Michele M. Veeman

Marketing Boards: The Canadian Experience

This paper provides an overview of the development of Canadian marketing boards and an assessment of their current situation. Broadly defined, marketing boards are legislatively specified compulsory marketing institutions which perform any of the functions of marketing on behalf of the producers of particular agricultural commodities. Boards include marketing institutions whose members or directors are elected by agricultural producers, bodies whose members are appointed by government, such as the Canadian Wheat Board, and some marketing agencies or commissions. In 1985 some 136 boards regulated 56% of the value of agricultural products produced and sold in Canada, or about 75% of agricultural output if the educational and promotional bodies are included. Thus, boards continue to be a prominent feature of agricultural policy in Canada. The development of marketing boards in Canada has many similarities to the development of legislatively specified marketing institutions in other countries, and yet, because of the different social, political, and legislative environments in which they have developed, there are also many differences. Their evolution in Canada reflects dual jurisdictional authority over agriculture and marketing as well as changing social and political attitudes towards government intervention. In tracing the history of their legislative basis, four groups of Canadian boards can be identified. These include, first, provincial producer-controlled marketing boards for products that are traded locally as well as across provincial boundaries and in export markets. These boards operate under complementary provincial and federal legislative authority. Second, there are boards established for products such as fluid milk, earlier sold only in very localized markets, for which specific provincial legislation alone was required. Third, there are federal boards for commodities sold primarily across provincial boundaries or in export markets. The Canadian Wheat Board is the prime ex mple. Finally, the most recent federal marketing boards are the bodies established under federal legislation since 1972 that collaborate with provincial supply-management boards to apply national market sharing plans. Although established somewhat earlier, the Canadian Dairy Commission could also be included with these boards.

People, values, and woodlands: A field report ofemergent themes in interdisciplinary research in Zimbabwe

The Value of Trees project, funded bythe International Development Research Council ofCanada (IDRC), supported the joint efforts of theUniversity of Alberta and the University of Zimbabweto investigate the economic costs and benefitsassociated with trees and forests in the small holderfarming sector in Zimbabwe. The Value of Trees project provided funding for graduate students andfaculty from the two participating universities tocarry out studies in the disciplines of forestry,agricultural economics, and sociology in order toprovide policy recommendations regarding the role ofwoodlands in sustainable small holder farming in acontext where agricultural production appears to putincreasing stress on woodlands. The numerous projectsincluded such topics as the following: the use offuelwood under conditions of scarcity, tree tenure andlocal institutions in woodland use and sustainability,gender and wealth as related to tree planting andconservation, time preferences in natural resourceconsumption, ownership and economic impact ofeucalyptus woodlots, cultural and economic valuesassociated with woodlands, and uses and conflictsrelating to woodlands across different land categoriessuch as resettlement land and state forests. Manyother studies were not funded by, but were associatedwith Value of Trees. The findings fall withintwo broad categories. The first set includes thosedirectly related to generating values for differentaspects of the woodlands, particularly from theperspectives of rural households. The main finding isthat despite being highly valued by local people forboth economic and social reasons, woodlands are rankedlower in importance by local farmers than agriculturalland. The second set of findings relates to thecomplexities of the social system of the woodlands.Local institutions, history, resource conflicts, andtenure issues emerge as key to understanding the waythat people interact with the woodlands. Finally,local people have valuable knowledge and strategies tooffer in the design of sustainable management. Thepolicy implications of these findings for Zimbabwe arethat economic incentives could be important in asustainable woodlands strategy, but that anysuccessful program must incorporate an understandingof the profoundly complex and at times contradictoryhuman dynamics of woodland use and values.

A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF WOODLAND USE AND CHANGE IN ZIMBABWE

ABSTRACT In this paper we use a conceptual box-and-arrow model for understanding woodland use in Zimbabwe in the context of the complex ecological-social-economic system of which it is part. Central themes within our model are: the policy framework; local institutions; land pressures; rural-urban relationships; the rise in tourism; increasing commercialisation of woodland products; drought; AIDS; and the status of the resource itself. We suggest that too little attention has been paid to the impacts of policy on woodland use and commercialisation, and that woodland use is seldom seen in the wider context of the entire household livelihood system. Conceptual models represent a tool for understanding the connections between the components of complex systems, but they need to be followed by more detailed simulation modelling, to understand both the dynamics of these systems and the possible outcomes of various interventions in them.

Risk Perceptions, Social Interactions and the Influence of Information on Social Attitudes to Agricultural Biotechnology

We assess Canadian’s risk perceptions for genetically modified (GM) food and probe influences of socio-economic, demographic and other factors impinging on these perceptions. An internet-administered questionnaire with two stated choice split-sample experiments that approximate market choices of individual grocery shoppers is applied to elicit purchase behavior from 882 respondents across Canada. Data are collected to assess the influence on respondents’ choices for a specific food product (bread) of 1) product information which varies in content and by source and 2) information provided through labeling. These data also enable: a) analysis of trade-offs made by consumers between possible risks associated with GM ingredients and potential health or environment benefits in food and b) assessment of influences on respondents’ search for/access of product information. We rigorously document the extent and type of variation in Canadian consumers’ attitudes and risk perceptions for a selected GM food. This is pursued in analysis of experiment 1) data using a latent class model to analyze 445 consumers’ choices for bread products. We identify four distinct groups of Canadian consumers: 51% (value seekers) valued additional health or environmental benefits and were indifferent to GM content; traditional consumers (14 %) preferred their normally-purchased food; fringe consumers (4%) valued the health attribute and could defer consumption. Another 32 % (anti-GM) strongly opposed GM ingredients in food irrespective of introduced attributes. Thus there is a dichotomy in Canadian attitudes to GM content in food: a small majority of the sample (55 per cent) perceive little or no risk from GM food, but this is strongly opposed by 46% of respondents. Differences in gender, number of children in the household, education, and age are associated with the likelihood of segment membership. We also report on the search for information on characteristics of the GM food by a sample of 445 respondents with opportunity for voluntary access to related information through hyperlinks in the survey. Slightly less than half actually sought such information. Gender, employment status, rural or urban residency and the number of children in the household all affected the probability that respondents would access information. A further research component examines product choices made in the context of two common GM labeling policies: mandatory and voluntary labeling. We find these two types of strategies to have distinctive impacts on consumers and on measures of social welfare. Knowledge of these may help policy makers to make more informed analyses of the alternative labeling policies. Specific findings also provide base-line measures of Canadians’ attitudes to risks of GM technology in the context of food and environmental risks, as well as documenting the importance of context influences and reference points on consumers’ preferences for GM food. We also develop methodological improvements for accurately estimating the value of information on a negative attribute. The project built upon initial findings from a previous AARI project (#AARI Project #2000D037) and is complemented by research supported through a Genome Prairie GE3LS (Genetics, Ethics, Environment, Economics, Law and Society) project: “Commercialization and society: its policy and strategic implications.”

The behaviour of private and public investment in Malawi

This paper analyzes investment behaviour in Malawis private and public goods sectors between 1967 and 1988, taking into account partial liberalization and contractionary fiscal and monetary policies associated with the IMF-supported structural adjustment program. Numbers of studies on investment demand in developing countries have focused on whether or not public investment crowds out private investment. Public investment may compete with private investment for scarce physical and financial resources, at least in the short term. However, public investment is also expected to complement private investment by creating infrastructure and raising the productivity of private capital stock. Partial liberalization is expected to have a negative effect in the short-run on private investment due to inflationary pressure. Contractionary fiscal and monetary policies are expected to have a negative effect on public investment. II. THE ANALYSIS In this study, factors influencing both private and public investment are investigated, and the hypothesis that public investment affects private investment is tested. A variant of the neoclassical flexible accelerator model discussed by Haque, Lahiri, and Montiel (1990) is applied. Private investment is specified as a function of the price of capital relative to the wage rate, real output and the beginning-of-period capital stock. Due to difficulties with the measurement of capital stock in developing countries and the expected influence of public investment on private investment, the estimating model is modified. Following Blejer and Khan (1984), the desired stock of capital is assumed to be proportional to expected output and an adaptive expectations framework as suggested by Cagan (1956) is used to

The Changing Organization, Structure, and Control of Canadian Agriculture

Public interest in the agricultural sector in Canada has greatly increased since 1973. Canadian consumers continue to be worried by increases in food prices and their causes. The farm production sector faces continued income instability in the short run, relatively low incomes for many (though not all) producers, and apparent increases in the degree of inequality in the distribution of agricultural income and wealth. Canadian taxpayers are in no mood, it would seem, to increase the relatively modest (except for the dairy sector) levels of direct government support to agriculture. During recent months, the dialogue on a potential food strategy for Canada has continued. To our mind, this debate, while fruitful to some degree, has not always identified the major issues facing Canadian agriculture nor clearly outlined the possible solutions and hard choices that Canadian society might undertake. In this paper, we present our perception of how the structure and organization of Canadian agriculture is evolving and outline some major areas for policy attention and societal regulation. In the course of our discussion, we examine the primary production sector and the marketing economy.

Conserving Water in Irrigated Agriculture: The Economics and Valuation of Water Rights

The effective management of water resources in Alberta is crucial to sustainable agriculture, industrial development, and environmental management. The historical water allocation mechanism, administrative apportionment, has been viewed in recent years as ineffective and cumbersome. Accordingly, the revision of the Water Act in 1996, included an attempt to improve the efficiency of water allocation. By making the transfer of water rights possible, the revised Act provides many new options for water use and flexibility. The implications of transferable water rights in Alberta water policy must be carefully considered in order to determine the viability and suitability of such a system in the provincial context. This project examines some of the economic aspects of transferable water rights and the potential for effective water allocation by way of transfers in an Alberta setting. As a major part of this project, a hedonic price model, focusing on land values in southern Alberta, was constructed based on similar models, which have been used elsewhere to value water rights or agricultural products. The hedonic approach to market analysis uses the relationship between the price of land and the attributes of the land, such as water availability, soil quality and location, to explain differences in land prices. In this process, the hedonic model is used to estimate the implicit marginal price or value of each land attribute -- in our case, the marginal value of irrigation water. This value will provide us with an indirect estimate of the value of water rights in the region studied. An advantage of the technique is that it estimates the value that farmers express for irrigation water in the market place for land. Such values, then, give us an indication of the anticipated prices, which might prevail for water rights in southern Alberta. The focus of the study was an area of southern Alberta encompassing the counties of Wheatland, Newell, Cypress, Forty Mile, Taber, Warner, Lethbridge and Vulcan and the irrigation districts of Western, Eastern, St.Marys, Taber, Lethbridge Northern, and portions of Raymond. Information was collected on the physical and economic characteristics of 230 land parcels, which were sold in this region in 1993 and early 1994. A crude comparison of the value of irrigated agricultural land and non-irrigated agricultural land in the sample reveals that irrigated land was worth, on average,

China's grain imports: an empirical study

325 more per acre than non-irrigated land. In the ensuing analysis, it was estimated that the value of a parcel of land was determined largely by the buildings on it, the number of acres in the parcel, the proximity of the parcel to a major city (in this case Calgary or Lethbridge), and by the availability of irrigation water. In the hedonic model, the coefficient values of the variables included represent the marginal impact of each of these characteristics on land prices holding all other things constant. For example, the value of water rights represents the average difference between land values of farms that have access to irrigation and farms that do not. This study estimated that every dollar of improvements to farm buildings translates to a one cent increase in the per acre price of the land parcel, where the addition of one extra acre of land to a land parcel lowers the price per acre by

Predicting Versus Testing: A Conditional Cross‐Forecasting Accuracy Measure for Hypothetical Bias

5.17 per acre. Land prices were seen to increase with the proximity of the parcel to large cities. Similarly, the results of the preferred model indicate that the implicit value of having access to irrigation water in southern Alberta is approximately

Ethnic Niche Markets for Fresh Canadian Pork in the United States Pacific Northwest

190 per acre, or, using the conventional estimate that irrigating one acre of land requires 1.5 acre feet of water, this translates to