and their distribution. A lot of studies concern the measurement of the productivity growth of the whole agricultural sector. These analyses are often limited because the evolution of the conditions of production are very different according to the products. This paper aims at analysing the generation and the distribution of productivity increases in some French agricultural sectors (soft wheat, corn , greenhouse vegetables, fruits, cattle, sheep, milk, pig, and poultries ), between 1979 and 1991. First, a simple econometric model is used to build the different products accounts, from the French RICA (FADN). Then, volumes, prices and productivity indexes are calculated for these products and the surplus accounting method is applied to study how the productivity increases are distributed. The results show that the conditions of the generation and distribution of productivity increases are very different according to the sectors. In the cereals sector, the productivity increases are very important : for the wheat, the rate of labour productivity is 6 % per year and the total rate of productivity 3 % per year. This productivity surplus is completely absorbed by the fall in prices, benefitting to customers of the cereal sector. It induces a great contribution in the surplus accounting of the animal sector : for example, the fall of prices of the intermediate consumptions represents, in the milk and pig sectors, half of the whole distributed surplus. In some animal sectors (cattle , for example ). the productivity increases are low but the costs of production fall, following the drop of prices of the intermediate consumptions. One of the interest of the surplus accounting method consists in allowing to study these relations between the different sectors and it may be used to follow the effects of the CAP reform.

THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF THE NEW CAP CEREALS REGIME: A NOTE

This note considers the impact on the cereals sector of the new arable regime agreed as part of the CAP reforms in May 1992. Starting from the farm‐level decision of whether or not to participate in the voluntary set aside scheme, an industry‐level supply curve is derived allowing examination of the potential welfare effects of the new policy. The discussion focuses on the cereals market.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PRODUCED MEANS OF PRODUCTION IN UK AGRICULTURE

Neoclassical production theory assumes that outputs and inputs can be separated into two distinct commodity groups. However, this fails to take account of the presence of produced means of production in agriculture which undermine the ceteris paribus assumption on which partial equilibrium analysis is based‐a criticism identified as part of the broader Sraffian critique of neoclassical economics. A simulation exercise designed to investigate the importance of produced inputs in UK agriculture found evidence of perverse aggregate supply response resulting from the use of feedgrain, an output from the cereal sector, as a produced input in the livestock sectors. This empirical result lends some support to the Sraffian analysis; however, it is suggested that the perversity arises from failure to take account of the produced input, and that computing ‘net output’

The impact of the modulation proposal in the MacSharry Plan for reform of the cereals regime

The paper presents a methodology that can be used to analyze the distributional implications of commodity-based support programs which make differential provisions according to enterprise size. The approach is illustrated by means of empirical analysis of the MacSharry proposal for the modulation of support in the cereals sector. The results of the study reveal that the proposal would operate to the advantage of the Mediterranean states and to the particular disadvantage of the U.K., though the scale of the redistributive effects is shown to be small. Copyright 1993 by Oxford University Press.

The impact of the EC's set-aside programme: The response of farm businesses in Rendsburg-Eckernförde, Germany

In 1988 the European Community implemented a five-year programme for the set-aside of cereal land, intended to bring about a reduction in the level of surplus production in the Community's cereal sector. Although the policy was binding on all member states except Portugal, the financial aspects of the policy allowed considerable scope for national variation in its implementation. German farmers set aside the largest number of hectares—some 170 000 ha in total in the first year of the policy. This article investigates the motives behind farmers' decisions to set aside land and the impact this has had upon the organization of the farm business. To this end farm interviews were conducted in summer 1989 in a mixed (cereals/livestock) farming region in northern Germany.

Aggregate measures of support in the Uruguay round: Application to the EC cereals sector

Abstract This paper examines the use of aggregate measures of support (AMSs) in the proposals for the long‐term reform of agricultural support tabled by the major participants in the Uruguay Round. The USA, the Cairns Group (CG) and the EC have proposed measures based on the OECD's Producer Subsidy Equivalent (PSE), adjusted to take account of only the most trade‐distorting policies, and using a fixed reference price to calculate the extent of market price support. If the proposed ‘adjusted PSEs’ are used, the reductions in internal support levels in the EC cereals sector from the base periods to 1995 range from 8 billion ECU under the US proposal to 4.5 billion ECU under the EC proposal. The resulting ‘producer prices’ would be almost 20% higher under the EC proposal than under the other two. In terms of percentage PSEs, support to farmers would be around 20 to 25 percentage points below present levels under the US and CG proposals and around 18 percentage points lower under the EC's plan.

CEREAL SUPPLY POLICY INSTRUMENTS: AN ATTITUDINAL SURVEY AMONG FARMERS IN ENGLAND

Against a background of steadily mounting cereal surpluses in the European Community and a recognition that the cereals sector is a major contributor to the Community's budgetary problems, a survey was carried out of English farmers' attitudes and preferences concerning a range of alternative cereal supply policy instruments. Personal interviews were held with 102 farmers in two contrasting agricultural districts — one an intensive cereal‐growing district in eastern England, the other an area of mixed livestock and arable farming in western England. Amongst cereal producers in both areas a quota was the preferred policy instrument; in the east because of the security it offered, but in the west because it was perceived to be the least damaging instrument for the industry as a whole. A price reduction was the preferred option of small livestock farmers in the western area. None of the other instruments — co‐responsibility levy, set‐aside, nitrogen use restrictions — received much support. Farmers were particularly negative about schemes involving the withdrawal of land from agricultural use.

Verfahrenstechnische und wirtschaftliche Vorteile der Kochextrusion im Vergleich zu herkömmlichen Verfahren der Lebensmittel‐Industrie

AbstractEconomic and process engineering advantages of extrusion cooking in comparison with conventional processes in the food industry. Extrusion cooking is introduced as a modern high‐temperature short‐time process. Possible process steps in extruder machine systems, such as continuous conveying, mixing, homogenizing and reactions, mechanical and thermal energy dissipation for plasticizing and modifying biopolymers, are explained. This process creates new products with completely new textures, for example in the snack and breakfast cereal sector, while on the other hand the extrusion process competes with long‐standing conventional processes. The latter work slowly with low pressures, low temperatures and energy dissipation with high water contents in large batch‐operated machines. The quality of extruder‐cooked products depends on the extrusion system. The self‐cleaning corotating twin‐screw extruder with its narrow residence time spectrum is the optimum system. However, the counter‐rotating intermeshing machine has certain advantages for products of low viscosity. The cooking time at high temperature is a matter of seconds, which serves to maintain the properties of the ingredients and active substances, while ensuring fast destruction of microorganisms. The end‐products have a long shelf‐life on account of their low process moisture content. Continuous extrusion cooking has economic advantages mainly because it replaces many batch processes and because extrusion is carried out entirely or almost entirely with the final moisture content, thus avoiding the necessity to evaporate huge quantities of water.

Le bilan céréalier de l'URSS et de l'Europe orientale à l'horizon 1980

The cereal situation of the ussr and eastern europe in 1980 - What is the cereai policy envisaged by the Soviet economists in the tenth five-years plan ? What will be its consequences as far as the satisfaction of the cereal needs of Eastern Europe and the Western cereal market are concerned ? Will the integration policy of each country lead to these farming specializations being revised or accepted ? It seems rather that in the vital cereal sector each country will pursue its traditional policy and will try to garantee its self-sufficiency, specialization being limited to certain products.

Sources of Technical Efficiency: The Roles of Modernization and Information

Leibenstein has suggested that losses from Xor technical inefficiency may be far more important than losses from allocative inefficiency., Several recent studies have attempted to measure the magnitude of these former losses, while Timmer and Miiller2 have noted that invocation of the term "technical efficiency" may imply an admission of the analyst's incomplete understanding of the production process. Improved specification of the model may relate interfirm productivity variability to input variability, rather than to the somewhat enigmatic technical efficiency. This improved specification may be extremely helpful to policymakers in developing nations, where the list of proposed programs often includes many that aim at improving management. For example, in the area of agricultural development there are frequent proposals related to extension services, farmer training centers, model farmer programs, best-farmer awards, field days, mass-media programs, and the like. The specific content of such programs may vary considerably: teaching specific farm skills, teaching general skills such as literacy and arithmetic, exhorting farmers to work harder, stimulating demand for cash goods, and attempting to develop a generally more modern, change-oriented outlook. If policymakers know why some farmers are better managers (i.e., why there are technical efficiency differentials), they might have firmer grounds for