Class Of Farmers Research Articles

Diversification in Indian agriculture towards high value crops: Multilevel determinants and policy implications

Employing a multilevel model, this paper demonstrates the importance of contextual effects, over and above the compositional effects, in shaping the geographical pattern of agricultural diversification towards high value crops. The results reveal that, besides household-level differences, the contextual effects of higher geographical levels, especially states and villages, explain significant variation in land-use under high value crops, but these do not apply to all types of crops and farm classes in a similar manner. Further, the findings also ascertain that ignoring one or more geographical or administrative levels may yield biased estimates, leading to erroneous conclusions and an incomplete understanding of the geography of agricultural diversification. From a policy perspective, these evidences provide an important feedback for the correct targeting of diversification strategies, their coordination and monitoring at different geographical or administrative levels for efficient, sustainable and inclusive growth of agriculture.

The Influence of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy on the Socio-Economic Sustainability of Farms (the Case of Poland)

Sustainable development plays an important role in shaping conditions for economic growth, social development and care for the natural environment. The issue was also noticed at the level of the European Union, which is expressed among others by creating sectoral policies, including the Common Agricultural Policy. The aim of the article is to determine the influence of the Common Agricultural Policy on the level of socio-economic sustainability of farms in Poland. The authors formulate a hypothesis that the existing solutions serve the achievement of economic sustainability, determined by the agricultural to non-agricultural income ratio, but they do not provide sustainability of farms in terms of the social element understood as taking income disparities into consideration. In the article, panel regression and the ratio of income from representative FADN farms to average annual gross salary per employee in Poland in the years 2004–2017 were used. It was found that thanks to the support from the Common Agricultural Policy, the average income of farms comes close to the average income of the non-agricultural sector. However, the influence of the subsidies on changes in economic sustainability was uneven in various economic size classes of farms—the strongest farms benefited the most, which means that social sustainability in terms of equal distribution of income was not achieved.

Evaluation of suitable landuse for existing condition in South Coastal of Sampang Regency

The detailed and systematic guidelines and direction of development and urban planning are regulated in Regional Spatial Plan (RTRW) under the Law Number 24 of 1992 concerning Spatial Planning, defined that a structural form and pattern of spatial use, whether planned or not. Because the influence of population growth is relatively high and the level of urbanization is not controlled, eventually resulting in the conversion of land use to other uses. The identified problems occurred in the South Coast of Sampang Regency, namely the utilization transition that occurred in the mainland area around the coast, that related to economic interests which affected the availability of land. With these conditions, it is necessary to map and analyze the suitability of existing conditions with the plan documents. This study identified the suitability of 9 coastal land cover classes using the interpretation method in Pleiades satellite images, by digitizing on screen. From the analysis conducted, the dominating land cover class is rice field, which are 5147.656 Ha. The total suitability of land cover with RTRW is 77%, with the most suitable class being ponds, which is equal to 96.75%. Meanwhile, the most inappropriate class is farm class with an area of around 5.09%.

CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION FACTORS AND SUPPORT AND THEIR PRODUCTIVITY IN EU FARMS

The aim of the study was to assess the level of concentration of production factors and support in classes of farms distinguished by economic size. The Gini coefficient was used to assess the level of concentration. Moreover, using the Pearson correlation coefficient, the strength of the relationship between the concentration of production and support factors and their productivity was assessed. The research objects were commercial farms from EU countries. The research shows that the level of concentration of all production and support factors on EU farms is increasing, although this conclusion does not apply to all countries. In countries where the concentration of capital and labor is higher, productivity is usually higher. In turn, a higher concentration of agricultural area and support is usually accompanied by lower productivity. The article draws attention to the limited possibilities for applying statistical tests when using FADN data. The FADN database is a sample of farms obtained as a result of stratified drawing, with layers being countries. If the subject of study are countries, one cannot speak of a sample but of the entire population. Formulating statistical hypotheses regarding the population of countries (or the situation of farms in these countries) is pointless in such a case.

WIELKOŚĆ EKONOMICZNA A EFEKTYWNOŚĆ PRODUKCJI W GOSPODARSTWACH SPECJALIZUJĄCYCH SIĘ W UPRAWACH POLOWYCH W POLSCE

The article presents the economic results and production efficiency for farms specializing in field crops classified by economic size classes. The FADN UE data from 2010 and 2015 were used for the analysis. The income from the farm was a measure of the economic situation. The assessment of production efficiency was carried out at the production and technical level, the profitability of current assets as well as the cost consumption and economic efficiency of production were examined. The debt of farms was also analyzed. Income from the farm without subsidies for operating activities in economic size classes 1-5 successively increased, while for farms in the sixth class there was a strong decline in it, as a result income was a negative value. In 2010, the subsidies covered the loss on production and ensured a certain amount of income, while in 2015 the loss was only partially covered (in 95%). The highest income without subsidies per 1 ha of arable land was obtained on farms from the third and fourth economic size classes (in 2010: EUR 267 and EUR 201, respectively, in 2015 – EUR 161 and EUR 193). Farm production in the third and fourth classes also stand out in terms of production efficiency, while in sixth class of farms, the efficiency was the lowest. Together with the increase in the economic size of farms, their debt increased. In all groups, the liabilities were mostly long-term loans, but its smallest share was found in the sixth class of farms. This means that significant funds were allocated to finance the current operations of these farms.

СРАВНИТЕЛЬНЫЙ АНАЛИЗ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИХ КЛАССОВ ХОЗЯЙСТВ ПО ДАННЫМ ВСХП 2006 И 2016 ГОДОВ

СРАВНИТЕЛЬНЫЙ АНАЛИЗ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИХ КЛАССОВ ХОЗЯЙСТВ ПО ДАННЫМ ВСХП 2006 И 2016 ГОДОВ

Social inclusion of landless farmers in extension services in delta state, Nigeria: implications for agricultural development

Abstract This study considered the level of inclusion of landless farmers in extension services in Delta State, Nigeria. A sample size of 355 landless farmers who were randomly selected formed the respondents used for this study. The results show that they had a mean age of 45 years and were mostly females who were also mostly married with little level of formal education as their highest level of formal education was secondary education. They had a mean household size of 7 persons and average farming experience of 11.5 years with mean farm size of 2 ha and very many of them did not subscribe to farmer’s groups. They were mostly (70.70%) indigenes of the communities where they resided. Their level of social inclusion in agricultural extension benefits was poor (inclusion index = 0.45). They had an average crop output of 9000kg annually. Their level of social inclusion in agricultural extension services influenced their level of outputs. Their level of social inclusion was significantly influenced by their socioeconomic attributes of age, gender, marital status, and level of formal education, household size, farming experiences, group membership and indigene status. It was concluded that the landless farmers were socially excluded from agricultural extension services. It is recommended that extension agents should change their attitudes towards this class of farmers; and extension agents should persuasively convince the farmers to subscribe to membership of their relevant farmers’ groups

Farm size and productivity growth in the United States Corn Belt

In recent decades, agricultural production in the U.S. has continued to shift to large-scale operations, raising concerns about the economic viability of small and midsized farms. To understand whether economies of size provided an incentive for the consolidation of production, the study estimates the total factor productivity (TFP) of five size classes of grain-producing farms in the U.S. Heartland (Corn Belt) region. Using quinquennial Agricultural Census data from 1982 to 2012 the study also compares TFP growth rates across farm sizes to gain insight into whether observed productivity differences are likely to persist. The finding of a strong positive relationship between farm size and TFP suggests that consolidation of production has contributed to recent aggregate productivity growth in the crop sector. The study estimates the extent to which sectoral productivity growth can be attributed to structural change versus other factors including technological change. The study also explores some tradeoffs associated with policies that raise the productivity of small versus large farms.

Machine learning approaches for large scale classification of produce

The analysis and identification of different attributes of produce such as taxonomy, vendor, and organic nature is vital to verifying product authenticity in a distribution network. Though a variety of analysis techniques have been studied in the past, we present a novel data-centric approach to classifying produce attributes. We employed visible and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy on over 75,000 samples across several fruit and vegetable varieties. This yielded 0.90–0.98 and 0.98–0.99 classification accuracies for taxonomy and farmer classes, respectively. The most significant factors in the visible spectrum were variations in the produce color due to chlorophyll and anthocyanins. In the infrared spectrum, we observed that the varying water and sugar content levels were critical to obtaining high classification accuracies. High quality spectral data along with an optimal tuning of hyperparameters in the support vector machine (SVM) was also key to achieving high classification accuracies. In addition to demonstrating exceptional accuracies on test data, we explored insights behind the classifications, and identified the highest performing approaches using cross validation. We presented data collection guidelines, experimental design parameters, and machine learning optimization parameters for the replication of studies involving large sample sizes.

Zoning the land-capability of Roudehen for agricultural usage by the OWA1 technique in geographic information system environment

One of the most sensitive issues that must be considered in many decisions are environmental factors. Planning for the optimal use of land makes it possible to maintain natural resources for using in future by the Earth too. Locating is one of the most widely used spatial decision-making which can be influenced by many environmental factors. The aim of the locating is to find a set of appropriate spatial options for a particular application. The locating issue is a multi-criteria decision-making problem. In current article, we have used OWA land-capability classification using GIS in order to prepare, evaluate, classify and overlay the layers. We have used six parameters of height, land use, climate, soil, slope and tilt direction for evaluating and categorizing land power. Finally, the areas that indicates the best potential of farming and other classes have been identified.

How does groundwater depletion contribute to unequal access to the resource among classes of farmers? evidences from case studies in the center of Tunisia

How does groundwater depletion contribute to unequal access to the resource among classes of farmers? evidences from case studies in the center of Tunisia

Occupational Mobility during South Africa's Industrial Take‐Off

AbstractIn the absence of historical income or education data, the change in occupations over time can be used as a measure of mobility. This paper investigates intergenerational occupational mobility using a novel genealogical dataset for settler South Africa, spanning its transition from an agricultural to an early industrialised society (1800‐1909). We identify fathers and sons for whom we have complete information on occupational attainment. We follow a two‐generation discrete approach to measure changes in both absolute and relative mobility over time. Consistent with qualitative evidence of a shift away from agriculture as the economy's dominant sector, we see the farming class shrinking and the skilled and professional classes growing. Controlling for changes in the structure of the labour market over time, we find increasing mobility, becoming significant after the discovery of minerals in 1868. We find this mobility particularly for semi‐skilled workers but virtually no improved mobility for sons of farmers. We also test hypotheses related to the mobility prospects for first‐born sons and sons of immigrants.

Changes in human skull morphology across the agricultural transition are consistent with softer diets in preindustrial farming groups

Agricultural foods and technologies are thought to have eased the mechanical demands of diet-how often or how hard one had to chew-in human populations worldwide. Some evidence suggests correspondingly worldwide changes in skull shape and form across the agricultural transition, although these changes have proved difficult to characterize at a global scale. Here, adapting a quantitative genetics mixed model for complex phenotypes, we quantify the influence of diet on global human skull shape and form. We detect modest directional differences between foragers and farmers. The effects are consistent with softer diets in preindustrial farming groups and are most pronounced and reliably directional when the farming class is limited to dairying populations. Diet effect magnitudes are relatively small, affirming the primary role of neutral evolutionary processes-genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow structured by population history and migrations-in shaping diversity in the human skull. The results also bring an additional perspective to the paradox of why Homo sapiens, particularly agriculturalists, appear to be relatively well suited to efficient (high-leverage) chewing.

Aplicação da Metodologia Multicritério de Apoio à Decisão no Relacionamento Interorganizacional na Cadeia da Avicultura de Corte

Resumo: A avicultura de corte é uma importante fonte de proteína para a alimentação humana. A compreensão do relacionamento interorganizacional neste ambiente é primordial para a redução de custos operacionais e de transação. Este trabalho objetiva construir um modelo multicritério de avaliação do relacionamento entre uma agroindústria e seus produtores integrados, em Seara, Santa Catarina, Brasil, avaliando-se os possíveis reflexos sobre a competitividade da cadeia de suprimentos. Realizou-se um estudo de caso tendo como enfoque teórico a gestão da cadeia de suprimentos, complementada pela abordagem economia dos custos de transação e das estratégias competitivas. A pesquisa foi quanti-qualitativa e utilizou-se da metodologia de análise multicritério de apoio à decisão construtivista (MCDA-C) para elaboração e interpretação do modelo. Realizaram-se entrevistas com produtores rurais, representantes da agroindústria e especialistas da avicultura. Os agentes definiram custo de produção, remuneração, fatores de produção, risco de investimento, fluxo de informação e ambiente institucional como os pontos de vista fundamentais (PVF) do modelo. Com a aplicação do modelo em três classes de produtores rurais, os PVFs remuneração, risco de investimento, fluxo de informação a jusante da cadeia de suprimentos e custo de produção apresentaram maior impacto no relacionamento interorganizacional para se atingir a competitividade na cadeia.

What motivates farmers to apply phosphorus at the “right” time? Survey evidence from the Western Lake Erie Basin

Abstract Phosphorus loadings from the Maumee River watershed have significantly compromised the Lake Erie ecosystem, as evidenced by the most severe harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie in 2015 and the shut-down of Toledo drinking water supply in 2014. Despite government payments for adoption of voluntary conservation practices, excess nutrient runoff from agricultural production remains a substantial challenge. The right timing of nutrient application is a critical best management practice (BMP). Using a unique survey of 2540 farmer respondents in the Maumee River watershed, this paper analyzes how socio-psychological, socio-demographic, and field-based spatial characteristics impact farmers' adoption of timing-related best practices for nutrient management, including delaying broadcast application before a storm event, avoiding winter application of nutrients, and avoiding fall application of nutrients. Results reveal three unique classes of farmers for each of the timing-related management decisions. While the significance of most farmer and field characteristics varies across the three BMP adoption decisions, perceived efficacy—the belief that the particular practice will actually reduce dissolved phosphorus runoff from farm fields—is positively correlated with a higher likelihood of adopting each of the BMPs across almost all classes of farmers. For example, results from the ordered logit model suggest that a 20% increase in perceived efficacy would result in the likelihood of actual adoption of delaying broadcast from 35% to 48%. An implication is that policies and outreach efforts aimed at increasing farmers' perceived efficacy of practices could lead to higher adoption levels, but the effectiveness may vary across different classes of farmers.

Performance économique des exploitations de bovin viande de la région du Grand Cheliff (Algérie)

Dans le but de déterminer la performance économique (DA= Dinar Algerien; 1 Euro= 100 DA en 2011) des exploitations d’élevage bovin viande, une étude a été menée en 2011 dans la région du grand Cheliff au nord de l’Algérie. Un total de 102 exploitations a été enquêté, dont trois classes ont été identifiées. Les exploitations de la classe A présentent le coût le plus faible (482,39 DA/kg), suivies par celles des deux autres groupes C et B avec respectivement (581,31 DA et 585,58 DA). La recette unitaire de vente d’un bovin varie de 600,70 DA/kg vif pour les exploitations de la classe A à 601,17 DA/kg vif pour celles du groupe B. La recette moyenne unitaire de vente est de l’ordre de 600,93 DA/kg. Les exploitations de la classe A affiche le prix de revient le plus faible, soit 465 DA/kg , suivi par les exploitations de la classe B avec 563 DA/kg, puis les exploitations de classe C avec un prix de 572,92 DA/kg. La marge brute au cours de l’année 2011 par tête bovine est de 78 241,16 DA/tête. Elle varie d’un minimum de 60 706 DA/tête pour les exploitations appartenant à la classe C et d’un maximum de 91 486 DA/tête pour les exploitations du groupe B. Les exploitations de la Classe A peuvent être considérées comme le groupe le plus performant de l’ensemble des types distingués avec un coût de production parmi les plus bas. Par contre les autres groupes (Classe B et C) paraissent dans des conditions difficiles suite aux difficultés et contraintes des facteurs de production locaux ou importés.

Agriculture of the Middle Participation in State Branding Campaigns: The Case of Kentucky

In the past decade, statewide agricultural branding campaigns have blossomed. Examining the case of the Kentucky Proud™ (KyP) program, this paper investigates the potential benefit of a state-level marketing strategy for the declining class of midsize farms, referred to as Agriculture of the Middle (AOTM). First, we discuss why AOTM farms are important to maintaining a viable agriculture structure. Second, we introduce the context of state branding and explain how KyP developed as part of the transition from highly tobacco-dependent agriculture. Using recent agricultural census data and a survey of KyP members, we compare the key characteristics between three sets of pairs: (a) U.S. AOTM farmers and Kentucky AOTM farmers, (b) Kentucky AOTM farmers and KyP-member AOTM farmers, and (c) KyP AOTM farmers and other KyP-member farmers. The findings indicate that Kentucky's AOTM farmers are unique compared to U.S. AOTM farmers, and that the KyP program benefits particularly those AOTM farmers transitioning from tobacco-dependent agriculture. We also found that the logo of the state branding campaign helps member farmers differentiate their products, and that the program helps most members gain knowledge and skills for marketing their products. Overall, findings suggest that state branding campaigns designed to incentivize agricultural marketing of local foods have the potential to help farmers of the middle. Further research needs to be done in order to track the long-term impact of different agricultural branding campaigns.

Performance of Regulated Agricultural Markets: Perception of Farmers in Salem District, Tamil Nadu

Although India has achieved self-sufficiency in food grain production (more than 230 million tonnes in 2011-12), but it is still characterized by low levels of productivity due to degradation of natural resources and lack of technological&infrastructural facilities. Unfortunately, unfavorable price regime and low level of value addition activities have also contributed to the out-migration of the farmer class from the rural areas. To secure the agrarian community of the country, India has brought regulations in the agricultural sector, especially in output marketing of agricultural produce. The government has put in serious efforts in bringing all the agricultural markets of the country under the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act, which restricts the sale of agricultural produce anywhere except in the regulated agricultural markets (RAMs). These regulated agricultural markets are direct sale markets monitored by the District Agricultural Marketing Committees of the respective state governments. The present research attempted to bring into light whether these markets were functioning according to the expectations of the sellers/farmers. The study used binary logistic regression, correlation analysis, and other statistical tools to discover the underlying dimensions of various indicators with regard to the overall satisfaction of the sellers/farmers with the performance of the RAMs located in Salem District of Tamil Nadu. Most of the variables/indicators related to market performance were rated on the positive side of the scale by the respondents, thereby concluding that the farmers had a positive perception of the concerned RAMs.

Energy balance and energy economic analyses of rice production systems in Ayeyarwaddy Region of Myanmar

The status of energy balance and energy economics of irrigated and rain-fed rice production systems is studied and compared for highlighting the effect of farm size. Primary data were collected from 51 irrigated and 54 rain-fed rice farms in Northern Ayeyarwaddy Region, Myanmar. Farm classes were identified as small (<2.5 ha) and large (2.5–25 ha). Energy estimates were calculated from actual amount of inputs and outputs and corresponding conversion factors. Results showed that the total energy inputs were 19,170.5 and 11,031.1 MJ/ha, respectively, in irrigated and rain-fed rice systems, while the total energy outputs were 104,162.7 and 65,033.5 MJ/ha in the two systems, respectively. Energy efficiency ratios, defined as output-to-input energy values, were 5.6 and 5.9 in irrigated and rain-fed rice production systems. Interestingly, the two systems were not statistically different for their energy efficiencies. Similarly, the energy efficiency ratios for different farm classes under both rice production systems were also not statistically different. Energy productivity and specific energy were 0.27 and 3.8 kg/MJ; 0.29 and 3.9 MJ/kg in irrigated and rain-fed systems, respectively. The energy benefit–cost ratio was higher in rain-fed rice (1.1) than in irrigated rice (0.9) system. Rain-fed system seems to have potential of further increasing yield through the increased yet appropriate use of energy inputs.

The Italian Contribution to Manchester

This project looks for evidence that the Italian people have made a valuable contribution to the city of Manchester, UK. It examines the following areas: the Roman settlement of Manchester; the first wave of immigration in the late 1700s of professional and highly skilled Italians, predominantly from northern Italy; the second wave of immigrants after Italian unification in 1861, mainly from the ‘contadini’ or farming classes of Italy; the Italian pioneers of the ice cream industry in Manchester; prominent Italian figures in the city’s musical culture; notable names of the highly skilled terrazzo and mosaic workers, carvers, and sculptors who worked in the city; the Italian community’s devotion to religion; influence on football; service to the armed forces; and creation of businesses from post-war to modern day. By providing concise evidence of Italian activity in these areas, the conclusion is reached that Italian immigrants have made a significant positive contribution to the city.