Over at Economists View, professor Mark Thoma spots an interesting piece about agriculture, from an agriculture conference in Slovenia, no less. In it theres this: One area of research on policy design is the environment. Generally economists love to empathize financial incentives, but Cathy Kling of Iowa State suggested that one way to control the run-off of fertilizers to rivers of Mississippi is regulation that will require certain practices, for example planting a cover crop. She argues that once people are required to grow cover crops in the off-season, it will lead to innovation that will result in improved productivities and extra value. To some extent, this is a form of behavioral ‘correction’ by neo-Classical economists. In another environmental session, Salvatore di Falco from the University of Geneva gave a fascinating talk on agriculture and climate change. He provided evidence that global warming occurs in Africa, mentioning that poor farmers attempt to adapt to it, but it has not been sufficient and the warming contributes to political upheaval. His main message is that we cannot wait and that climate change policy should emphasize both mitigation and adaptation. The plenary session on production economics displayed a big divide in agricultural economics, especially in Europe. Berkeley alumni Bob Chambers from Maryland presented a brilliant technical analysis on how to analyze the cost of uncertainty in production. Professor Ika Darnhofer from Austria had a beautiful presentation on an alternative approach that downplayed quantitative analysis, and emphasized concerns for maintaining resilience and preserving societal coherence by supporting traditional diversified farming systems. Both presentations emphasized the importance of dealing with uncertainty, and Chambers even provided tools to measure it, but Darnhofer presented a central European perspective that is behind the prevailing subsidy programs in Europe. blogs.berkeley.edu/2014/09/09/economics-in-the-land-of-lakes-caves-and-castles/
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 12:55:22 +0000
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