Cost Of Cattle Research Articles

Efficiency of dairy farms participating and not participating in veterinary herd health management programs

This paper compares farm efficiencies between dairies who were participating in a veterinary herd health management (VHHM) program with dairies not participating in such a program, to determine whether participation has an association with farm efficiency. In 2011, 572 dairy farmers received a questionnaire concerning the participation and execution of a VHHM program on their farms. Data from the questionnaire were combined with farm accountancy data from 2008 through 2012 from farms that used calendar year accounting periods, and were analyzed using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). Two separate models were specified: model 1 was the basic stochastic frontier model (output: total revenue; input: feed costs, land costs, cattle costs, non-operational costs), without explanatory variables embedded into the efficiency component of the error term. Model 2 was an expansion of model 1 which included explanatory variables (number of FTE; total kg milk delivered; price of concentrate; milk per hectare; cows per FTE; nutritional yield per hectare) inserted into the efficiency component of the joint error term. Both models were estimated with the financial parameters expressed per 100kg fat and protein corrected milk and per cow. Land costs, cattle costs, feed costs and non-operational costs were statistically significant and positive in all models (P<0.01). Frequency distributions of the efficiency scores for the VHHM dairies and the non-VHHM dairies were plotted in a kernel density plot, and differences were tested using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov two-sample test. VHHM dairies had higher total revenue per cow, but not per 100kg milk. For all SFA models, the difference in distribution was not statistically different between VHHM dairies and non-VHHM dairies (P values 0.94, 0.35, 0.95 and 0.89 for the basic and complete model per 100kg fat and protein corrected milk and per cow respectively). Therefore we conclude that with our data farm participation in VHHM is not related to overall farm efficiency.

Market Institutions and Transaction Costs Influencing Trader Performance in Live Animal Marketing in Rural Ethiopian Markets

In this paper, the hypothesis that performance of trading firms depends on their assets (physical, financial, human capital and social capital) and trading practices is tested with data from a sample of 131 live animal traders in 38 rural Ethiopian highland markets. Most traders used own capital as access to credit, especially formal credit, was limited. The livestock market was characterised by non-standardised products and lack of information in the public domain about supply, demand and prices. Consequently, livestock trading was largely a personalised business though brokers and regular buyers and sellers, a form of social capital, were sometimes used for gathering information, searching buyers/sellers, price negotiation and contract enforcement. Business relationships with these intermediaries were principally based on trust, without strong ethnic, religious or family ties. Although most transactions were conducted in the physical presence of parties, contract violations were common, which were settled mainly through informal means as formal legal systems were either absent or time-consuming. Estimated costs and margins of most recent transactions showed low returns, and losses in some cases. Market levies, transport, travel and feeds were major items of variable cost, with some variation between cattle and small ruminants. Multiple regression analysis showed that traders' financial and human capital and trading practices such as use of brokers and regular suppliers and customers had varying effects on margins and costs of cattle and small ruminant trade. Unstable price, multiple taxes, non-transparent tax system, limited access to credit and weak demand for the quality of the products traded were perceived by traders as major problems of marketing. All the problems were amenable to public policy to improve the market environment and marketing efficiency. Copyright 2008 The author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

The Low Price Of Land In Ancient Egypt

It is well known that private individuals could own farm land at all periods of ancient Egyptian history. Documents attesting the conveyance of land are quite common. In most cases they record a donation of some sort, either to a temple or towards the endowment of a mortuary cult, but the acquisition of fields for private purposes is also mentioned from the earliest periods, though not so frequently. The autobiography of Mtn from the early Fourth Dynasty is both the oldest connected text to survive from ancient Egypt and our first record of such a transaction.1 On the other hand, documents which actually quote a price for a field are extremely rare. In the oldest one known to me, three arouras (about two acres) are sold for a cow.2 The stated value, 6 sHy or about 45.5 grams of silver, seemed exceedingly low, and Gardiner conjectured that this does not suggest any great degree of fertility in the soil!3 I hope to indicate in this paper that the price actually was normal, insofar as the limited evidence permits us to judge, and that it was a rational one within the general framework of the Egyptian economy. One should rather conclude from this and similar cases that cattle were extremely expensive in ancient Egypt in comparison with other items; the land probably was of ordinary quality. This seems reasonable in view of what is generally known about agricultural conditions in Pharaonic Egypt, but it would lead us too far to discuss the economics of cattle raising here.4 The prices quoted by Cerny5 indicate that cattle cost up to 130 dbn of copper; the latter sum, dated to the reign of Ramesses V, would correspond to 65 sacks of grain6 or almost exactly the yearly income of a craftsman at Deir el-Medina (a top wage of 66 sacks a year). I know of the following documents that give the price of farm land in Pharaonic times: (price quoted per aroura in silver)