Tihomir Ancev

Future Directions of Precision Agriculture

Precision Agriculture is advancing but not as fast as predicted 5 years ago. The development of proper decision-support systems for implementing precision decisions remains a major stumbling block to adoption. Other critical research issues are discussed, namely, insufficient recognition of temporal variation, lack of whole-farm focus, crop quality assessment methods, product tracking and environmental auditing. A generic research programme for precision agriculture is presented. A typology of agriculture countries is introduced and the potential of each type for precision agriculture discussed.

Measuring environmental efficiency of agricultural water use: A Luenberger environmental indicator

Irrigated agriculture creates substantial environmental pressures by withdrawing large quantities of water, leaving rivers and wetlands empty and unable to support the valuable ecosystems that depend on the water resource. The key challenge facing society is that of balancing water extractions for agricultural production and other uses with provision of appropriate environmental flow to maintain healthy rivers and wetlands. Measuring tradeoffs between economic gain of water use in agriculture and its environmental pressures can contribute to constructing policy instruments for improved water resource management. The aim of this paper is to develop a modelling framework to measure these tradeoffs. Using a new approach - Luenberger environmental indicator - the study derives environmental efficiency scores for various types of irrigation enterprises across seventeen natural resource management regions within the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Findings show that there is a substantial variation in environmental performance of irrigation enterprises across the regions. Some enterprises were found to be relatively environmentally efficient in some regions, but they were not efficient in others. The environmental efficiency scores could be used as a guideline for formulating regional policy and strategy to achieve sustainable water use in the agricultural sector.

Potential Suitability and Viability of Selected Biodiesel Crops in Australian Marginal Agricultural Lands Under Current and Future Climates

The potential environmental suitability and economic viability of growing two biodiesel crops in marginal regions of Australia were explored. Firstly, we used spatial analysis techniques to identify marginal agricultural regions suitable for growing pongam (Pongamia pinnata) and Indian mustard (Brassica juncea), and determined the base socioeconomic viability of investments for the production of biodiesel in the identified areas. Secondly, we used climate change projections (target years 2020 to 2070) from the Commonwealth Scientific, Industrial and Research Organization Mk3.0 global circulation model generated for two emission scenarios (A1B and A1FI) to determine the shift in potential areas for these crops. Under the climate change scenarios tested, the total area suitable for growing pongam between 2040 and 2070 is substantially different from the suitable area under current climate, indicating that long-term investments in this perennial tree crop may not be viable in all regions, especially in southern Australia. There is a greater variation in suitability projections for Indian mustard, although there is more flexibility for cropping options given that it is an annual crop. However, future economic viability is likely to depend on the ability to receive renewable energy certificates for both crops and, in the case of pongam, the certified emission reductions. Opportunities exist for sustainable pongam agroforestry to supply biodiesel to regional towns, cattle stations and mines in northern Australia.

Efficient Water Use for Sustainable Irrigation Industry

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the economic efficiency of irrigated agricultural enterprises using a non-radial data envelopment analysis approach. While a number of studies have used radial measures based on data envelopment analysis to obtain efficiency scores for a given production technology, we calculate non-radial measures to understand the efficiency of using individual inputs employed in the production process. In particular, the measures of economic efficiency are decomposed into water use efficiency and managerial efficiency. This decomposition enables us to obtain an efficiency score for the use of water as an environmentally sensitive input in irrigated crop production systems. Treating water input in this way goes beyond traditional measurement of water use efficiency, as the calculated efficiency scores can be used as indicators of sustainability in terms of water withdrawals for irrigation purposes. The results show that the overall efficiency for the considered irrigated enterprises is quite high. This is in contrast to the findings on the water use efficiency scores, which are fairly low. This indicates that while Australian irrigated farms are comparatively more efficient in overall farm activity management, they are not very efficient in managing water resources. In turn, this threatens the sustainability of this industry. There is a substantial variation of water use efficiency scores across irrigated enterprises and across regions. Analysing these variations can provide important insights for current policy and for future efforts to improve water use efficiency that will lead towards more sustainable irrigation industry.

Economic analysis of alternative pollution abatement policies: the case of Buriganga River, Bangladesh

The Buriganga River is a prime example of serious surface water pollution problem. So far the emphasis of pollution abatement policy for this river has been solely on the application of command and control (CAC) mechanisms (standards on emission discharges), however little success has been achieved as the polluters seem to be reluctant to comply to these measures. This study evaluates the existing system for pollution control in this particular river and determines the economic costs that are likely to result under alternative policy instruments for pollution abatement, such as, uniform reduction, taxes and tradable permit system. The results from the simulation exercise show that application of the approaches based on economic incentives (taxes or tradable permit systems) could achieve significant cost savings for pollution abatement compared to the command and control-based approach (uniform reduction system).

Economics of salinity effects from irrigated cotton: an efficiency analysis

Using an environmentally adjusted performance measurement the study evaluates the tradeoffs between the benefits derived from irrigated cotton enterprises and its associated environmental damages. Deep drainage, which adds to the aquifer recharge and thereby contributes to salinization, is treated as an environmentally detrimental output. The analysis includes data collected from a sample of 53 observations in the Mooki Catchment located in northern New South Wales, Australia. Environmentally adjusted efficiency of cotton enterprises is estimated using the environmental performance index (EPI) and relative efficiency rankings are determined for each of the considered cotton areas in the catchment. The findings reveal that environmentally adjusted efficiency of irrigated cotton is within an acceptable range (more than 60% of observations have an EPI efficiency score of greater than 5). The efficiency variation among the observations based on hydrological response units (HRUs) can be attributed to a number of reasons including physical factors (i.e., soil quality, topography), type of irrigation technology used, and other environmental factors. For instance, the overall efficiencies of downstream HRUs are higher than that of upstream HRUs. Therefore, biophysical characteristics of an area need to be incorporated in the efficiency model. With the identification of the most and least efficient cotton irrigation areas in the region, policymakers can construct a relative ranking to best determine policy directions in order to take a more targeted approach towards salinity mitigation.

Optimality of Pre-Empting Regulations on Natural Resource Use

Firms are often confronted with regulations on their productive and commercial activities. In many instances a firm can take various actions to pre-empt regulations. This article determines the optimality of pre-emptive action for a firm subject to natural resource regulation. The regulation may be either fixed or relative to the production history. Dependent on the type of regulation, a firm can pre-empt by terminating its current use of resources and converting to other use or by building up the input use or output history in the period prior to regulation. It is shown that the optimal pre-emption decision depends on the extent and perceived probability of regulation, on the rate of discount and on technological characteristics of the production process including the alternative use of the resource.