The potential of probiotics as in-feed growth enhancers for swine

Probiotics have enjoyed a surge of popularity in recent years, with many novel applications being proposed. One of the foremost for the agricultural industry is their potential for livestock growth promotion, a subject of special interest since the 2006 EU-wide ban on sub therapeutic levels of in-feed antibiotic growth enhancers. Probiotics work through a number of differing mechanisms, most of which are not, as yet, fully understood. The probiotics interact with the host’s natural gut flora in a complex and varying array of mechanisms, but ultimately work to improve nutrient digestibility and gut health and to suppress the actions of pathogenic bacteria. In conclusion, probiotics can be a useful replacement for in-feed antibiotic growth enhancers. However, care should be taken due to the variability of the size of the effect and the inconsistency of the results in the published literature.

Input usage, output mix and industry deregulation: an analysis of the Australian dairy manufacturing industry

In this paper we estimate a Translog output distance function for a balanced panel of state level data for the Australian dairy processing sector. We estimate a fixed effects specification employing Bayesian methods, with and without the imposition of monotonicity and curvature restrictions. Our results indicate that Tasmania and Victoria are the most technically efficient states with New South Wales being the least efficient. The imposition of theoretical restrictions marginally affects the results especially with respect to estimates of technical change and industry deregulation. Importantly, our bias estimates show changes in both input use and output mix that result from deregulation. Specifically, we find that deregulation has positively biased the production of butter, cheese and powders.

Implications of recent Australian wheat industry developments for overseas and domestic prices

This study is motivated by the proposition that the objectives of the AWB Ltd have changed since semi-privatisation of the Australian Wheat Board under the Wheat Marketing Act, 1989. Conceptualising this change of objectives as a shift from revenue maximization to profit maximization, this study examines the impact of such a change on the pricing policies of a multi-market price-setting firm. More specifically, this paper investigates, using two hypothetical objective functions, a risk averse AWB�s price-setting behaviour in an �overseas� and a �domestic� market in response to recent wheat industry developments. In the analysis these developments manifest themselves as differing price elasticities, differing transport costs and uncertain demand functions, and their implications particularly for the prices paid by domestic consumers are explored.

Contributing understanding of mitigation options for phosphorus and sediment to a review of the efficacy of contemporary agricultural stewardship measures

Experiences from the Mitigation Options for Phosphorus and Sediment (MOPS) projects, which aim to determine the effectiveness of measures to reduce pollutant loading from agricultural land to surface waters, have been used to contribute to the findings of a recent paper (Kay et al., 2009, Agricultural Systems, 99, 67–75), which reviewed the efficacy of contemporary agricultural stewardship measures for ameliorating the water pollution problems of key concern to the UK water industry. MOPS1 is a recently completed 3-year research project on three different soil types in the UK, which focused on mitigation options for winter cereals. MOPS1 demonstrated that tramlines can be the major pathway for sediment and nutrient transfer from arable hillslopes, and that although minimum tillage, crop residue incorporation, contour cultivation, and beetle banks also have potential to be cost-effective mitigation options, tramline management is the one of the most promising treatments for mitigating diffuse pollution losses, as it was able to reduce sediment and nutrient losses by 72–99% in four out of five site years trialled. Using information from the MOPS projects, this paper builds on the findings of Kay et al. to provide an updated picture of the evidence available and the immediate needs for research in this area.

The Farm-Retail Price Spread in an Imperfectly Competitive Food Industry

Gardner's popular model of perfect competition in the marketing sector is extended to a conjectural-variations oligopoly with endogenous entry. Revising Gardner's comparative statics on the "farm-retail price ratio," tests of hypotheses about food industry conduct are derived. Using data from a recent article by Wohlgenant, which employs Gardner's framework, tests are made of the validity of his maintained hypothesis-that the food industries are perfectly competitive. No evidence is found of departures from competition in the output markets of the food industries of eight commodity groups: (a) beef and veal, (b) pork, (c) poultry, (d) eggs, (e) dairy, (f) processed fruits and vegetables, (g) fresh fruit, and (h) fresh vegetables.

The emergence of Agribusiness in Europe and the development of the Western European broiler chicken industry, 1945-73

This article presents new data on the emergence and growth of the leading Western European poultry industries after 1945. It shows that those countries where poultry output grew most quickly – especially the UK, Italy and Spain – were also the countries where the agricultural sectors adopted US technologies and US agribusiness organizational structures most vigorously. Elsewhere in Western Europe, poultry output grew much less quickly and the adoption of agribusiness structures lagged behind. By contrast, the poultry sector in the USSR was based on the Soviet collectivist system. This was the largest poultry sector in Europe, but also much less efficient. The article suggests therefore that the diffusion of agribusiness and the increase in poultry output were deeply entwined across Europe, with potentially important consequences for the different roles and impacts of agribusiness in Europe.