The global push toward free trade and the consequent rise in volume of imports from a wider range of countries incurs the likelihood of introducing unwanted pathogens. Given that a zero-risk quarantine policy is not possible, there are tradeoffs between the gains from international trade and the...

Variability of rainfall and commodity prices are important off-farm factors influencing the profitability of dryland farming. Since neither of the above factors can be predicted, lessons from the past can be a preparation for the future. Analysing farm profit over ten years is suggested as a way...

The term “value chain” describes the collection of activities that are performed to design, produce, market, deliver and support a product. The Australian sugar industry value chain has a number of distinct stages involved in the transformation of the cane crop into raw and refined sugar and...

Governing the cooperatives’ management by payment systems turns out to be a non-trivial problem due to the specific characteristics of the legal structure. Evaluating the management’s performance is complicated by the business relations between members and their cooperative. A relative...

This study focuses on the problem of water use by new upstream commercial tree plantations where fully-committed water entitlements are already held and traded among downstream sectors (urban water, wetlands and agricultural industries). High tree product prices strongly incentivise expansion of...

There is pressure in Australia for water management reform to ensure an efficient allocation of resources between productive uses and to provide adequate conservation of the environment. The establishment of water markets and trade has been seen as the primary mechanism for improving the...

Much of Australia’s native vegetation has been cleared or altered as a result of agricultural development. The native vegetation that remains on private land is highly fragmented and continues to be degraded and modified due to various land use and environmental pressures. One of the major...

We investigate how to theoretically and empirically measure pre-committed quantities through price formation utilizing translating in the consumer distance function. The translated consumer distance function is defined as a dual to the translated utility, indirect utility, and expenditure...

International agricultural research centres (IARCs) have a mission to reduce poverty, improve food security, human health and nutrition, and ensure sustainable management of natural resources. Their role in the research for development (R4D) continuum has long been a subject of discussion, often...

In mid-2010, an impact assessment was undertaken to ascertain the non-market value of coral reefs to scuba divers in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. A travel cost method was employed and it was found that divers had a consumer surplus of about US$590 per dive. However, given the sample...