Stefanos A. Nastis

Climate change and agricultural productivity

Agriculture is the economic sector that is most vulnerable to climate change. According to the latest estimates, farmers’ adaptation of farm production to climate change is inevitable. The climate attributes that are expected to have the most direct impacts on agricultural productivity are the rise in temperature, the change in the frequency and intensity of precipitation and of extreme weather phenomena, and the increase in the level of CO2 available for photosynthesis. This paper analyzes the economic costs of climate change in Greek agricultural productivity during the last thirty years and discusses the implications for policymakers and for agricultural research. Empirical evidence suggests that climate change is already present and has a significant impact on agricultural productivity. Farmers need to adapt to the expected impacts of climate change in order to maintain their standard of living. The adaptation of agriculture to climate change involves both the restructuring of crops, as well as changes in cultivation practices. Policies must take into account the multidimensionality of modern agriculture and the importance of sustainable agricultural development.

Valuing mother and child health: the intrauterine environment.

The paper estimates the value a mother assigns to own health relative to child health. Estimation of relative health valuation requires the decomposition of a child health improvement into its direct effect on the childs health and its indirect effect, through improvements in maternal health. Failure to distinguish the impact of the direct and indirect effects can lead to biased estimates. We consider the intrauterine environment of a pregnant mother and her unborn child, where maternal health inputs are choice variables and her health affects child health. The empirical estimates suggest that mothers value child health up to six times higher than own health, and that the relative value depends on maternal consumption patterns and household characteristics.

Life Cycle Assessment and Multi-criteria Analysis in Agriculture: Synergies and Insights

The simultaneous and increasing needs for safe and quality food products, along with the environmental and socio-economic sustainability, develop a multi-level problem with controversies and arbitrary assumptions for farmers and policy makers. In order to assess the aspect of sustainability in agricultural production, different impact assessment tools could be implemented. Although LCA gives the potential to develop alternative scenarios in order to achieve the optimal environmental performance, in the context of sustainability, at the same time subjective measures are developed which are difficult to quantify. Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is the key to solve the current weakness, since it takes into account multiple criteria in a wide assortment of aspects and thus it could integrate sustainability elements. The purpose of this study is to outline the integration of LCA and MCA methodologies and develop a complete literature review regarding the sustainability of the agricultural sector through the above mentioned methodological merge. In this review we analyze scientific papers integrating LCA and different multi-criteria methodologies in agriculture. Through this analysis, we determine the connection between the methodologies through a variety of aspects regarding (a) the number and nature of multi-criteria methods integrated with LCA, (b) the way of integration between the methods in a technical perspective and (c) the benefits developed through the integration as well as the final conclusions which could only be elicited through this complex process. Studies which implemented LCA and MCA simultaneously illustrated positive economic and environmental results, since LCA focused on environmental sustainability and the multi-criteria modeling dealt with the subjective measures of LCA.

Health and Women’s Role in Agricultural Production Efficiency

The aim of this article is to examine the direct and indirect links between production efficiency and farmers’ health. Using a sample of male farm leaders, the role of both genders’ health in production efficiency is measured. More specifically, the effect of the farm household’s health through the direct effect of the male farmer’s health and the indirect effect of the woman’s health on production efficiency is examined. An increase in the frequency of illness of the female in the family farm decreases production efficiency, suggesting distinct gender roles in the agricultural household.

Hazardous agrochemicals, smoking, and farmers’ differences in wage-risk tradeoffs

This paper utilizes the theory of compensating differentials for job risks from the labor economics literature to evaluate farmers’ differences in wage-risk tradeoffs. In the context of job risks, the theory predicts that farmers who place a lower value on health status are willing to work for lower compensation on a risky job. The aim of the paper is to evaluate how the observed wage-risk tradeoff is affected by individual heterogeneity in risk preferences, by acknowledging variations in farmers’ revealed attitudes toward risk, both in job-related and non-job activities. The job risk measure employed is self-reported job risk of low back pain, the most recurring health risk faced by farmers. The job-related risky activity is the application of hazardous agrochemicals and the non-job activity is smoking. The study supports the finding that individual heterogeneity in risk attitudes is an important determinant of the risk premium workers receive, i.e., individual differences in other health-related activities are influential determinants of the observed wage-risk tradeoff.

Farm planning in nitrate sensitive agricultural areas

One of the main aims of the Rural Development Plan under the EU Common Agricultural Policy is the protection of nitrate sensitive areas through agri-environmental schemes. This paper presents a mathematical programming model for farm planning in agricultural areas that are sensitive to nitrates. A bilevel linear programming (BLP) model is developed, that can achieve the optimal farm production plan assuming two conflicting goals: the maximisation of farm gross margin and the minimisation of fertilisers’ use. The first goal is pursued by farmers, and comprises the first level of BLP. The second goal is pursued by society, through the government, and comprises the second level of BLP. The model is applied to an agricultural area in Northern Greece, which belongs to the nitrate sensitive areas scheme of the Greek Rural Development Plan 2007–2013. The model is further used to simulate the impacts of the measure under two scenarios proposed for farms located in nitrate sensitive areas. The result shows that the model can achieve the two goals set by increasing gross margin and reducing fertilisers use.