AJAD Volume 8 Issue No. 2 December 2011

This paper investigates significant forces that affect away-from-home (AFH) meat consumption in China. Multivariate Tobit models were used to analyze a set of survey data from 340 households in Jiangsu, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and Sichuan Provinces in 2005. AFH meat consumption accounts for an increasing share of food consumption expenditure in China. Aside from income level and urban location, family characteristics (e.g., the employment status of the wife and the opportunity to participate in collective consumption) also influence AFH meat consumption. Beef and mutton consumption is higher in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning.
This paper makes the case that studies of food consumption in China should focus on expenditure on food away from home. In addition, future studies should integrate food consumption at home with food consumption away from home. As the Chinese economy continues to grow and the country becomes more urbanized, the wealth generated will result in further rapid growth in AFH beef consumption. Sourcing an adequate supply to meet the increasing demand will pose a significant challenge for the Chinese beef industry and the Chinese government.

The yield gap in rice production can be narrowed by improving farmers’ access to information. In recent years, the Philippines has witnessed a profusion of information and communication technology (ICT) interventions expected to increase Filipino famers’ access to rice farming information, led by the PhilRice Farmers’ Text Center. Despite these initiatives, the digital divide further excludes the marginalized. Drawing from literature on ICT for development (ICT4D) and recent trends in Philippine ICT, this paper proposes policy directions that can be pursued by the agriculture sector for more relevant ICT interventions (i.e., making technology generation participatory, marrying of disciplines, exploring technological hybrids, focusing on critical evaluation of ICTs, and tapping farmers’ children as infomediaries). It is essential to engage farmers in various stages (i.e., from design to evaluation) of ICT initiatives to maximize the impact of ICTs on their lives and to avoid the misdirection of ICT interventions.

This paper examines the activities of Mongolian financial intermediation and the factors influencing the progress of Mongolian microfinance. These were evaluated using data from household surveys in selected areas, financial statements of Khan Bank and XacBank, and information obtained from interviews with officers of said banks. The analysis found that the performance of these two banks improved significantly. Moreover, Mongolian microfinance advanced as innovative methods were introduced. The new concept of collateral is considered the most important development. Loans secured using various kinds of collateral and guarantee are effective in heightening loan recovery in Mongolian microfinance.

The location of farm households along the spatial gradient affects resource availability and farmers’ livelihoods. Many socioeconomic variables have strong spatial affinity that would otherwise be overlooked by data aggregation at household levels. The Geographic Information System (GIS) displays and analyzes socioeconomic data that could aid many social researchers in understanding socioeconomic reality influenced by geographical positions. This paper aims to integrate socioeconomic data into a GIS environment. It examines spatial tendencies of farm-family resources in the mid-hills of Nepal using spatial and random sampling techniques. Farmers living in relatively flat lands and nearby urban centers have small families, higher level of education, farm and family income. In addition, they have small agricultural holdings and engage in commercial farming. Meanwhile, the opposite applies to farmers living in the hills. These spatial differences are related mainly to road, market, and other infrastructure that are crucial for agricultural development and livelihood enhancement. Strong spatial trend in socioeconomic aspects and farm-family resource availability infer the need to focus development activities spatially.

This study analyzes the risk perceptions and risk attitudes of farmers practicing different rice-based cropping patterns in the rainfed lowland ecosystems of Ilocos Norte, Philippines. The Likert scale and Kruskal-Wallis test were employed to assess the farmers’ risk perceptions while the experimental method was applied to determine the farmers’ risk attitudes (i.e., risk averse, risk neutral, or risk taker). Regression analysis highlights the significant factors affecting perceptions and attitudes.
Resource-endowed and resource-poor farmers generally perceived various risk sources as moderately low regardless of crops planted. However, on the average, resource-poor farmers were more likely to consider farming as not risky possibly because they had little to lose or gain compared to their resource-endowed counterparts. By source of risk, both farmer groups perceived that farming is relatively risky considering the increasing price of fertilizer and environmental factors (e.g., weather), which are beyond their control. By crop, the farmers considered rice and corn as relatively risky compared to other crops. The major crops are rice during the wet season and corn in the dry season.

High fertilizer costs and erratic climatic conditions usually burden the farmers during the wet season. Similarly, corn output is badly affected by adverse weather circumstances. Farm size and wealth are the variables that affect the farmers’ risk perceptions. The farmers in Ilocos Norte were found to be generally risk averse. Wealth, age, and availability of credit are important determinants of the farmers’ risk attitudes, but their impacts vary across cropping patterns.

The present study discusses the trends in crop sector growth at national and sub-national levels in India. Data on important variables such as area, production, input use, and value of output were compiled for the periods 1967-1968 to 2007-2008 from published sources. The analysis reveals that the cropping pattern in India has changed significantly over time, with a marked shift from the cultivation of foodgrains to commercial crops. Among foodgrains, the area planted to coarse cereals that is generally cultivated in dry regions declined by 13.3 percent between triennium ending (TE) 1970-1971 and TE 2007-2008. Similarly, the performance of pulses in terms of area and output was not impressive during the study period and the technological breakthrough witnessed in other crops was not conspicuous in pulses. Nevertheless, increase in crop yield has been a major factor in accelerating crop production in the country since the late 1960s. Modern varieties, irrigation, and fertilizers were the important contributors of higher growth in crop production. However, technology and institutional support for a few crops such as rice and wheat have changed crop area and output composition significantly in some regions. The results of the crop output growth model indicate that enhanced capital formation, better irrigation facilities, normal rainfall, and improved fertilizer consumption will help increase crop output in the country.

This paper analyzes the spatial integration of vegetable markets in Nepal using weekly wholesale price and retail price data for three years. The maximum likelihood method of cointegration developed by Johansen (1988) was used in the study, which specifically examines if inter-regional vegetable markets are integrated and linked together into a single economic market. The dynamics of short-run price responses were examined using the vector error correction model (VECM). The results indicated that the higher the perishability, the lesser the integration was among wholesale markets and among retail markets of different vegetables. By examining the short-run price adjustment, it was found that almost all vegetable markets reacted on the long-run cointegrating equations while the speed of price adjustment in the short-run was almost absent. Moreover, it was found that the longer the distance between markets, the weaker the integration was. To increase the efficiency of vegetable markets in Nepal, there is a need to focus on building an improved market information system. This system should be able to disseminate timely market information about price, demand, and supply of products to enable producers, traders, and consumers to make proper production and marketing decisions.