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Since the research agenda on agroholdings and mega-farms was elaborated in the 2017 special issue of IFAMA, much has been learned about structure, performance and management of these farming systems. Despite doubts about the sustainability of these farming systems, they have evolved and even flourished under a wide variety of governance and geographical conditions. It remains to be seen if these systems will be successful in the long run, but continued research is warranted to understand their evolution, functional forms and impacts. This special issue includes four papers examining acquisition, growth and restructuring processes under differing conditions in Brazil, Russia, and Ukraine to gain a deeper and broader understanding of these management forms. A second major focus of this special issue is in the socio-political sphere with three papers to document and better understand the corporate social responsibility of such firms in Argentina, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. The new knowledge and understanding gained from these papers leads to a reformulation of the research agenda on the development of agroholdings and mega-farms in transition and emerging market economies.

Having high export potential, Ukrainian agrarian sector continues to be in the agricultural commodity market periphery. One of the key problems is low export efficiency determined by raw materials domination in the structure. The study aim was to ascertain a reorientation possibility of export commodity structure in order to reduce the raw materials part and increase the highly marginal goods part. The methodology consisted in studying the character of reciprocal influence comparison of different commodity groups volumes of agricultural produce using Verhulst’s function. As a result, parameters of optimal goods correlation were designed, and a number of highly marginal goods and conceptual basis able to improve export efficiency were established. JEL Codes: C23, F15, Q17.

Food security is a key objective of agricultural and food policy in Tunisia. The 2007–2008 food crisis highlighted the negative impacts of price volatility on international markets both in terms of food insecurity and budget exposure. Tunisian food subsidy expenditures ranged from $180 million to $710 million in 2006–2010, so volatile world prices meant volatile subsidy costs. Moreover, cereal production in Tunisia still has much instability due to climate conditions, which also influences imports and, consequently, subsidy expenditures. This study applies a structural model to conduct stochastic analyses of trade and policy impacts on food security and budget expenditures in the Tunisian wheat market. The methodology disaggregates durum wheat and soft wheat markets and generates projections of import prices of durum wheat and soft wheat, using projections of world prices provided by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at University of Missouri (FAPRI-MU). The key innovation is the...

The development and utility of genetically modified (GM) crops for smallholders around the world is controversial. Critical questions include what traits and crops are to be developed; how they can be adapted to smallholders’ ecological, social and economic contexts; which dissemination channels should be used to reach smallholders; and which policy environments will enable the greatest benefits for smallholders and the rural poor. A key question is how the voices of smallholders who have experience with or desire to use GM technologies enter the larger debate. Africa has the greatest number of smallholders and poor with the least exposure to GM crops. Because of the well-established use of GM crops in South Africa by commercial farmers, we formed a community of practice (CoP) involving smallholders, extension, researchers, non-profits and agribusiness in KwaZulu-Natal to examine the conditions under which GM crops are used by smallholders, how smallholders interact with GM technologies and what insights smallholders and other stakeholders can provide regarding these questions. One of the advantages of the CoP approach is that it brings stakeholders together in a non-hierarchical way that encourages new ways of thinking and new partnerships. Such interaction around a specific project can enhance the voice of smallholders in a variety of ways. In our project, smallholder participants have increased their knowledge and can make better decisions about GM technologies, which had been barriers for them. Notably, they have also improved their knowledge of maize production practices, accessed new practice networks, and met new researchers and resource providers. They are now being integrated into these networks in a way that should improve their livelihoods and make the wants and needs of smallholders better known. Such knowledge and experience has improved their voice in agriculture and rural development discussions.

In 2008–10, Russia and Ukraine together exported an average of 29 million tons of wheat per year, and have become important players in the international wheat market. This research summarizes the short- and long-run wheat price dynamics between Ukraine and Russia, and other major wheat exporters—the United States, European Union (EU), and Canada—from 2004 to 2010. Tests of market price co-integration (Johansen maximum likelihood test and residual-based tests) as well as threshold error correction techniques were performed for this purpose. The results suggest that Russian wheat prices were co-integrated with EU and U.S. wheat prices but not with Canadian wheat prices. Ukrainian wheat prices were found to be co-integrated with French wheat prices only. The estimated long-run wheat price transmission elasticities were estimated to be equal to 1.04 between Russian and French (a representative country of the EU) wheat prices, 1.16 between Russian and U.S. wheat prices, and 1.05 between Ukrainian and French wheat prices. We also found the short-term relationships between the co-integrated series to be statistically significant. Price adjustments in all co-integrated prices were found to be symmetric.

Availability of financial means is critical to the growth and development of production and productivity in the Eurasian wheat belt, but this has been one of the constraints on realising the agricultural potential of this region. This chapter uses examples from Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine, as well as other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, to identify key constraints on well-functioning credit and finance markets and discuss issues and potential remedies for the future. The scope of the chapter includes short-term operating capital, medium-term credit for durable assets and long-term credit for investment through bank credit as well as various other alternatives. It is recognised that the basic conditions for well-functioning market institutions, including for commodities, land and finance, take a long time to achieve, so innovations are needed to bridge these gaps. Successes and failures in the past experiences of transition countries in Europe and Central Asia are used in assessing future strategies and alternatives.

Purpose This paper assesses the projected growth of food supply relative to population growth and estimated food demand growth over the next four decades. Methodology/approach World population projections are analyzed for the main developed and developing regions. Implied food demand growth is then compared to grain and oilseed supply projections from a few of the most reliable sources. Three of these are 10-year projections and two extend to 2030 and 2050. To the extent possible, comparisons are made among the alternative projections. Conclusions about food availability and prices are finally drawn. Findings Meeting the growth in demand for food, feed, and biofuels to 2050 will not be a steep hill to climb, but there will need to be continued private and public investment in technology to induce increased production growth rates through productivity enhancements and increased purchased inputs. Practical implications The main food security challenge of the future, as in the present, is not insufficient production but rather increasing access and reducing vulnerability for food insecure households. The dominance of future population growth in the food insecure regions of Africa makes this challenge even more critical between now and 2050 and even more so in the years beyond 2050 when climate change effects on resource constraints will be more severe.

Recent international financial crises (East Asia in 1997, Russia in 1998, Brazil in 1999) and the speed with which they have spread across countries and regions have called into question the very desirability of financial globalization, that is, the opening of balance of payments' capital accounts in both developed and emerging economies since the mid 1980s.1 Calls for a new, global financial architecture have multiplied, and new and old theoretical arguments for and against controlling capital flows (as well as domestic financial markets, especially banks) have been put forward (IMF, Rodrik, Stiglitz). There is little empirical evidence to support the debate over the potential effects of enhanced financial volatility at the sectoral level, and especially on the agricultural economy. Has international financial volatility actually affected real sectoral performance, and if so how? After briefly reviewing literature in this area, this paper introduces the methodology and preliminary results of an on-going research project that addresses that question with reference to agricultural commodity trade. The purpose of the paper is both to generate productive discussion and to motivate similar research in this

This paper examines price relationships in the international wheat market for the years 1981–93 using a cointegration and error correction approach. Price series are found to be first-differenced stationary and cointegrated. Our results provide evidence that the United States, Australia, the European Union and Argentina react to Canada's pricing decisions, whereas Canada does not respond to any other price changes except Australia's. Similarly, the United States also plays a strong role in the pricing of other exporters (except Canada) and its pricing decision is affected by changes in Canadian and Australian prices. The remaining exporters such as the European Union and Argentina respond to the U.S. and Canadian price changes but do not have any influence on other prices. Overall, our results suggest that there is no distinct price leader in the international wheat market. Nous examinons les rapports deprixjouantsur le marche international du ble durant la periode 1981–1993, suivant une demarche de co-integration et de correction des erreurs. Nous avons constate et verifie que les series de prix se revelent stationnaires lorsqu‘exprimees en premiere difference et qu‘elles sont cointegrees. Nos observations demontrent que les Etats-Unis, I'Australie, I'Union europeenne et I'Argentine reagissent aux decisions de tariflcation prises au Canada et que de son cote, le Canada ne reagit a aucun autre changement du regime de tarification sauf a celui de I'Australie. De meme, les Etats-Unis jouent egalement un role important dans la tarification des autres exportateurs (le Canada excepte) et ses decisions de tarification sont sensibles aux changements affectant les prix canadiens et australiens. Le reste des exportateurs, notamment I'Union europeenne et I'Argentine, sont en mesure de reagir aux changements des prix appliques aux Etats- Unis et au Canada, mais Us n‘ont aucune influence sur la tarification des autres exportateurs. Toutes ces observations nous amenent a conclure qu'il n'y a pas vraiment de leader dans l'etablissement des prix du ble sur le marche international.

The study develops a theory of very-short-run forward-looking behavior allowing for forward trading and storage of final good and material input. Production and storage are separable from hedging decisions and depend only upon current forward and cash prices. Comparative statics are derived regarding production, purchases, and sales. The hypotheses advanced are tested with monthly data pertaining to the U.S. soybean-processing industry. Results suggest that in short-run equilibrium futures prices of the soybean complex have had little influence on crushings or production, but they have been important determinants of inventory levels.

Declining prices have followed two recent price spikes in 2007/08 and 2010/11 to 2012/13 that brought an era of higher and more volatile commodity prices that is quite different from the previous years of depressed prices. Declining petroleum prices combined with excellent global harvests brought the lowest market prices in many years. Are current policies tuned to these market conditions? We begin with a review of past policy evolution that took place in the European Union (EU) and United States (US), and then look at recent reforms and prospects for policy changes in the context of likely changes in the global market and policy environment over the next decade. Since agricultural policies generally evolve in response to internal and external pressures in a political economy context, we explore how the outlook of commodity markets may influence the directions of policies and the decision making environment for farmers.

A model of marketing firms in the presence of futures markets is presented and tested with data from the U.S. soybean-processing industry. Results show that production increases if output futures prices rise, material input cash prices fall, or the output cashfutures price relationship becomes more volatile. Sufficient assumptions for these results are expected-utility-maximizing competitive firms with nonincreasing absolute risk aversion and nonstochastic Leontief production functions, unbiased futures prices, and linearly related cash and futures prices. The standard marketing margin is inappropriate for analyzing market structure or risk in the presence of futures markets. price uncertainty, risk, soybean processors. The central paradigm in the analysis of marketing industries is the cash-cash marketing margin (CMM), by which we mean the relationship between cash prices of final good and material input measured at the same point in time.' The classical CMM model is the markup, according to which the spread among cash prices at different levels of the commercialization channel is a combination of a percentage markup and a constant absolute markup. Gardner shows that the markup is inconsistent with competition and advances a CMM model of a competitive marketing industry in which firms respond differently to output demand variations than they do to input supply changes. Some authors have compared the empirical explanatory power of alternative CMM models with conflicting results (Wohlgenant and Mullen; Thompson and Lyon). Brorsen et al. further developed the CMM paradigm to account for risk. They proved that, if a marketing firm is in a competitive and/or contestable market, an increase in output price risk should lead to a higher expected CMM. Their hypotheses could not be rejected when tested with data from the U.S. wheat-milling industry. The CMM ignores the role of futures markets, a weakness because futures are extensively used by marketing firms in many industries (Paul). Omission of futures in the analysis of marketing industries is paradoxical given the important body of theoretical research highlighting the impact of forward and futures markets on competitive firms (Danthine; Holthausen; Feder, Just, and Schmitz; Batlin; Benninga, Eldor, and Zilcha; Paroush and Wolf). If futures prices are relevant for marketing firms in a particular industry, then neglecting futures in the behavioral models of such an industry has potentially significant consequences. For example, the standard practice of employing the CMM to infer the efficiency or competitive nature of the industry (Hall, Schmitz, and Cothern) may be misleading because it does not reflect profit opportunities made available by the futures market. Hedging opportunities imply that risk measures based on CMM variability may also be

Agricultural economists and policy makers in the United States believe that the magnitude of the export demand elasticity is one of the most important parameters used in farm policy decisions. However, past empirical estimates show wide variation in the size of the U.S. export demand elasticity. Reasons for this wide variation go beyond differences in model specification, estimation methods, and period of estimation to involve factors such as trade policies and changes in the supply and demand conditions of foreign countries. In view of the continual variation in magnitude, the elasticity of export demand should be viewed as a variable rather than as a parameter. In this study, U.S. wheat export demand elasticities are computed using a world wheat trade model. The estimates show that the elasticities vary significantly over time. They also reveal that elimination of trade barriers would more than double wheat export demand elasticities.

The producer subsidy equivalent (PSE) measure was developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for measuring agricultural support or assistance. PSE can be utilized in the analysis of transition economies because it exhibits high sensitivity to the adjusted exchange rates and margins of transition economies. The method can be utilized as a comparative measure that will improve the quality and quantity of economic data for transition economies.