Regression results for five Chinese provinces provide stronger empirical support than hitherto for the role of farmer education in productivity gains. However, these results are largely due to the inclusion of two small groups of outliers: one consists of very poor households whose heads have no...

In this article we explore some issues surrounding the use of farm‐level efficiency and productivity estimates for benchmarking studies. Using an eight‐year balanced panel of Victorian wool producers we analyse annual variation between estimates of farm‐level technical efficiency derived...

Investment in R&D has long been regarded as an important source of productivity growth in Australian agriculture. Perhaps because research lags are long, current investment in R&D is monitored closely. Investment in R&D has been flat while productivity growth has remained strong, relative both...

Increasing livestock product consumption in many Asian countries has been accompanied by growth in some countries’ imports of feedgrains for their domestic livestock sectors. This contributes to debate over future levels of grain imports. Yet projections often pay little attention to...

We present the first ex post study that quantitatively analyses the effects of a licence buyback and enhanced quota trading on the profitability and productivity of individual vessels in a fishery. Using firm-level data and a profit index decomposition method, we find that small and large...

The published empirical literature on frontier production functions is dominated by two broadly defined estimation approaches – parametric and non‐parametric. Using panel data on Korean rice production, parametric and non‐parametric production frontiers are estimated and compared with...

Variety change and genetic diversity are important means of combating crop losses from pests and diseases in modern agricultural systems. Since the Green Revolution, genetic diversity among wheat varieties released in India has increased but variety change on farms continues to be slow. In this...

Accurate price forecasting for agricultural commodities can have significant decisionmaking implications for suppliers, especially those of biofuels, where the agriculture and energy sectors intersect. Environmental pressures and high oil prices affect demand for biofuels and have reignited the...

This article empirically examines the impact of R&D and climate change on the Western Australian Agricultural sector using standard time series econometrics. Based on historical data for the period of 1977–2005, the empirical results show that both R&D and climate change matter for long-run...

Integration of trees on upland farms in the Philippines has been slower than expected and desirable from an environmental perspective. Our economic and risk analysis points to current policies as part of the problem. The study compares three domesticated indigenous timber trees (Shorea contorta...