Benefits from Bt cotton use by smallholder farmers in South Africa

This paper describes the results of research conducted in the Makhathini region, Kwazulu Natal, Republic of South Africa, designed to explore the economic benefits of the adoption of Bt cotton for smallholders. Results suggest that Bt cotton had higher yields than non-Bt varieties and generated greater revenue. Seed costs for Bt cotton were double those of non-Bt, although pesticide costs were lower. On balance, the gross margins (revenue - costs) of Bt growers were higher than those of non-Bt growers.

Evaluating the likelihood of the adoption of an animal welfare assessment system in European agri-food supply chains

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the likelihood of adoption of a recently designed Welfare Assessment System in agri-food supply chains and the factors affecting the adoption decision. The application is carried out for pig and poultry chains. Design/methodology/approach – This research consisted of two main components: interviews with retailers in pig and poultry supply chains in eight different EU countries to explore their perceptions towards the adoption possibilities of the welfare assessment system; and a conjoint analysis designed to evaluate the perceived adoption likelihood of the assessment system by different Standards Formulating Organisations (SFOs). Findings – Stakeholders were found to be especially concerned about the costs of implementation of the system and how it could, or should, be merged with existing assurance schemes. Another conclusion of the study is that the presence of a strong third independent party supporting the implementation of the welfare assessment system would be the most important influence on the decision whether, or not, to adopt it. Originality/value – This research evaluates the adoption possibilities of a novel Welfare Assessment System and presents the views of different supply chain stakeholders on an adoption of such a system. The main factors affecting the adoption decision are identified and analysed. Contrary to expectations, the costs of adoption of a new welfare assessment system were not considered to be the most important factor affecting the decision of supply chain stakeholders about the adoption of this new welfare system.

Europe’s biocidal products directive: benefits and costs in urban pest management

The European Commission’s Biocidal Products Directive (Council Directive 98/8 EC), known as the BPD, is the largest regulatory exercise ever to affect the urban pest control industry. Although focussed in the European Union its impact is global because any company selling pest control products in the EU must follow its principles. All active substances, belonging to 23 different biocidal product types, come within the Directive’s scope of regulatory control. This will eventually involve re-registration of all existing products, as well as affecting any new product that comes to the market. Some active substances, such as the rodenticides and insecticides, are already highly regulated in Europe but others, such as embalming fluids, masonry preservatives, disinfectants and repellents/attractants will come under intensive regulatory scrutiny for the first time. One of the purposes of the Directive is to offer enhanced protection for human health and the environment. The potential benefit for suppliers of pest control products is mutual recognition of regulatory product dossiers across 25 Member States of the European Union. This process, requiring harmonisation of all regulatory decision-making processes, should reduce duplicated effort and, potentially, allow manufacturers speedier access to European markets. However, the cost to industry is enormous, both in terms of the regulatory resources required to assemble BPD dossiers and the development budgets required to conduct studies to meet its new standards. The cost to regulatory authorities is also tremendous, in terms of the need to upgrade staff capabilities to meet new challenges and the volume of the work expected by the Commission when they are appointed the Rapporteur Member State (RMS) for an active substance. Users of pest control products will pay a price too. The increased regulatory costs of maintaining products in the European market are likely to be passed on, at least in part, to users. Furthermore, where the costs of meeting new regulatory requirements cannot be recouped from product sales, many well-known products may leave the market. For example, it seems that in future few rodenticides that are not anticoagulants will be available within the EU. An understanding of the BPD is essential to those who intend to place urban pest control products on the European market and may be useful to those considering the harmonisation of regulatory processes elsewhere. This paper reviews the operation of the first stages of the BPD for rodenticides, examines the potential benefits and costs of the legislation to the urban pest control industry and looks forward to the next stages of implementation involving all insecticides used in urban pest management.

Prebiotics and the health benefits of fiber: current regulatory status, future research, and goals.

First defined in the mid-1990s, prebiotics, which alter the composition and activity of gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota to improve health and well-being, have generated scientific and consumer interest and regulatory debate. The Life Sciences Research Organization, Inc. (LSRO) held a workshop, Prebiotics and the Health Benefits of Fiber: Future Research and Goals, in February 2011 to assess the current state of the science and the international regulatory environment for prebiotics, identify research gaps, and create a strategy for future research. A developing body of evidence supports a role for prebiotics in reducing the risk and severity of GI infection and inflammation, including diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease, and ulcerative colitis as well as bowel function disorders, including irritable bowel syndrome. Prebiotics also increase the bioavailability and uptake of minerals and data suggest that they reduce the risk of obesity by promoting satiety and weight loss. Additional research is needed to define the relationship between the consumption of different prebiotics and improvement of human health. New information derived from the characterization of the composition and function of different prebiotics as well as the interactions among and between gut microbiota and the human host would improve our understanding of the effects of prebiotics on health and disease and could assist in surmounting regulatory issues related to prebiotic use.

Can REDD+ reconcile local priorities and needs with global mitigation benefits? lessons from Angai Forest, Tanzania

The scope of the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) mechanism has broadened REDD+ to accommodate different country interests such as natural forests, protected areas, as well as forests under community-based management. In Tanzania the REDD+ mechanism is still under development and pilot projects are at an early stage. In this paper, we seek to understand how local priorities and needs could be met in REDD+ implementation and how these expectations match with global mitigation benefits. We examine the local priorities and needs in the use of land and forest resources in the Angai Villages Land Forest Reserve (AVLFR) in the Liwale District of Lindi Region in Tanzania. Primary data was collected in two villages, Mihumo and Lilombe, using semistructured key informant interviews and participatory rural appraisal methods. In addition, the key informant interviews were conducted with other village, district, and national level actors, as well as international donors. Findings show that in the two communities REDD+ is seen as something new and is generating new expectations among communities. However, the Angai villagers highlight three key priorities that have yet to be integrated into the design of REDD+: water scarcity, rural development, and food security. At the local level improved forest governance and sustainable management of forest resources have been identified as one way to achieve livelihood diversification. Although the national goals of REDD+ include poverty reduction, these goals are not necessarily conducive to the goals of these communities. There exist both structural and cultural limits to the ability of the Angai villages to implement these goals and to improve forestry governance. Given the vulnerability to current and future climate variability and change it will be important to consider how the AVLFR will be managed and for whose benefit?

Effluent quality and ammonia emissions from out-wintering pads in England, Wales and Ireland

Out-wintering pads offer a reduced cost system for wintering cattle, minimising damage to pasture, providing animal welfare and production benefits, and generate, potentially, a more manageable effluent and lower ammonia emissions. The objectives of the present study were (i) to contribute to improved understanding of the factors impacting on effluent quality, ammonia emissions and animal welfare via observations on four farm-based out-wintering pads (ComOWPs) in England, Wales and Ireland and more detailed studies undertaken on four experimental OWPs (ExpOWPs) constructed at Rothamsted Research North Wyke, Devon, England and (ii) to corroborate the effluent quality data from both the ComOWPs and the ExpOWPs, with findings in the literature. Woodchip size, feeding management and area allowance were the treatment factors applied on the ExpOWPs. These three factors were randomised across the four ExpOWPs, over four 6–7 week periods. Effluent quality from the ExpOWPs was sampled frequently in a flow proportional way and analysed for total N (TN); total P (TP); total solids (TS); ammonium-N (NH4+-N); nitrate-N (NO3−-N). Beef cattle were periodically weighed for determination of live weight gain (LWG). An approximate nitrogen balance was calculated as a means of understanding its partitioning and fate during and after the ExpOWPs use. Effluent quality from the ComOWPs was sampled frequently, also in a flow-proportional way, and analysed for TN, TP, TS, NH4+-N, NO3−-N, total K and COD. Effluent quality data from the ExpOWPs showed no significant differences (P > 0.05) between treatments, with average concentrations of 1095 mg l−1, and 806 mg l−1, for TN and NH4+-N, respectively. Average effluent concentrations from the ComOWPs were 356 mg l−1 TN and 124 mg l−1 NH4+-N. Ammonia emissions from the ExpOWPs showed no significant differences (P > 0.05) between the treatments, with average mean emission rates of 2.5 g m−2 d−1 NH3-N, respectively. A positive correlation was established between NH3-N emission rate and wind speed. Emission rates from the ComOWPs ranged from 0.7 to 1.6 g m−2 d−1 NH3-N. Average daily LWG on the ExpOWPs was 1.33 kg steer−1 d−1. The effluent from both the ComOWPs and ExpOWPs were more similar with dirty water and of consistently lower strength than beef cattle slurry, as supported by findings in the literature, and therefore, it is suggested to be subject to the regulatory requirements of dirty water rather than slurry.

Can company-fund manager meetings convey informational benefits? Exploring the rationalisation of equity investment decision making by UK fund managers

Conventional economic theory, applied to information released by listed companies, equates ‘useful’ with ‘price-sensitive’. Stock exchange rules accordingly prohibit the selec- tive, private communication of price-sensitive information. Yet, even in the absence of such communication, UK equity fund managers routinely meet privately with the senior execu- tives of the companies in which they invest. Moreover, they consider these brief, formal and formulaic meetings to be their most important sources of investment information. In this paper we ask how that can be. Drawing on interview and observation data with fund managers and CFOs, we find evidence for three, non-mutually exclusive explanations: that the characterisation of information in conventional economic theory is too restricted, that fund managers fail to act with the rationality that conventional economic theory assumes, and/or that the primary value of the meetings for fund managers is not related to their investment decision making but to the claims of superior knowledge made to clients in marketing their active fund management expertise. Our findings suggest a disconnect between economic theory and economic policy based on that theory, as well as a corre- sponding limitation in research studies that test information-usefulness by assuming it to be synonymous with price-sensitivity. We draw implications for further research into the role of tacit knowledge in equity investment decision-making, and also into the effects of the principal–agent relationship between fund managers and their clients.

The benefits of a compute cluster approach to high spatial resolution biodiversity richness modelling: projecting the impact of climate change on Mediterranean flora

High spatial resolution environmental data gives us a better understanding of the environmental factors affecting plant distributions at fine spatial scales. However, large environmental datasets dramatically increase compute times and output species model size stimulating the need for an alternative computing solution. Cluster computing offers such a solution, by allowing both multiple plant species Environmental Niche Models (ENMs) and individual tiles of high spatial resolution models to be computed concurrently on the same compute cluster. We apply our methodology to a case study of 4,209 species of Mediterranean flora (around 17% of species believed present in the biome). We demonstrate a 16 times speed-up of ENM computation time when 16 CPUs were used on the compute cluster. Our custom Java ‘Merge’ and ‘Downsize’ programs reduce ENM output files sizes by 94%. The median 0.98 test AUC score of species ENMs is aided by various species occurrence data filtering techniques. Finally, by calculating the percentage change of individual grid cell values, we map the projected percentages of plant species vulnerable to climate change in the Mediterranean region between 1950–2000 and 2020.

Estimating regional benefits of reducing targeted pollutants: An application to agricultural effects on water quality and the value of recreational fishing

The general focus of this paper is the regional estimation of marginal benefits of targeted water pollution abatement to instream uses. Benefit estimates are derived from actual consumer choices of recreational fishing activities and the implied expenditures for various levels of water quality. The methodology is applied to measuring the benefits accruing to recreational anglers in Indiana from the abatement of pollutants that are by-products of agricultural crop production.

Measuring research benefits in an imperfect market: second comment

This note generalizes a finding about the necessary and sufficient conditions for research to generate greater benefits in the presence of distortions and highlights a significant source of bias in conventional cost-benefit calculations

Lessons from the private finance initiative in the UK: benefits, problems and critical success factors

Purpose – This paper summarises the main research findings from a detailed, qualitative set of structured interviews and case studies of private finance initiative (PFI) schemes in the UK, which involve the construction of built facilities. The research, which was funded by the Foundation for the Built Environment, examines the emergence of PFI in the UK. Benefits and problems in the PFI process are investigated. Best practice, the key critical factors for success, and lessons for the future are also analysed. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based around 11 semi-structured interviews conducted with stakeholders in key PFI projects in the UK. Findings – The research demonstrates that value for money and risk transfer are key success criteria. High procurement and transaction costs are a feature of PFI projects, and the large-scale nature of PFI projects frequently acts as barrier to entry. Research limitations/implications – The research is based on a limited number of in-depth case study interviews. The paper also shows that further research is needed to find better ways to measure these concepts empirically. Practical implications – The paper is important in highlighting four main areas of practical improvement in the PFI process: value for money assessment; establishing end-user needs; developing competitive markets and developing appropriate skills in the public sector. Originality/value – The paper examines the drivers, barriers and critical success factors for PFI in the UK for the first time in detail and will be of value to property investors, financiers, and others involved in the PFI process.