scholarly journals Size efficiency of sugarcane farms in KwaZulu-Natal

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mbowa ◽  
W. L. Nieuwoudt ◽  
P. M. Despins
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Returns To Scale ◽  
North Coast ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The North ◽  
Economies Of Size ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Research Procedure ◽  
Small Scale Farmers ◽  
Constant Returns To Scale

The analysis is based on survey data collected from small and large sugarcane farms during 1995 in the North Coast region of KwaZulu-Natal. A non-parametric research procedure to analyse farm efficiency was employed. Results indicate that farms smaller than eight hectares exhibit substantial economies of size; such economies tend to decline with size of enterprise; and farms larger than 10 hectares appear to have near constant returns to scale. This implies that efficiency of very small scale sugarcane farms can be enhanced by land consolidation while giving small scale farmers larger than 10 hectares access to the large scale commercial sector, may not lead to a loss in efficiency. Results are relevant as South Africa is embarking on settling small scale farmers on former large scale commercial farm land.

scholarly journals DEA Performance Measurements in Cotton Production of Harran Plain, Turkey: A Single and Double Bootstrap Truncated Regression Approaches

Agriculture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 108
Author(s):  
Tamer Işgın ◽  
Remziye Özel ◽  
Abdulbaki Bilgiç ◽  
Wojciech J. Florkowski ◽  
Mehmet Reşit Sevinç
Keyword(s):  
Technical Efficiency ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Returns To Scale ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Bootstrap Analysis ◽  
Harran Plain ◽  
Bootstrap Technique ◽  
Double Bootstrap ◽  
Cotton Farmers ◽  
Constant Returns To Scale

A single and a double bootstrap of data envelopment analysis examines Harran Plain cotton farming in Turkey. The single bootstrap technique was employed to derive the bias-corrected efficiency values under both constant returns to scale (CRS) and versus variable returns to scale (VRS) technologies while discriminating between the two technologies using a smoothed bootstrap test statistic. Results indicated that the farms operated under VRS technology. Given that VRS technology prevailed across Harran Plain cotton farmers sampled, we then determined factors affecting the bias-corrected technical efficiencies using the double bootstrap technique. Another important finding in the single bootstrap analysis is that cotton farmers in the region have a U-shaped technical efficiency based on the input and output scale. Thus, small-scale farmers tend to use their resources more efficiently in cotton farming than that of both medium- and large-scale farmers. Interestingly, the medium-scale farmers with resource inefficiency are at the forefront of the other two types of farmers (i.e., small-scale and large-scale) on the Harran Plain in Turkey. The results also showed that most of the farm and farmer specific as well as economic factors play a significant role in explaining the technical efficiency values.

scholarly journals Large-scale agricultural investments in Eastern Africa: consequences for small-scale farmers and the environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 342-357
Author(s):  
Julie Gwendolin Zaehringer ◽  
Peter Messerli ◽  
Markus Giger ◽  
Boniface Kiteme ◽  
Ali Atumane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Small Scale Farmers ◽  
Agricultural Investments

scholarly journals Farm Size, Risk Aversion and Overuse of Fertilizer: The Heterogeneity of Large-Scale and Small-Scale Wheat Farmers in Northern China

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Haixia Wu ◽  
Hantao Hao ◽  
Hongzhen Lei ◽  
Yan Ge ◽  
Hengtong Shi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Aversion ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Fertilizer Application ◽  
Chemical Fertilizer ◽  
Farm Size ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Fertilizer Use ◽  
Deviation Degree ◽  
Small Scale Farmers

The excessive use of fertilizer has resulted in serious environmental degradation and a high health cost in China. Understanding the reasons for the overuse of fertilizer is critical to the sustainable development of Chinese agriculture, and large-scale operation is considered as one of the measures to deal with the excessive fertilizer use. Under the premise of fully considering the resource endowment and heterogeneity of large-scale farmers and small-scale farmers in production and management, different production decision-making frameworks were constructed. Based on the 300 large-scale farmers and 480 small-scale farmers in eight provinces of northern China wheat region, we analyzed the optimal fertilizer use amount and its deviation as well as the influencing factors of small-scale and large-scale farmers, then further clarified whether the development of scale management could solve the problem of excessive fertilizer use. The empirical results show that: (1) both small-scale farmers and large-scale farmers deviated from the optimal fertilizer application amount, where the deviation degree of optimal fertilizer application of small-scale farmers is significantly higher than that of large-scale farmers, with a deviation degree of 35.43% and 23.69% for small and large scale farmers, respectively; (2) not all wheat growers in North China had the problem of excessive use of chemical fertilizer, as the optimal level of chemical fertilizer application in Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia are 346.5 kgha−1 and 335.25 kgha−1, while the actual fertilizer use amount was 337.2 kgha−1 and 324.6 kgha−1, respectively; and (3) the higher the risk aversion level, farmers tended to apply more fertilizer to ensure grain output. Therefore, increasing farm size should be integrated into actions such as improving technological innovation and providing better information transfer to achieve the goal of zero-increase in Chinese fertilizer use.

scholarly journals Food pedagogy for transformative social change

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea Klinke ◽  
Gertrude Korkor Samar
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Food Studies ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Urban Farming ◽  
Transformative Engagement ◽  
Small Scale Farmers

The contemporary global agrarian regime has altered the patterns of food production, circulation, and consumption. Its efforts towards food security vis-á-vis capitalist modes of mechanized cultivation have produced large-scale climatic and socioeconomic ramifications, including the dispossession of small-scale farmers from their lands and positions in market value-chains. In an effort to improve the dynamics of contemporary agro-food systems, food practitioners and scholars are engaging in critical analyses of land-grabbing, the feminization of agriculture, extractive-led development, and more. However, we argue that there is a gap between Food Studies scholarship and community-based transformative engagement. To support social justice frameworks, our paper calls for an academic paradigm shift wherein learner-centered experiential classrooms bridge academic-public divides and enhance student learning. Through a case-study of urban farming in Calgary, we also explore topics in place-based learning and participatory approaches that acknowledge and integrate Indigenous ways of knowing, doing, being, and connecting. Our paper provides strategies for supporting local food systems through activist scholarship, capacity building of leadership and technical skills in advanced urban farming, and intercultural relationship building. We conclude by evaluating the success of our approach, presenting potential benefits and challenges, and providing recommendations for best practices in food scholarship to support transformative change.

Transformation from Subsistence to Commercial Agriculture in Nigeria

2015 ◽  
pp. 409-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abiodun E. Obayelu
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Land Acquisition ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Commercial Agriculture ◽  
Land Owners ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Large Scale Land ◽  
Small Scale Farmers ◽  
Policies And Programs

Agriculture is in critical state in Nigeria with domestic food production being less than the growing population. The chapter analyzes the ongoing transformation of subsistence agriculture to commercial in Nigeria and the attendant effects of large-scale land acquisition on small-scale farmers. It uses both theoretical and empirical research designs with direct interviews of relevant stakeholders and case studies. It reviews past and present policies and programs aimed at transforming agriculture from subsistence to commercial in Nigeria. The results reveal that large-scale land acquisition and farming is not new in Nigeria. Acquisitions of land by foreigners has always been with the help and consent of government, unlike the case when it involves indigenous investors. Acquisitions have in most cases been characterized by conflicts between the landowners or tillers and investors. To transition successfully from subsistence to commercial agriculture, there is a need for strong collective actions between the depraved land owners, government, and investors.

scholarly journals The Clearing: Heidegger’s Lichtung and The Big Scrub

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Garbutt
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
North Coast ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
South Wales ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Settler Society ◽  
Rural Places ◽  
The Mind ◽  
History Of Migration

Clearings make settlement possible. Whether on a small scale using an axe and other hand implements to make way for a dwelling and a garden, or on a large scale with a chain strung between two D9 bulldozers in preparation for a major agribusiness development, the process of clearing creates spaces for installing something new. This paper uses the idea of (the) clearing, as practice, process, outcome and metaphor, to examine the installation of the locals in a settler society. Using Lismore on the far-north coast of New South Wales, Australia, as a case example, the particular work of clearing that is discussed here is a practice that enables a form of colonisation and settlement that distances itself from its history of migration. This is a history of settler locals who were 'always here', and a colonial form of clearing clears the land and the mind of troubling pasts and of troubling presences. For the locals within a place, then, clearing manages and simplifies a complex set of social and material relations, histories and identities.Using Anthony Appiah's concept the 'space clearing gesture', the paper concludes with a reflection on the space in which the idea of "the clearing" and this paper appears. Do places, in this instance rural places, provide a type of clearing in which certain ideas might appear that may not appear elsewhere? If situatedness matters then the diversity of places where thinking is done is important for our ecology of thought, and in connection with this, perhaps what 'rural cultural studies' does is clear a particular type of space for thinking.

scholarly journals Internal tide energy flux over a ridge measured by a co-located ocean glider and moored ADCP

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Hall ◽  
Barbara Berx ◽  
Gillian Damerell
Keyword(s):  
Energy Flux ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Internal Tide ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Potential Density ◽  
The North ◽  
Model Study ◽  
Continental Shelves ◽  
Alternative Approach

Abstract. Internal tide energy flux is an important diagnostic for the study of energy pathways in the ocean, from large-scale input by the surface tide, to small-scale dissipation by turbulent mixing. Accurate calculation of energy flux requires repeated full-depth measurements of both potential density (ρ) and horizontal current velocity (u) over at least a tidal cycle and over several weeks to resolve the internal spring-neap cycle. Typically, these observations are made using full-depth oceanographic moorings that are vulnerable to being fished-out by commercial trawlers when deployed on continental shelves and slopes. Here we test an alternative approach to minimise these risks, with u measured by a low-frequency ADCP moored near the seabed and ρ measured by an autonomous ocean glider holding station by the ADCP. The method is used to measure the M2 internal tide radiating from the Wyville Thompson Ridge in the North Atlantic. The observed energy flux (4.2 ± 0.2 kW m−1) compares favourably with historic observations and a previous numerical model study. Error in the energy flux calculation due to imperfect co-location of the glider and ADCP is estimated by sub-sampling potential density in an idealised internal tide field along pseudorandomly distributed glider paths. The error is considered acceptable (

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