The greenhouse sector has reinvented itself as a technologically advanced and relatively environmentally friendly industry over the past 15 years. However it remains a high energy user. Two recent surveys have highlighted the potential impact on greenhouse grower costs of the proposed emissions...

The face of international trade is altering quickly, especially with globalisation as one of the key catalysts for change. It can be argued that freer trade leads to better allocation of resources and increased competitive forces, which reduce production costs and ultimately consumer prices. The...

Despite significant progress in recent years, horizontal and vertical integration of the Lithuanian milk sector is not very much advanced. The primary sector is characterised by small-scale farming, the fragmentation of farmland and a low number of livestock per farms. These features cause...

It is the objective of the present study to examine the competitive processes within the Polish meat processing industry during the first six years of transformation empirically. In particular, two questions were posed: How did the intensity of competition develop in this sector since the...

Food safety problems such as the BSE and dioxin crises focused attention on traceability systems and the certification of such systems. This study analyzes the status and perspectives of traceability systems and certification schemes, and reviews their potential costs and benefits. Results...

The U.S. pork sector is evolving from an industry of small, independent firms vertically linked by spot markets to one of substantially larger firms vertically connected through contractual agreements and integration. Potential benefits to this tighter vertical arrangement include lower consumer...

A changing world of increasing complexity, fluctuating prices, high energy costs and limited data necessitate creative blending of economic theory and available empirical statistics to understand the welfare impacts in a specific market. In this paper, a programming approach is used in tandem...

The increasing use of production contracts in the hog sector has reduced the number of spot market transactions, raised concerns about price manipulation and helped to spur legislation requiring price reporting by packers. Using data from the 2002 and 2007 Censuses of Agriculture, this study...

In recent decades there has been a substantial increase in the scale of production and the use of production contracts in the hog sector. This paper explores empirically whether these two phenomena are related by examining whether the use of production contracts has allowed finish hog operations...

This study describes the development of bio economic models examining the economic and water quality impact of various proposed policy options in the Upper Waikato catchment. In the first phase nitrogen emissions are determined for representative farming systems using the Overseer nutrient...