Contracted Farms Research Articles

Farm productivity and social sustainability in formalized value chain governance: the case of the potato industry in Pakistan

Abstract Farm productivity and social sustainability are essential to realizing agro-based value chains’ full potential. This paper aims to empirically conduct an analysis of the impact of formal value chain governance practices on farm productivity and social sustainability in Pakistan's potato industry. A multi-stage sampling method was employed from 10 villages to examine growers’ motivations to adopt the contract and its effect on their income and farm employment. The main findings of this study stipulate that buyers’ technical assistance and provision of quality inputs are the growers’ primary motives for contracting, non-contracted farms earned 40% less than contracted farms from each unit invested, contracted farms employed more labor with better wages, and welfare arrangements than the non-contracting farms. The study concluded that formal value chain governance practices significantly affect farm productivity and social sustainability and can spur growth in the agricultural sector in developing countries. The results reveal that any governmental initiative aiming to support formal value chain governance should consider the role that intermediaries play in the value chain and accordingly minimize their risks and food losses and improve social outcomes.

Socioeconomic and Environmental Impacts of Tobacco Farming in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Tobacco production and curing cause a threat to the environment through injudicious use of pesticides, imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers, and excessive consumption of local firewood. Keeping all this in retrospect, this study has been designed to assess the impact of tobacco farming on family workers, and witness on spot involvement of children and nursing/ expecting mothers in tobacco-related health-hazardous tasks. General objective of the study is to document both the positive and negative environmental and socioeconomic externalities of tobacco production in the study area. It is based both on primary data and secondary statistics. Primary data has been collected from sixty farmers for the tobacco season 2021; including forty contract and twenty non-contract sample farmers. Farmers conceive that tobacco farming has a bad impact on human health (93 %), and causes degenerative deforestation and resource depletion (68 % each). Use of Green Tobacco Sickness gloves and Personal Precautionary Equipment was reported by eighty and sixty-two percent of the farmers, respectively. Impact of the disease on the workers’ health was reported by thirty-five percent of contracted farmers, and 90 percent of non-contracted ones. Thus, the impact of the disease on human health was severe on non-contracted farms, mainly due to little or no use of Personal Precautionary Equipment. Cost of Personal Precautionary Equipment per season at the contracted farms was much higher (US$ 18.0) than at non-contracted ones (US$ 2.0). While the treatment cost of Green Tobacco Sickness or other agrochemical-related diseases of contracted farming households was 2.5 times lower than non-contracted ones. As per the results of the double log Ordinary Least Squares regression model about medical treatment cost, the coefficient of age of household head and use of Personal Precautionary Equipment have negative expected signs and are statistically significant. Laboratory tests of soil and water samples have revealed hazardous levels of Sodium Chloride and Dissolved Oxygen in canal water, which indicate imbalanced use of fertilizers by the growers and leaching of excessive nutrients below the root zone. Tobacco companies’ contracted growers were found to have less occupational health hazards. Thus, raising awareness among tobacco growers about the importance of adopting precautionary measures and use of Personal Precautionary Equipment can reduce the negative effects of tobacco farming.

Multidrug Resistance and Virulence Factors of Escherichia coli Harboring Plasmid-Mediated Colistin Resistance: mcr-1 and mcr-3 Genes in Contracted Pig Farms in Thailand.

The presence of the plasmid-mediated colistin resistance encoding mcr gene family in the Enterobacteriaceae is one of the crucial global concerns. The use of colistin in livestock rearing is believed to be the cause of mcr gene spreading and is of impact to public health. The objective of this research was to detect the frequency and virulent genes of mcr-positive Escherichia coli (MCRPE) in fecal samples from healthy pigs in a contract farming system across Thailand. A total of 696 pooled samples were derived from 80 farms, located in 49 provinces across six regions of Thailand. The colistin-resistant E. coli were identified by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry and antimicrobial susceptibility testing by broth microdilution. The antibiogram was determined using an automated susceptibility machine, and the genetic characteristics were investigated for mcr-1–5 genes, phylogenetic group, replicon types, and virulent genes. In total, 31 of 696 samples were positive, with E. coli containing mcr-1 or combination of mcr-1 and mcr-3 with incidence of 4.45 and 0.43%. Phylogenetic groups A and B1 and the IncF and IncFIB replicon types were predominantly found in the MCRPE located in the central area, with multidrug-resistant traits against 3–14 types of antimicrobials. Additionally, 19 of 31 isolates identified as enterotoxigenic E. coli were with the stap and stb (enterotoxin-encoding genes). In conclusion, a low carriage rate of mcr-positive E. coli was detected in the large-scale farming of healthy pigs. The association between multidrug-resistant MCRPE and their pathogenic potential should be of concern.

Soil carbon market-based instrument pilot – the sequestration of soil organic carbon for the purpose of obtaining carbon credits

Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) in Australian farming systems has the potential to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Even though methods for soil carbon (C) sequestration have been developed under the Australian Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund, the scope for farm-scale soil C sequestration is poorly understood. A pilot scheme was developed in Central West New South Wales to trial the use of a market-based instrument to encourage farmers to change farm management to increase SOC. This paper reports changes to SOC stocks measured on farms that were successfully contracted in the pilot. The 10 contracted farms were those that submitted the lowest bid per Mg CO2-e. Four land uses were contracted in the pilot: (1) reduced tillage cropping (reference); (2) reduced tillage cropping with organic amendments (e.g. biosolids or compost); (3) conversion from cropping land to permanent pasture; and (4) conversion from cropping land to permanent pasture with organic amendments. At each site a minimum of 10 locations (sampling points) were sampled and analysed for total carbon (LECO elemental analyser) and bulk density calculated. The SOC stocks (0–0.3 m) were assessed before (2012) and after the pilot (2017; calculated on equivalent soil mass of 2012), with 60% of sites showing a significant increase. Pasture had a higher rate of SOC sequestration than reduced tillage cropping (1.2 vs 0.28 Mg C ha–1 year–1, 0–0.3 m); and organic amendments had higher rates of SOC sequestration than without (1.14 vs 0.78 Mg C ha–1 year–1, 0–0.3 m). The results of the pilot demonstrated increases in SOC, using quantification methods consistent with the current Measurement Method of the Australian Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund policy used to generate Australian Carbon Credit Units. The results require careful interpretation as rates of sequestration are likely to be lower in the longer term than initial rates of change seen in this pilot (five years), and the pilot intentionally selected sites with initially low SOC, which ensured a greater opportunity to sequester SOC.

Sustainable fresh produce business practice: a case of SWIFT Co. Ltd.

SWIFT Company Ltd. has the following company mission statement: it will supply only premium quality produce with the highest standard of food safety and every stakeholder in the value chain must fairly benefit from the company's operation. A major problem of the smallholder farmer's structure is that they have to sell their products through middlemen, meaning that they cannot set the price for their own produce since the wholesale market price depends on the demand and supply of that particular time of the day. Swift Co. Ltd. created the model of long-term contract farming with groups of farmers by guaranteeing a minimum buying price, which means that farmers have minimum 100% of margin on the investment. But if the market price goes up, perhaps because their products were destroyed by bad weather, the company will buy at the market price. On the other hand, if the market price goes down when there is a supply surplus, the company will buy at the guaranteed price; our contract farming with farmers has been sustainable for more than 20 years. All the products from contracted farms are produced under strictly controlled safety conditions and quality of the products under the highest food safety and quality standards such as GLOBAL GAP, AGROCHEMICAL FREE, and ORGANIC FARMING while they are processed under, BRC standard, HACCP, TRACEABILITY and SEDEX SMETA. That is why SWIFT products have been well accepted by customers in Europe, Japan, USA, and Australia for more than 3 decades.

Assessing the value of field margins for butterflies and plants: how to document and enhance biodiversity at the farm scale

Abstract With ongoing biodiversity loss in agricultural landscapes, there is an increasing demand to document how farmers preserve and enhance biodiversity on their farmland. This subject is not only of interest for conservation authorities and NGOs, food companies also look for ways to integrate biodiversity issues into their corporate activities. They want to know how their farm product suppliers contribute to biodiversity on their land. However, species counting and mapping on contracted farms seems unrealistic to these companies. Therefore, we aimed to devise simple and easy-to-use but scientifically sound parameters to assess the biodiversity value of farmlands. For this we focused on estimating the value of field margins for butterflies and typical vascular grassland plants. We identified 13 parameters that are of likely importance for the species numbers of butterflies and 14 parameters likely to be important for the species numbers of plants on field margins. These parameters were tested on a total of 70 field margins on seven farms located throughout Germany. Automatic linear modelling procedures selected six parameters as the most important variables in predicting butterfly numbers: the landscape heterogeneity of the surroundings, the time of mowing, the width and length of the margin, the grass-herb-ratio and the management of the adjacent field. For predicting plant species numbers, the automatic linear modelling procedures again selected six parameters as best predictors: the length of the margin, the presence of trees and/or shrubs, the amount of source habitats in the surroundings, the width of the margin, the nutrient availability and the landscape heterogeneity of the surroundings. The adapted final model for butterfly species numbers explained 63% of the variation. The adapted final model for typical vascular grassland plant species numbers, which excluded the margin width variable as it did not prove stable in cross-validation procedures, explained 67% of the variation in plant species numbers. Both models can be used by farmers and food companies alike to rapidly assess the present value of field margins for butterflies and plants on their (contracted) farms and to identity potential and appropriate measures to enhance biodiversity.

Factors affecting retained fetal membrane and its therapeutic management in dairy cows

Retention of fetal membrane (RFM) in dairy cows is a common complication after parturition due to failure of the separation of villi of fetal cotyledon from crypts of maternal caruncles and affects on reproductive cycle. The present study was conducted in 594 cows of 15 different dairy farms of Sylhet district. The data was collected by direct interviewing of the farmers in a prescribed questionnaires data sheet and data record from the register of the contracted farms. The overall incidence of retained placenta was 17.51 %.The cross bred dairy cows had higher incidence (14.14%) of RFM compared to local one (3.04%) and differ significantly (p <0 .05). The parity and age of the animals had substantial effect on retention of fetal membrane in dairy cows. The incidence of RFM had notably increased from 1st parity (10.04 %) to 7th parity (57.14 %) and the highest observation was found at more than 7 years and lowest at the age below 3 years of age. The season, sex of calves, body condition of the animals and level of vitamin AD3E before parturition had significant effect on incidence of RFM in dairy cows. The RFM affected cows were treated either with intra muscular injection of oxytocin or herbal drug Eutoklin and manually removing the retained membrane. RFM affected post partum first estrus, service per conception, day’s open and calving interval significantly on parturated cows compared to normal delivered cows. Younger healthy cows, supply of balanced diet, sufficient daily exercise; comfortable calving areas should be maintained to reduce the incidence of RFM.International Journal of Natural Sciences (2015), 5(2) 93-97

Outsourcing mental health care services? The practice and potential of community-based farms in psychiatric rehabilitation.

Psychiatric rehabilitation supports individuals with mental disorders to acquire the skills needed for independent lives in communities. This article assesses the potential of outsourcing psychiatric rehabilitation by analysing care farm services in the Netherlands. Service characteristics were analysed across 214 care farms retrieved from a national database. Qualitative insights were provided by five case descriptions, selected from 34 interviews. Institutional care farms were significantly larger and older than private care farms (comprising 88.8% of all care farms). Private, independent care farms provide real-life work conditions to users who are relatively less impaired. Private, contracted care farms tailor the work activities to their capacities and employ professional supervisors. Institutional care farms accommodate for the most vulnerable users. We conclude that collaborations with independent, contracted and institutional care farms would provide mental health care organizations with a diversity in services, enhanced community integration and a better match with users' rehabilitation needs.

Agricultural planning of annual plants under demand, maturation, harvest, and yield risk

In this study we present a planning methodology for a firm whose objective is to match the random supply of annual premium fruits and vegetables from a number of contracted farms and the random demand from the retailers during the planning period. The supply uncertainty is due to the uncertainty of the maturation time, harvest time, and yield. The demand uncertainty is the uncertainty of weekly demand from the retailers. We provide a planning methodology to determine the farm areas and the seeding times for annual plants that survive for only one growing season in such a way that the expected total profit is maximized. Both the single period and the multi period cases are analyzed depending on the type of the plant. The performance of the solution methodology is evaluated by using numerical experiments. These experiments show that the proposed methodology matches random supply and random demand in a very effective way and improves the expected profit substantially compared to the planning approaches where the uncertainties are not taken into consideration.

Influence of genetic strain and season on back scratch lesions in broilers

This study aimed at evaluating the influence of genetic strain, sex, and season on the incidence of back scratches during the rearing period. Male and female broilers of two genetic strains reared during the hot or cold season were evaluated. This meta-analysis included 894 samplings in 351 broiler houses of contracted farms located in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, in 2010. Broilers of all ages (1 to 43 days) were sampled, capturing 2% of the birds in the house at each sampling. Each flock was evaluated twice, in 21-day intervals. Broilers were reared as single-sex flocks; there were no straight-run flocks. Scratch lesions were classified as present or absent. Strain A broilers presented lower scratch rates (p < 0.05) than strain B birds. During the starter period (1 a 21 days), males presented higher scratch rates (p < 0.05) than females, and the incidence of these lesions was lower during the hot season compared with the cold season. It was concluded that different management practices can be adopted to minimize back scratches in broilers of different sexes and strains during hot and cold seasons, such as reducing weight control frequency and the period of chick containment in brooder circles.

Financial effects of the highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks on the Turkish broiler producers

This research aimed at assessing the financial effects of the 2005 to 2006 highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks on Turkish broiler enterprises. The data were obtained from an interview survey carried out in 499 enterprises randomly selected from 14 provinces that accounted for 79% of the national broiler production. The research revealed that the contracted broiler producers lost on average 1.38 cycles of production and their management fee reduced by 14.7% in 8 mo after the outbreaks. As a result, the broiler production and the enterprise income declined by 34.8 and 44.3%, respectively. The bank loan of the producers rose by 161%. A total of 93% of the producers did not do any other supplementary work during the idle production period in spite of the fact that broiler production was the only business of 36% of them. Furthermore, more than half of the producers (56%) stated that they were considering expanding their business, but suspended this idea due to the outbreak. Approximately 87% of the producers increased the biosecurity measures after the outbreaks. The nationwide effects of the avian influenza outbreaks on the contracted broilers farms were estimated to be US$100.8 million (US$7,967/broiler house). The futures of the contracted broiler producers are fully dependent upon those of the integrated firms. Any negative effects on the latter appeared to be transferred directly to the former. However, the government neglected the integrated firms in the avian influenza compensation programs.

Work activities and workers' health in broiler production: a case study

The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence of health related symptoms and to analyze the work activities of workers in contracted non-mechanized broiler farms in two regions of the state of Paraná in order to determine possible factors associated to those symptoms. The methods consisted in selecting the houses and the workers, and to apply a questionnaire that included demographic data, questions related to work, the Nordic Questionnaire for Musculoskeletal Symptoms, other symptoms (runny nose, skin itching, throat and eye irritation). In addition, workers were asked if they enjoyed their job, if the supervisor motivated them to work, and if they were afraid to lose their job. Activities were submitted to systematic observations, adapted from Ergonomics, and the loads carried were analyzed and some instruments weighted. The study included 80 workers of both genders between 16 and 59 years, being 40 from each region. There were evidences of low back pain risk in the activities of filling drinkers and washing bell drinkers, with a higher prevalence in region A, where automated systems were less frequently used. The study suggests that mechanized filling of feeders, and the use of nipple drinkers may prevent health problems. It was also found that psychosocial aspects were associated to musculoskeletal symptoms. Promoting better working conditions is essential, as these aspects can affect human behavior at work.

The Socio-Economic Analysis of Contracted Turkey Farms : The Turkish Case

This study was examined socio economic characteristics of contracted turkey farms in Turkey. Results reveal that young labor force and literacy rate were at sufficient level. Although main production activity on farms was contracted turkey breeding, plant production, cattle, sheep and goats breeding were other activities carried out. While 83.980/0 of fann land under farrn property, 16.020/0 of that was used as rented and shared land. Grain production had the highest share in plant production. The number of turkeys, Iarge and small animals was, respectively 4845, 3.38 and 0.32 heads in average farm. Tractors were present on 40.820/0 of farms. While the share of variable cost in production cost was 62.540/0, the share of fixed cost was 37.460/0 in production cost. The highest shares in variable cost, respectively, belong to heating (16.510/0), Iightening (15.870/0) and pad (12.110/0) cost. On the other hand, the highest shares in fixed cost, respectively, belong to poultry-house depreciation (10.17010), poultry-house interest (l0.170/0) and perrnanent labor expenses (6.81010). Gross production value, gross income, and net income were, respectively, found as 6428.35$/year, 3083.18/year and 1293.91 $/year. Duration of contracted turkey breeding of farms was on average 2.63 periods. The most important factors causing to run a contracted turkey firm was price and sale guarantee. However, not having any influence in determining buying price of turkeys was the most important problem of farms. Even though 63.270/0 of farms were not satisfied income obtained from turkey breeding, 83.670/0 of farms stated that they will have maintained turkey breeding due to guaranteed income depending on marketing guarantee and input provision.

Abnormal offspring following in vitro production of bovine preimplantation embryos: A field study

Data on 944 calves from 2228 in vitro-produced (IVP) bovine preimplantation embryos were compared with data on 2787 AI calves born in the same herds in 1995. Bovine preimplantation embryos were produced in vitro following ovum pick up (OPU) from donor cows and pregnant heifers in an open nucleus breeding program. After 7 d of in vitro culture on a BRL cell monolayer in the presence of 10% FCS, frozen-thawed expanded blastocysts and fresh morulae to expanded blastocysts were transferred into recipient heifers and cows at 119 contracted farms throughout the Netherlands. The pregnancy rate, as confirmed by palpation per rectum between 90 and 150 d after transfer was 43.5% for both fresh and frozen embryos. Data on IVP and AI calves were registered by the farmers. The percentage of calves with a congenital malformation and the percentage of male calves were related to the total number of calves born. Gestation length, birth weight (measured by a balance), perinatal mortality and ease of calving were analyzed in a subdataset (699 IVP and 2543 AI calves, respectively) by a comparative analysis of variance (ANOVA). The ANOVA model included herd, month of calving, sire nested within AI or IVP, parity and breed of the inseminated cow/embryo recipient, sex of calf, type of calf (AI or IVP) and two-way interactions between type of calf and sex, parity and breed. The percentage of calves with congenital malformations was 3.2% and 0.7% for IVP and AI calves, respectively. An increased incidence of hydro-allantois and abnormal spinal cords and limbs was observed in IVP calves. The percentage of male calves was significantly different between IVP and AI, 55.5% and 48.9%, respectively (Chi-square, 1 degree of freedom, P<0.05). On the average, IVP calves showed a significant increase of birth weight by 10% (4–5 kg), a 3-d longer gestation period, 2.4% more perinatal mortality and a more difficult calving process compared to AI calves (P<0.05). From these results it is concluded that calves produced by IVP deviate significantly from calves produced by AI.