Content uploaded by Julian M. Alston
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Julian M. Alston on May 19, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Agriculture in the Global Economy
Abstract and Figures
Agriculture is diverse and full of contradictions. The sector accounts for a comparatively small share of the global economy, but remains central to the lives of a great many people. In 2012, of the world's 7.1 billion people, an estimated 1.3 billion (19 percent) were directly engaged in farming, but agriculture (including the relatively small hunting/fishing and forestry sectors) represented just 2.8 percent of overall income (World Bank 2012). However, in today's middle- and low-income countries, where most of the world's farmers are to be found, agriculture accounts for a much greater share of national income and employment—for instance, in India, agriculture represents 18 percent of national income and 54 percent of employment.
Figures - uploaded by Julian M. Alston
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Julian M. Alston
Content may be subject to copyright.
... The agricultural industry is the greatest contributor to food, income, and jobs globally. In India, the industry accounts for 18.0% of the country's GDP, and 53.3% of its workforce [1], comparable to other low-to middle-income countries. Over the last three years, the percentage of the country's total GDP contributed by agriculture's gross value added (GVA) has increased from 17.6% to 20.2% [2,3], supporting India's economic expansion. ...
Potato is one of the major cultivated crops and provides occupations and livelihoods for numerous people across the globe. It also contributes to the economic growth of developing and underdeveloped countries. However, potato blight is one of the major destroyers of potato crops worldwide. With the introduction of neural networks to agriculture, many researchers have contributed to the early detection of potato blight using various machine and deep learning algorithms. However, accuracy and computation time remain serious issues. Therefore, considering these challenges, we customised a convolutional neural network (CNN) to improve accuracy with fewer trainable parameters, less computation time, and reduced information loss. We compared the performance of the proposed model with various machine and deep learning algorithms used for potato blight classification. The proposed model outperformed the others with an overall accuracy of 99% using 839,203 trainable parameters in 183 s of training time.
... These conventional methods of cultivation are well suited to environmental conditions and the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities to grow cereals and other agricultural crops has assisted them to uphold ecological stability. Although, in current years, due to an upsurge in population, increased food consumption, inadequate land availability, and the farmers' socio-economic condition, bun farming practices in Meghalaya have perceived several changes (Alston and Pardey 2014). Similarly, the Yanadi community in Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor and Nellore districts possesses a plethora of traditional knowledge on primary healthcare, specialized remedies (such as snakebite cures), wild foods, sustainable harvesting, and natural resource management. ...
Over the last three decades, “new ecology” has been driving the quest for integrating the social and natural sciences in pursuit of understanding environmental issues. Geography as a discipline has the advantage of being placed at the centre of this interdisciplinary transformation. Historically, the traditional knowledge system has been evolving through land-labour integration and knowledge synthesis in geographical space. Starting with a discussion on geographical space as land-labour linkage, during transition, rural space as a knowledge system has been presented here as an area of major concern in political ecology. This paper highlights the importance of documenting facts over space relevant to a new political–ecological vision emerging with the rise of global civil society; and linkages with social movements that are dialectically relevant to knowledge synthesis as a new element in the narratives of threats, survival, and struggles.
... Agriculture is considered one of the most relevant economic activities for humanity; it is a primary food source with high nutritional value for humans and animals [1,2]. Best practices need to be identified and a plan needs to be developed to promote technological transfer and appropriation in the agriculture sector [3]. ...
Small-scale farms make an important contribution to food security, but they lack technification, especially in the global south. This article proposes a new model, namely, Model H, as a reference by which to facilitate technological transfer and appropriation in small producer sectors. Starting with the identification of interactions with the environment and the characterization of the transfer and appropriation process with respect to information and communication technologies, a five-stage framework is established to create and validate the new model. Based on key elements, functionalities, and five variables identified as a common ground for the transfer and appropriation of technologies, Model H is presented as a five-layer, user-centered model that aims to include in the transfer and appropriation of the solutions of all the individuals and entities that participate throughout the process. The model is validated through a pilot test using an intelligent irrigation technology called AgroRIEGO. In the process of technology transfer and appropriation, this pilot study helped to identify implementation obstacles and the importance of knowledge management as an effective channel for the exchange of information in a pertinent and timely manner.
... Smart phone device has been got the highest diffusion rate in terms of communicative technologies worldwide. Its dispensability, adoptability, and diffusion can be judged that one billion users purchased mobile phones in twenty years, the next one billion were sold out in four years and yet the next billion were diffused in just one year, additionally out of the entire 8 billion population, nearly half of the population has its own cell phone and about 80% of population is living in an area where cellphone services are available (Chhachhar et al., 2014;Alston and Pardey, 2014;Baumuller, 2012 and2013). Farmers are expected to be trained enough to be familiar with the state-of-the-art agricultural technological innovations so that they can meet the high standard of productivity of their products. ...
The current study also focuses and analyses the farmers' inclination and their usage of smart phone for agricultural extension. This research is based on survey research method in which a closed-ended questionnaire was developed after the review of relevant literature. Furthermore, purposive and convenient sampling techniques were used to collect the data from the respondents who are farmers in Punjab. The study was conducted during the year 2020 in the selected district of Bahawalnagar. Overall results elaborate that age and education were among the factors that accounted for familiarity with apps. However, 42.9 percent of the respondents with the age 30 to 40 were somehow familiar with Agri-apps and 17.3 percent of respondents with twelve years of schooling were familiar with the apps usage. Likewise, 37 respondents in age bracket of 20 to 30 were of the view that usage of apps have resulted in increased agricultural production. It was concluded that age and education of the respondents had significant impact on the usage and familiarity of the apps available on smart phones.
Technological development can provide several solutions to the emerging challenges in agriculture. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies are one of them involving minimum greenhouse gas emissions, minimum soil disturbances, crop rotations, water saving, energy saving, maximum yield so on, and so forth in order to achieve higher productivity. Although they are available to use in Sri Lanka, adoption and diffusion progress at a slow rate. Therefore, there was a need for more attention from agriculturist. Adoption of Sri Lankan farms to CSA technologies was reviewed in order to receive information on current situation. This article not only reviews the benefits of technologies with respect to yield, but also consider the drawbacks and the reasons behind unwillingness to adopt by the farming associations in Sri Lanka. The results confirmed that different types of CSA technologies will increase the yield and will have profitability benefits compared to conventional agriculture. According to the review, it was found that the foremost barrier to the adoption is high investment cost while subsidies for some technological options could foster it. Therefore, it can be recommended that providing subsidies for the possible Climate Smart Agricultural needs to be considered by the administrative organizations in Sri Lanka.
Total factor productivity growth contributed 38% of Indonesia's agricultural output growth from the mid‐1970s to the mid‐2000s. This study uses time series data analysed with an error correction mechanism to examine the contribution that Indonesian publicly funded agricultural research made to this outcome, allowing for other possible determinants of productivity growth, including international agricultural research, extension, government price policy and weather. The results imply a 27% real annual rate of return from a marginal increase in Indonesian agricultural research expenditure. Indonesia's public agricultural research explains virtually all of its agricultural total factor productivity growth between 1975 and 2006.
The entrepreneurial and innovative behavior of the small rural producer has been considered a way of boosting the sector and advancing research in rural studies. Given this scenario, analyzing the relationship between the entrepreneurial behavior of the small family farmer and innovation is an unexplored challenge in the literature. In order to shed light on this relationship, we conducted a systematic literature review by analyzing 100 of the most prominent articles published in the last decade (2010–2021) to answer how international scientific production is characterized and analyze the relationship between the entrepreneurial spirit of the family farmer and innovation. Our findings revealed expressive intermediaries that address the aforementioned correlation, expressing the centrality and intensity of the relationship between the terms of the formed textual corpus. By structuring and detailing the intellectual contribution of this study, it is possible to advance the knowledge on emerging themes. Understanding the innovative behavior of rural producers brings companies, universities, and governments closer to the reality of farmers, enabling projects designed for rural development to be implemented.
Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, one of the most famous bioactive molecules that changed the world, studies pertaining to secondary metabolites produced by fungi increased to be explored as prototype drugs for use as pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Although thousands of natural products are discovered every year, the recurrent discovery of known compounds represents a problem in the field. In the laboratory, fungi are grown under axenic conditions, and many of their genes are not transcribed, remaining silenced. For this reason, researchers should seek strategies to activate these silent gene clusters to express their metabolic potential and then obtain structurally diverse biosynthesized natural products. Several effective approaches have been reported to expose the cryptic natural biogenetic capacity of fungi, such as the One Strain MAny Compounds (OSMAC) approach, co-cultivation and epigenetic modification. These techniques will be discussed in this chapter.
The changing environment and advancement in the field of agriculture haves allowed the technological experts to introduce smart and efficient technologies. The experts whether they belong to computer science or agriculture are striving to increase the level of productivity with an intention to balance the uprising demands of world’s population. The introduction of nanotechnology has enhanced the production level remarkably by offering technologically advanced equipment. Moreover, agriculture nanotechnology has made it possible to enhance the growth of plants meanwhile lowering the concerns that may arise from biotic and abiotic stresses. Therefore, to identify the available nanoparticles used in the field of agriculture and the alleviation of abiotic stresses through the advantageous properties of nanoparticles, a critical analysis of the role of nanoparticles making contribution in the field of agriculture has been presented.
This volume is written primarily for agricultural economists doing research on productivity. It includes discussions of the theoretical underpinnings of productivity measurement as well as the many practical considerations that go into translating this theory into actual measures of aggregated outputs and inputs. The unifying concept of agricultural productivity used across the chapters of this volume is aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) of the sector. The volume also contains detailed analysis of the underlying causes of agricultural productivity growth. Part I (chapters 2-6) examines agricultural productivity in high-income and transition countries. Part II (chapters 7-11) examines agricultural productivity growth and its driving forces in five important agricultural producers in Asia and Latin America. Part III (chapters 12-14) focuses on measuring and identifying constraints to agricultural productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Part IV (chapters 15-16) gives a global perspective on agricultural productivity.
This paper uses statistics on agricultural productivity compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research
Service to test the productivity slowdown hypothesis. The indexes of productivity growth span the years 1948 to 2009. In our
analysis, we apply econometric techniques that allow for multiple structural breaks at unknown points in time and in various
forms. The tests identify a break in trend in 1974 and an intercept shift in 1985. These results point to slower productivity
growth in agriculture beginning in 1974. Prior to 1974, productivity grew at an annual rate of 1.71%, but this slowed to 1.56%
after 1974. This slower rate of productivity growth persisted after the intercept shift in 1985 but from a higher absolute
level of productivity.
We use newly constructed data to model and measure agricultural productivity growth and the returns to public agricultural research conducted in Uruguay over the period 1961–2010. We pay attention specifically to the role of levy‐based funding under INIA, which was established in 1990. Our results indicate that the creation of INIA was associated with a revitalization of funding for agricultural R&D in Uruguay, which spurred sustained growth in agricultural productivity during the past two decades when productivity growth was stagnating in many other countries. The econometric results were somewhat sensitive to specification choices. The preferred model includes two other variables with common trends, a time‐trend variable and a proxy for private research impacts, as well as a variable representing the stock of public agricultural knowledge that entailed a lag distribution with a peak impact at year 24 of the 25‐year lag. It implies a marginal benefit‐cost ratio of 48.2, using a real discount rate of 5 per cent per annum and a modified internal rate of return of 24 per cent per annum. The benefit‐cost ratio varied significantly across models with different lag structures or that omitted the trend or the private research variable, but across the same models, the modified internal rate of return was very stable, ranging from 23 per cent per annum to 27 per cent per annum. These results suggest that the revitalized investment in research spending under INIA has been very profitable for Uruguay and that a greater rate of investment would have been justified.
Focuses on the implications of advances in biotechnology and conservation of genetic resources for the Third World in general and Africa in particular. Argues that new techniques are applicable to small-scale, labour-intensive production. Discusses: the historic role of genetic resources in the global economy; current advances in biotechnology; problems of intellectual property rights with respect to new lifeforms; possible consequences of introducing genetically-engineered micro-organisms into the environment. An appendix lists institutions conserving genetic resources (8 pages), and there is a 24 page bibliography. This is a text likely to be of considerable interest to plant breeders, agriculturalists, economic historians, conservationists and those interested in African agricultural development. -C.J.Barrow
Wine grapes contribute significantly to the economy of California, with a gross production value of more than $2 billion in 2010. Studies on economic issues in the industry require measures of demand response to price, but despite the economic importance of this industry, estimates of elasticities of demand for wine grapes have not been published. We use a flexible-form inverse demand system model to estimate elasticities of demand for wine grapes from three grape-growing regions in California, representing three different quality (price) categories. The resulting estimates of own-price elasticities are high, ranging from −2.6 for grapes in the low-price region to −9.5 for grapes in the high-price region. Such high elasticities are plausible given the role of international trade in wine, and they are consistent with synthetic estimates that we computed based on a combination of economic theory, data on market shares, estimates of some pertinent parameters in the literature, and informed guesstimates of values for other parameters. (JEL Classification: Q11, Q12, Q13)
This paper discusses three related examples of mission-oriented agricultural institutional innovations associated with substantial crop yield increases in the 20th century. It begins with the implementation of the United States Land-Grant System and then discusses in turn the planning and implementation of the two grand missions that led successively to the yield increases in wheat and rice that heralded the onset of the “Green Revolution.” It notes the remarkable role of the Rockefeller Foundation in identifying these two missions, and selecting personnel developed within the land-grant system to execute them with remarkable effectiveness.