Efficient Agricultural Sector Research Articles

Azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus. The first 2-year's Data from the Danish National Surveillance Study, 2018-2020.

BackgroundAzole resistance complicates treatment of patients with invasive aspergillosis with an increased mortality. Azole resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus is a growing problem and associated with human and environmental azole use. Denmark has a considerable and highly efficient agricultural sector. Following reports on environmental azole resistance in A. fumigatus from Danish patients, the ministry of health requested a prospective national surveillance of azole‐resistant A. fumigatus and particularly that of environmental origin.ObjectivesTo present the data from the first 2 years of the surveillance programme.MethodsUnique isolates regarded as clinically relevant and any A. fumigatus isolated on a preferred weekday (background samples) were included. EUCAST susceptibility testing was performed and azole‐resistant isolates underwent cyp51A gene sequencing.ResultsThe azole resistance prevalence was 6.1% (66/1083) at patient level. The TR34/L98H prevalence was 3.6% (39/1083) and included the variants TR34/L98H, TR34 3/L98H and TR34/L98H/S297T/F495I. Resistance caused by other Cyp51A variants accounted for 1.3% (14/1083) and included G54R, P216S, F219L, G54W, M220I, M220K, M220R, G432S, G448S and Y121F alterations. Non‐Cyp51A‐mediated resistance accounted for 1.2% (13/1083). Proportionally, TR34/L98H, other Cyp51A variants and non‐Cyp51A‐mediated resistance accounted for 59.1% (39/66), 21.2% (14/66) and 19.7% (13/66), respectively, of all resistance. Azole resistance was detected in all five regions in Denmark, and TR34/L98H specifically, in four of five regions during the surveillance period.ConclusionThe azole resistance prevalence does not lead to a change in the initial treatment of aspergillosis at this point, but causes concern and leads to therapeutic challenges in the affected patients.

Economic and Environmental Aspects of Agriculture in the EU Countries

The analysis of the economic efficiency of agriculture has been the subject of numerous studies. An economically efficient agricultural sector is not always environmentally efficient. Agriculture is a large emitter of greenhouse gases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that food production and agriculture are responsible for 21–37% of total global CO2 emissions. Due to the comprehensive assessment of the agricultural efficiency, it is worthwhile to apply to its measurement an integrated approach based on economic, energy and environmental aspects. These aspects were the main reasons for undertaking this research. The purpose of the study was to determine the economic, energy and environmental efficiency of agriculture in the EU Member States in 2019. The environmental analyses relate to the period 1990–2019. A total of 26 member states of the European Union (excluding Malta and Luxembourg) were selected for research. The sources of materials were Eurostat and the European Environmental Agency. This study was based on the Data Envelopment Analysis method, and used the DEA model focused on minimizing inputs. The research also adopts energy productivity and greenhouse gas emission efficiency indicators. The DEA model features the following variables: one effect (value of agricultural production) and four inputs (land, labour, use of fertilizers and use of energy). It was found that seven out of the 26 studied EU countries have efficient agriculture. The efficient agriculture group included The Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Cyprus, the United Kingdom, Italy and Ireland. Based on the DEA method, benchmarks have been defined for countries with inefficient agriculture. On the basis of these benchmarks for inefficient agricultural sectors, it was possible to determine how they could improve efficiency to achieve the same results with fewer inputs. This issue is particularly important in the context of sustainable agricultural development. In the next stage of the research, the analysis of economic and energy efficiency was combined with the analysis of GHG emission efficiency in agriculture. Four groups of countries have been distinguished: eco-efficiency leaders, eco-efficiency followers, environmental slackers, eco-efficiency laggards. The leaders of the classification were The Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal.

The impacts of a reduction in British meat and dairy consumption on Northern Ireland’s agri-food sector

In 2020, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recommended that British consumers reduce their beef, lamb and dairy consumption by 20% for both environmental and health reasons. For a region like Northern Ireland, this presents a significant challenge. Northern Ireland, considered to be performing poorly local economy within the United Kingdom and Ireland, has an export-orientated agri-food sector with an extensive domestic supply chain. This study shows the likely trade-offs required for a small regional economy with a large, established cattle herd to sustainably transition from one agri-food system to another. In so doing, the study uses the most comprehensive agricultural data collections to rebalance Northern Irish input–output tables, to better account for the nature of NI intermediate consumption within an agri-food system. The results show that a large-scale transition from beef, lamb and dairy to fruit and vegetable production would create a more emission efficient agricultural sector. The worst economic effects could be offset within current NI policy parameters, although there would still likely be some economic costs.

A Case Study of Ethno Village in Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract Background: The world tourism industry is subject to big changes. A number of tourists traveling steadily grows, resulting in turnover and income. The destinations, that tourists are attracted, to are numerous, and there are also newcomers who arrive to a certain destination for the first time. Nowadays, even some very distant places are on the travellers’ bucket lists. What is more, tourists are looking for authenticity, in terms of which the concept of ethno village proves to be such an example. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how this kind of tourism is regulated in Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The emphasis will be on the study of specific ethno villages. Methods: Regarding the article, desk analysis will be done. The data were gathered from the world web, from the World Tourism Organisation’s data and from the data gathered from Slovenian and Bosnian national statistical office as well. The Excel was used for the analyses. Two examples of an ethno village are also described. Results: The ethno village as a part of rural tourism offers great opportunities for new work posts but capacities should be used to a greater extent and the problem of seasonality should also be overcome. All the key aims of rural development must be defined by the following strategy: the development of sustainable and efficient agricultural sector, the living standard of the population who lives from agriculture, creation of social and economic conditions in the rural regions; all of it within the National strategy of the rural development. Conclusions: Tourism industry is being developing as a part of modern touristic migration. There are more and more visitors coming overseas or coming from more remote places. They stay for a short period of time and they have different expectations as before.

A two-stage DEA model to evaluate agricultural efficiency in case of Serbian districts

Since the efficient agricultural sector is one of the most important drivers of country's economic development, the main objective of this paper was to examine relative technical efficiency of agricultural production in 25 Serbian districts using two-stage data envelopment analysis. Results of this research indicate that the efficiency score values lie between 70% and 100%, therefore it can be concluded that the agricultural sector of Serbia performs at a high level of efficiency, with the average efficiency score of 90%. The lowland region of Vojvodina is characterized with the highest efficiency scores, while districts in the southeastern part of Serbia have the lowest efficiency score values. Furthermore, the Tobit regression model was applied that one may examine the drivers of technical efficiency scores. The results show the significance of agricultural training among farm managers, land irrigation and age of farm holders in altering agricultural efficiency among Serbian districts.

Green lights in the Greenbelt? A qualitative analysis of farm investment decision-making in peri-urban Southern Ontario

The survival of farms requires innovative adaptation and investment to take advantage of the characteristics of the peri-urban environment. In Ontario, Canada, the Provincial Government passed in 2005 the Greenbelt Act that delimits Ontario’s Greenbelt—an area of 1.8 million acres where land is protected from development around the metropolitan region of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. This paper presents research on farm-level analysis of farmers’ investment decision-making aiming at understanding the impact of Ontario’s Greenbelt on farm investment. We interviewed 21 peri-urban farmers from Southern Ontario and 3 Greenbelt experts. Three sources of data are used to understand farm investment decision-making: farmers’ mental maps, the interview transcriptions, and the information provided by a complementary questionnaire. The results demonstrate that Ontario’s Greenbelt, designed to make agriculture the primary land use in the designated area through farmland preservation, is not sufficient. Protecting a sustainable and efficient agricultural sector requires the presence of the other actors in the whole food chain in order to supply farmers and help them access markets for their products, as well as provide information and technical services.

Trend Analysis of the Contribution of Agriculture to the Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria (1960 - 2012).

This study examined the pattern and contribution of agriculture to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria within a time frame of 53 years (1960-2012). Time-series data emanating from National Bureau of Statistic (NBS), Central Bank of Nigeria, National Planning Commission (NPC) and CIA Factbook were used and analysed using trend and regression analysis. The results showed that the share of agriculture to the total GDP had a downward trend, yet maintaining a clear dominance over other sectors from 1960-1975. Further analysis depicted an undulating trend, intertwining with the industrial sector from 1976-1989. The regression results showed that agriculture has a positive relationship with GDP and contributes significantly with a coefficient of 0.664, implying that a percentage increase in the contribution of agriculture can increase the GDP by 66.4 percent higher than any other sector. This cumulative effect of agriculture on GDP clearly affirmed the dominance of the sector’s contribution to the GDP of Nigeria. The study therefore recommended that government should create an enabling environment by increasing the budgetary allocation, friendly policies framework for strong and efficient agricultural sector that can accelerate the attainment of Nigeria’s dream of achieving the targeted growth rate and the proposed vision of becoming one among the 20 leading world economies by the year 2020.

English

  A strong and an efficient agricultural sector would enable a country to feed its growing population, generate employment, earn foreign exchange and provide raw materials for industries. This study makes a modest contribution to the debates by empirically analyzing the relationship between Nigeria government expenditure on the agricultural sector and its contribution to economic growth, using time series data from 1980 to 2011, obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria Annual Report and Statement of Account, Journal of Food Research and Federal Office of Statistics. It employs the Engle-Granger two step modeling (EGM) procedure to co-integration based on unrestricted Error Correction Model and Pair wise Granger Causality tests.  From the analysis, our findings indicate that agricultural contribution to GDP (Gross domestic product) and total government expenditure on agriculture are cointegrated in this study. The speed of adjustment to equilibrium is 88% within a year when the variables wander away from their equilibrium values. Based on the result of granger causality, the paper concludes that a very weak causality exist between the two variables used in this study. Therefore, the policy implication of these findings is that any reduction in government expenditure on agriculture would have a negative repercussion on economic growth in Nigeria.   Key words: Agriculture, causality, gross domestic product, total expenditure.

Paradigms of rural tourism in Serbia in the function of village revitalisation

Rural regions in Serbia differ considerably in social, economic and demographic characteristics. Basic problems and trends almost all the rural regions share are migrations, poor diversification of economic activities, extensive agriculture, high level of unemployment, lack of employment possibilities, poor and underdeveloped infrastructure, low GDP per capita in comparison to the urban regions and unpolluted environment faced wit h potential threats . The subject of this paper is to point to the potentials of the rural tourism in Serbia with the aim of village revitalization, as well as its prevention from dying out. Also, the aim of the paper is to stress the fact that the rural tourism is a sustainable model of development and preservation of Serbian village and Serbian peasant from more aspects: economic, tourist, sociological, the spatial planning and ecological ones. Finally, the aim of the paper is to emphasize that it is possible to save village identity by its transformation into ethno village adopting the idea of European ethno villages. Rural tourism in Serbia must becomemainindustryand a generator of sleeping national economy. The main benefits belong to the rural households. Tourist agencies must be engaged in enabling a dialogue between their employees and local representatives. Clients must not only be observers but also critics in the spirit of trust and transparency. A full and true comprehension of the rural tourism role is realized through revealing habits of the host, traditional values rooted in the existing culture, establishment of relations amongst population at the local level. Serbia has favourable conditions for de veloping rural tourism. It has, in the first place, preserved nature, mild climate, clean air, unpolluted rivers and lakes, rich flora and fauna. At the moment, 11 regional centres (comprising 10-15 municipal offices) are engaged in collecting and spreading relevant information for respective target groups, as well as in strengthening of activities in the local communities. Serbia earns about 10 billion dinnars annually from the rural tourism or one-sixth of gross home product. With a better utilization of the potentials, the participation could be much higher. Rural tourism offers great opportunity for new work posts, but capacities should be used to a greater extent and th e problem of seasonality should also be overcome. All the key aims of the rural development in Serbia must be defined by the strategy: development of sustainable and efficient agricultural sector, standard of living of the population which lives from agriculture, creation of social and economic conditions in the rural regions, all of it within the National strategy of the rural development of the Republic of Serbia.

Soviet Industrialization: A Remarkable Success?

The aim of Robert C. Allen's book is to provide postmortem on Soviet experiment by seeking to answer the questions What worked? What failed? Why? What lessons can we learn from Soviet history? Allen covers many controversial topics, from the alleged need for collectivization and its role in Soviet industrialization, via the changed position of women in society, to the role of consumption in Soviet growth, the merits of investment in heavy industry, the behavior of Soviet enterprises, and the significance of Soviet economic growth in international perspective. On many issues, Allen's conclusions are quite at variance with the opinions expressed in most current textbooks and with what is currently taught to students throughout the world. Allen sees Soviet as success story with many positive elements ranging from rising standard of living to rapidly increasing urban employment and an efficient agricultural sector. This iconoclastic book is an economic history of the USSR that focuses on the period from 1928 to 1940. The opening chapters place Soviet development in world-historical context and evaluate the pre-Soviet Russian economy. In addition there are two chapters on the New Economic Policy, five on Iosif Stalin's industrial revolution, and one on the postStalin period. It is well written, has useful bibliography, makes good use of comparisons with other countries and other periods, and uses computable general equilibrium model to examine the causes of what happened and the consequences of possible alternative policies. In the first chapter, Allen stresses the USSR's achievements in and economic growth and compares them favorably to such countries as Argentina and India. In chapter 2, he accepts Paul Gregory's data on Russian economic growth from 1885 to 1913 but rejects Gregory's optimistic view that, without the Bolsheviks, Russia would have achieved First World level of economic development. Allen argues that pre-1913 growth was a one-off resource boom with veneer of some tariff-induced industrialization that resulted from the boom on the world grain market combined with state support for railway building (and the use of tariffs to support its suppliers).' Both of these were inherently temporary. After

State Trading and China's Agricultural Import Policies

WTO rules on state trading operating through provisions on state trading (Article XVII) and on tariff bindings (Article II) discipline import protection in line with countries' tariff bindings as long as sufficient information is available to monitor the behavior of state trading enterprises. China's economic reforms have left state trading a minor part of its trade regime overall, although it applies to trade in important agricultural commodities, and oil. China's commitments in its WTO accession package will make policy much more transparent and allow China to develop a highly efficient agricultural sector. This policy stance also highlights the pressing need for improved policies to counter rural poverty.

Implications of reform and WTO accession for China’ agricultural policies

While China’s trade policies in most areas have been transformed in the reform era, trade in many agricultural goods remains under relatively non‐transparent state trading arrangements. Accession to the WTO will be a critical turning point, increasing transparency and introducing disciplines on protection even for the commodities remaining under state trading. While China’s tariff bindings for the most sensitive products seem unlikely to require substantial short‐term reductions in protection, they rule out substantial increases in the future, provide the opportunity to develop an efficient agricultural sector, and highlight the need for effective policies to reduce rural poverty. WTO membership provides an opportunity for China to improve market access opportunities for its agricultural exports, which face much higher barriers than its exports of industrial products.JEL classification: D58, F13, O13, O56, P33, Q17.

The Economic Impact of Agricultural Extension: A Review

The history of economic development shows that few countries have achieved sustained economic growth without first, or simultaneously, developing their agricultural sector.' In most developing countries, agriculture is the most important economic activity providing income, employment, and foreign exchange. Without an efficient agricultural sector, a country is severely constrained in its ability to feed itself or import foreign products for domestic consumption and development. Rapid technological advances in agriculture have occurred since World War II. These advances have induced great changes in agricultural production and also highlighted the importance of a rapid and efficient transfer of advanced knowledge to the farmer. When farmers become aware of the availability of new technology, they may have inaccurate perceptions of the related costs and benefits, as information availability may be limited. As farmers' decisions are based on their perceptions, their resource allocation and technology choice will deviate from the social optimum if perceptions do not coincide with the correct attributes of the technology. Both society and the farmers as individuals would gain from improved information, and theoretically there should exist a market for information. However, information on improved agricultural technology is often a public good because the provider of the information cannot exclude other potential users from free access to information provided to one user, and the value of the information is not directly affected by the number of users. While many instances of market activities in various aspects of agricultural information are observed (e.g., specialized information on pest man

Insecticide Requirements in an Efficient Agricultural Sector

EVER since the publication of Rachel Carson's famous book, Silent Spring (1962), insecticide pollution has been an important public issue. As well as naturalists and medical researchers, economists have joined the discussion. They have rightly claimed that insecticide usage is an economic phenomenon, and they have proceeded to estimate the costs and production losses from total or partial bans.' In this paper, we consider the possibility of reducing United States insecticide usage through an efficient relocation of agricultural activities. We find that if agricultural activities were located so as to minimize the production and transportation costs to satisfy the demand for agricultural products, there would be a substantial reduction in insecticide requirements. Our argument is organized as follows. In section II, we describe United States insecticide usage, emphasizing regional differences. Section III is a discussion of studies of efficient crop relocation, i.e., studies concerned with the location of crops under cost minimizing conditions and without the influence of government price support and land retirement schemes. In section IV, we estimate the insecticide requirements for an efficient agricultural sector. The estimates are repeated in section V with alternative measures of insecticide usage, and our conclusions are summarized in section VI.