Eating quality is one of the most important factors influencing demand for beef. Meat Standards Australia is a voluntary beef grading system aimed at improving consumer certainty about beef quality, improving overall beef quality and strengthening supply chain linkages. Since its inception in...

A stochastic input distance function is estimated to analyse the efficiency with which physical characteristics of individual lot-fed beef cattle in Australia are combined with conventional inputs to produce a final product possessing defined quality attributes. High mean technical efficiency...

The cacao industry has played an important role in terms of export earnings and employment opportunities in Indonesia since 1980s. It is the main source of income for more than one million smallholder farmers in Indonesia, who are considered poor. Most planted areas of cacao are in Eastern...

We estimate total factor productivity in wool production spatially across benchmarked farms in four climatic areas in Eastern Australia. Estimates are decomposed into an environment-technology gap and technical efficiency relative to the production possibilities in each area. The...

The Australian preserved mushrooms industry is one of a number of industries in the horticultural sector that is under threat from cheaper imported products. The Australian Customs Service is currently investigating the alleged dumping of Chinese imported cans of preserved mushrooms that feature...

Recent low estimates of total factor productivity change for wool producers in the Australian sheep industry indicate that they are struggling to improve their performance. This evidence is at odds with the views of many technical observers of industry performance, prompting us to re-estimate...

In this paper, we assess the potential for rehabilitation of comparative analysis under its new guise of benchmarking. After a brief description of comparative analysis, we discuss the deficiencies that surrounded its fall in reputation: neglect of economic principles, limited scope for action,...

There have been many previous studies of technical inefficiency in rice production in the Philippines, but none has focused simultaneously on production risk and technical inefficiency at the farm level. In this study, we analyse technical inefficiency in a rainfed lowland rice environment in...

Recent low estimates of total factor productivity change for wool producers in the Australian sheep industry indicate that they are struggling to improve their performance. This evidence is at odds with the views of many technical observers of industry performance, prompting us to re-estimate...

The cottage food processing industry inThailand comprises mainly small-scale enterprises such as the‘housewives groups’ that consist of a number of housewiveswho combine their food processing activities in a particulardistrict or village. The effects of various factors on theperformance of...