No 4/2012, December | Agris on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics

Perception of Poverty by Ethiopian Rural Households: Using a Self Reported approach

G. G. Ambaye No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

Recent quantitative studies on Ethiopia’s rural households’ poverty of the last decade indicated that poverty head count has reduced. Nevertheless, most qualitative studies witnessed the contrary to quantitative studies. This study assesses how the Ethiopian rural households perceive poverty using self reported data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS). Moreover, it has examined whether poverty is actually reducing as claimed by official government reports. Our findings come up with mixed results. Majority of the respondents reported that health care, family housing, and credits have been improving compared to the last decade. Nevertheless, perceptions related to food consumption and comparisons of wealth rankings relative to their fathers’ tend to show that the situation is worse though the sample size may not be sufficient to generalize about the whole country.

KEYWORDS

Food poverty, perception, rural households, Ethiopia, growth.

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Building Blocks for a Data Infrastructure and Services to Empower Agricultural Research Communities

G. Geser Y. Jaques N. Manouselis V. Protonotarios J. Keizer M. Sicilia No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

The agINFRA project aims to provide the agricultural research communities with e-infrastructure and services for open data access, sharing and re-use. This paper introduces the project’s objectives and data principles, presents the data resources that are covered, and illustrates agINFRA services with examples from the area of agricultural statistics. Finally, it summarises how agricultural research institutions and other stakeholders can participate in, and benefit from, the project.

KEYWORDS

Agricultural research, agricultural repositories, e-infrastructure, data infrastructure, open access, agricultural statistics.

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Monitoring of infection pressure of American Foulbrood disease by means of Google Maps

Č. Halbich V. Vostrovsky No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

This article describes the options on Google Maps as a tool for decision support in solving spatial problems associated with the American Foulbrood disease. This disease is a serious problem for beekeepers world- wide. The solution to these problems requires the application of all available knowledge in the relevant decision-making processes. The Google Maps offers the geographical approach that represents a new way of thinking and solutions to existing spatial problems. This approach allows to apply existing knowledge to model and analyze these problems and thus help to solve them.The Project Information and knowledge support of strategic control - MSM 6046070904 supports this work.

KEYWORDS

Spatial decision problem, decision support systems, GIS, Google Maps, American Foulbrood disease, infection pressure.

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Methodological Approaches to Costs Evaluation of Canned Feed

J. Jánský J. Poláčková P. Kozákova No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

The paper deals with methodological approaches of cost evaluation of canned feed production, especially cost evaluation of corn silage or silage from melted multiannual fodder on arable land. Mainly there is modification of the cost calculation method in two steps used for chosen fodder crops up to now. The first step is cost calculation of chosen fodder crops during cultivation and harvesting. The second step is cost calculation of chosen fodder crops processing, it means process of crops ensilage.The result of methodological modification of cost evaluation of canned feed production is an aggregate of own cost calculation by combining both phases of calculation, i.e. connection in the initial phase of cultivation and harvesting of fodder crops and the subsequent phase of processing and transport of canned feed.The paper is a partial output of a Research project of FBE MUAF Brno, (MSM No 6215648904).

KEYWORDS

Methodology of total costs calculation, costs of silage, basic cost structure, summary cost structure.

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The Assessment of the Effects of Investment Support Measures of the Rural Development Programmes: the Case of the Czech Republic

T. Medonos T. Ratinger M. Hruška J. Špička No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

Investment support has been considered a principal vehicle for enhancing the competitiveness of Czech agriculture since the early days of economic transition. However, thus far, little attention has been paid evaluating the actual effects of corresponding support programmes. The objective of this paper is to assess economic and other effects of Measure 121 “Modernisation of Agricultural Holdings,” of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2007-2013 on Czech farms. The counterfactual approach is adopted to investigate what would have happened if the supported producers had not participated in the programme; the resulting indicators are than compared. The quantitative analysis of programme effects is complemented by a qualitative survey on 20 farms that received investment support between 2008 and 2010. The quantitative assessment showed significant benefits of investment support in terms of business expansion (Gross Value Added) and productivity (GVA/labour costs) improvements. These results were confirmed by the qualitative survey. Finally, the issue of deadweight as related to investment support is discussed: the figures on very low net investment relative to the provided public support at the sector level, as well as answers of respondents both indicate possible significant deadweight.The presented results refer to the research carried out in the two projects – “Multifunctional agriculture for the benefit of society and rural development“(MZe RO0911) conducted by Institute of Agricultural Economics and Information“ and “ The Czech Republic in the European Research Area” (MŠMT LM2010010) conducted by Technology Centre ASCR.

KEYWORDS

Investment support, counterfactual analysis, propensity score matching, direct and indirect effects.

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Diagnostic Analysis of Spatial and Temporal Variations in Crop Water Productivity: a Regional Scale Analysis of the Rain Fed Wheat

M. H. Nazarifar M. H. Kanani R. Momeni No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

Water productivity is a suitable indicator in water potential analysis at a location in a region. In this study, changes in water use productivity are studied in spatial and temporal scale simultaneously. To evaluate temporal changes in water productivity in Hamadan region (Iran), Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) was analyzed and evaluated for drought, wet and normal conditions. To estimate regional water productivity, GIS and Kassam methods were coupled to estimate the Potential yield of rain-fed wheat in a developed rasterized grid network with 30×30 -km resolution. Results of this study indicate that the amount of water productivity in drought condition in comparison with the other two conditions was higher and from geographical point of view the southern parts of the region have higher potential production with compare to other locations of the province. The analysis shows the variation in amount of active radiation received by the earth surface is causing these differences.

KEYWORDS

SPI, Drought, Kassam method, water productivity.

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Factors Determining the Entry of Agricultural Farms into Agritourism

L. Pilař J. Pokorná T. Balcarová J. Hron No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to identify the motives of the decisions to join the agritourism business in the Czech Republic and the degree of fulfilment of these input motives. The research also identified the differences in motives for the entry of farmers into agritourism in the Czech Republic as compared to the results of a study on agritourism in the USA.In order to achieve the aims, descriptive statistic methods and non-parameterized testing through Wilcoxon test were used. It was found out that unlike the USA, in the Czech Republic the most dominant motives for joining agritourism are economic motives. The results also included a comparison of the approaches reflecting the impact of existing experience with agritourism with the change of approaches to the input motives.The article originated as a part of the Internal Grant Agency (IGA) of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Registration Number 20121074.

KEYWORDS

Agritourism, entrepreneurship motivation, farm, social motives, economic motives.

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Rural Economies and ahe Pillar 2 Budget Debate: A Regional Perspective

T. Ratinger Z. Křístkova No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

In this paper, three scenarios concerning different budget options of the reformed CAP are analysed based on the general equilibrium approach. The simulations consider a policy shock in 2014 and assess its impact until 2020. The results suggest that the changes in financing the second pillar CAP will produce only marginal effects on the economy. However, the reallocation of funds from the first to the second pillar has considerably larger negative effects on gross value added and employment in agriculture than the case of the second pillar budget reduction. On the other hand, the reallocation of funds will produce small but positive effects on the remaining sectors of the economy and the GDP.Research presented in this paper is the result of a research grant MSM 6046070906 “Economics of Czech agricultural resources and their efficient usage within the framework of multifunctional agri-food systems” and a Research Task of UZEI conducted for the Ministry of Agriculture TÚ 4241/2011”.

KEYWORDS

General equilibrium model, regional economy, rural area, rural policy, agricultural policy.

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Using Metadata Description for Agriculture and Aquaculture Papers

P. Šimek J. Vaněk V. Očenášek M. Stočes T. Vogeltanzova No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

The paper deals with the most used metadata formats and thesauri suitable for describing scientific and research papers in the domains agriculture, food industry, aquaculture, environment and rural areas. These include the Dublin Core (DC), Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), Virtual Open Access Agriculture and Aquaculture Repository Metadata Application Profile (VOA3R AP) and the AGROVOC thesaurus. Having analyzed the metadata formats and research paper lifecycle, the authors would recommend that each paper should entail metadata description as soon as it is published. The metadata are to describe the content and properties of the paper. One of the most suitable metadata formats is the VOA3R AP that is partially patterned on the DC and combined with the AGROVOC thesaurus. As a result, an effective description, availability and automatic data exchange between and among local and central repositories should be attained.The knowledge and data presented in the present paper were obtained as a result of the following research programs and grant schemes: the Grant No. 20121044 of the Internal Grant Agency titled „Using Automatic Metadata Generation for Research Papers“, the Grant agreement No. 250525 funded by the European Commission corresponding to the VOA3R Project (Virtual Open Access Agriculture & Aquaculture Repository: Sharing Scientific and Scholarly Research related to Agriculture, Food, and Environment), http://voa3r.eu and the Research Program titled „Economy of the Czech Agriculture Resources and their Efficient Use within the Framework of the Multifunctional Agrifood Systems“ of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport number VZ MSM 6046070906.

KEYWORDS

Metadata, element, paper, description, thesaurus, AGROVOC, Dublin Core, VOA3R AP.

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Determinants of Ruminant Meat Demand among Different Income Groups in Maiduguri, Borno State Nigeria

B. M. Yakaka A. C. Iheanacho A. C.K. Babagana No 4/2012, December

ABSTRACT

This study analyzed the determinant of meat demand among income groups, using multiple regression. Data for the study were obtained from 180 respondents, selected in six (6) wards through stratified random sampling, representing the three income groups, namely low, middle and high earning ≤ N15000, N15, 001- N30, 000 and ≥ N30, 001 respectively. Further more, 30 households each were purposively selected from the six (6) areas making a total of 180 households for the study. This study was restricted to ruminant meat products (cattle, goat and sheep) demand among households in Maiduguri Urban area and covered the period of May-June, 2010. The findings showed that 89.02% of the households were male headed, with 38 years as the mean age, while 77% had one form of formal education or another. The mean household size was eight, while the mean monthly income was N23,843. The multiple regression results revelled that gender was insignificant determinant of expenditure on ruminant for all the income groups, and was negatively related to high income group. However, the coefficients of gender were positive for low and middle income groups. Household size and income had positive coefficients and were significant at 1% level for all the income groups. Age had positive coefficients for all the income groups and was significant at 1% for middle income group. On the contrary it was not significant for low and high income. Educational level of the respondents had positive coefficients for all income groups and was significant at 1% level for low and middle income groups but was insignificant for high income group. The study recommended policies to improve improved income redistribution and the enhancement of the purchasing power of the poor.

KEYWORDS

Determinants, ruminant meat demand, income groups.

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