Technical Efficiency of Mung Bean Producers: The Case of Myanmar

Agriculture plays a key role in Myanmar and it is the backbone of the country’s economy. Among the major export-earning crops in Myanmar, mung bean is one of the important, and it creates many opportunities for smallholders. About 90% of the total production of mung bean is exported for overseas or border trade and has extended markets, especially China, Vietnam and EU countries. This study aims to measure the level of technical efficiency of green mung bean producers and determine the factors influencing the technical efficiency of mung bean production in Tatkon Township, Myanmar. Data from 144 farms were analyzed using a DEA model and Tobit regression. The empirical results reveal that about 46% of farmers had an efficiency score of more than 0.90, which indicates that 54% of farmers were relatively inefficient in their production. The results also show that socioeconomics factors, such as age of farmers, farmers participating in associations and soil fertility, had a significantly positive impact on technical efficiency. Gender, education, access to credit and extension services had a positive impact on the technical efficiency of mung bean production in the study area. To reduce inefficiency, the government should consider providing more services to male farmers and older farmers to improve their capacities, as well as providing an extension of services, new technologies, credit and improved variety for mung bean production.

Spices Production in Ethiopia: A Review

These papers describe the status, challenges and opportunities of spices production in Ethiopia. It has the highest potential to produce a lot of spice crops. The country mainly produces; Korarima, chillies, turmeric, ginger, black pepper, cumin, fenugreek, coriander and so forth. In spite of the fact that the country has great potential for various spices production, the subsector of spices had remained and neglected and subsequently the level of production and share of spice crops of the total export earning of the country is at considerably low level. Hence, it is essential to describe the status, challenges and opportunities of spices sector in Ethiopia, for best uses of the potential and used spice crop resources. Among the various spices crops, chilli/hot pepper is the most commonly produced spices in Ethiopia. Similarly, the Ethiopian spice productions have showed a declining trend from 2013 onwards. This is mainly due to the disease that considerably affects ginger production and the rapid increasing domestic demand of spices. Therefore, intervention and provide awareness for spices growers on using improved production and processing technology, training across all production and productivity, formulating strong marketing regulations and proclamation is of paramount importance to increase the production, profits and productivity.

The Willingness to Pay for Improving Drinking water supply in Tamil Nadu: A Case study of tannery water pollution in Vellore District

Tannery pollution and the resulting health impacts are a worldwide problem. Due to the cheap labour availability and tax pollution regulation leather tanning has become a popular export earning industry in countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Given its huge potential for export earnings and local economic livelihood especially for poor households, its adverse health impacts seem to have been ignored. Also thus far there has been no systematic economic valuation study in India. This also attempts to estimate the health cost of this industry to people including those very households that have made leather tanning their livelihood. Therefore the present research study aims to examine economic valuation of human health impact of the pollution from the tannery industry in Vellore district, using the Willingness to Pay method. Vellore district in Tamil Nadu state of India is purposively selected because of its larger number of tanneries.

Challenges To Sustainable Supply Chain Management And Their Interrelation In The Apparel Sector Of Bangladesh: A Dematel Approach

The apparel industry is the prime driving force of the Bangladesh economy, contributing 83% to the total export earning with 27.94 billion USD in 2019-2020. The apparel industry has to deal with an intricate supply chain globally. While many apparel-exporting countries adopt sustainable supply chains, Bangladesh is still under the traditional supply chain umbrella. Sustainable supply chain in the apparel sector of Bangladesh is in the nascent stage yet. This study explores the challenges to the sustainable supply chain and their interrelation in the apparel sector of Bangladesh. This study incorporates thirty barriers in five categories (environmental, economic, societal, knowledge & technology, and Management & Stakeholders). This study is quantitative in nature, and data collection was completed two-fold. Two questionnaires were designed to garner a response. The first questionnaire was used to collect responses from experts (academic, buying-house, and industry people)to determine the most prominent barriers and shortened number of obstacles from thirty to eighteen. The second questionnaire was designed to collect responses from hundred respondents as input in the comparison matrix of DEMATEL. Finally, DEMATEL based method was applied to investigate the interrelation among the barriers. From the result of the study, according to prominence value, lack of stakeholder involvement, high costs of sustainability adoption, insignificant financial gains, lack of supply chain integration are the prime barriers to SSCM. Moreover, this study unravels the cause-effect relationship among the barriers, ten barriers fall in the cause group, and eight barriers fall in the effect group, and finally, proposed corrective action to address the cause barriers.

Culture Performance and Economic Return of Brown Shrimp (Metapenaeus Monoceros) at Different Stocking Densities Reared in Brackishwater Pond

Shrimp recognized as the white gold of Bangladesh because it is the second largest export earning product after garments sector. The brown shrimp (M. monoceros) have high growth rates together with that they tolerate wide ranges of salinity and environmental parameters which makes them highly attractive for culture purposes. The purposes of this research were to assess the culture performance and economic profitability of brown shrimp (Metapenaeus monoceros) in brackish water ponds. This research lasted from February to June 2020 under three different stocking densities such as 35, 45 and 55 individuals/m2 in treatments T1, T2 and T3 at Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute, Brackishwater Station, Paikgacha, Khulna. After 90 days culture periods the total production was 1703.32±144.48, 2768.25±167.63 and 2535.03±253.52 kg/ha in T1, T2 and T3 respectively which was significantly higher (p<0.05) in T2 compared to T1 and T2. Benefit cost ratio (BCR) was 0.32, 0.87 and 0.52 in T1, T2 and T3 respectively and found significantly higher (p<0.05) in T2 than T1and T3. Both culture performance and economic analysis implies that brown shrimp (M. monoceros) with a stocking density of 450000 individuals/ha might be environment conciliatory and economically enduring in coastal areas of Bangladesh.

Future Tradeoff under Fourth Industrial Revolution in Bangladesh: A Study on RMG Sector

Bangladesh's government has taken the 7th Five Year plan to implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by promoting favorable trade policies along with industrialization, digitization, and inclusive development. Hence, well-running trade is considered as the promising indicator to achieve SDGs which is growing exponentially in our country. Here, the Readymade Garment (RMG) is the most influential trading sector to contribute enormously in the export-earning. In recent times, the sector is facing massive changes due to the automation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR). To sustain in this digital competitive trade market, has become a major challenge for the small RMG industries. A huge number of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in our country have already been shut down due to automation. The large factories are also changing their manufacturing system by installing automation to cope with the demand for global competition. These are creating an unstable condition for RMG trade. The government needs to take a strategic and integrated plan immediately to gain the competitive advantage of FIR. Otherwise, Bangladesh will lose the international market for the RMGs of the country.

Trade Facilitation and Non-Energy Exports of Trinidad and Tobago

The economy of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) has traditionally depended on its energy sector as a key driver of economic activity. This sector, however, has been shown to be volatile and vulnerable to global economic shocks; this is no more evident than what has been observed during the coronavirus pandemic. Oil prices have, as a result declined significantly, and this has put the economy on a path of compounded economic misfortune. The non-energy trade sector though has traditionally been identified as having more stable export earning potential and as such in adjusting to the economic nuances of the global shock associated with the coronavirus pandemic, there is an opportunity for policy makers to reconsider the role of the non-energy sector. This paper provides an overview of trade facilitation policy considerations to boost the outcomes of the non-energy sector. We find that factors such as language, port infrastructure liner connectivity and customs impact on export performance.

Development of Adsorbent from Sugarcane Bagasse for the Removal of Pollutants from Chrome Tanning Effl uents

The leather sector is the second-largest export earning sector in Bangladesh which contributes to huge employment generation and economic development. However, the current situation of this sector is not good enough for its lack of cleaner technologies and waste management systems. Tanneries are using an ample amount of harmful chemicals that may impose a huge negative impact on human health and the environment. Therefore, it is an emerging requirement for the removal of pollutants from effluents before discharging them to the environment. For this, the development of an adsorbent from agricultural waste is significant for removing pollutants from the tanning effluent and greening the environment. In this study, a low-cost adsorbent is developed and used to remove pollutants from the chrome tanning effluent. The developed adsorbent is prepared from sugarcane bagasse and activated by using NaOH. The study was performed at pH 4, with an adsorption time of 1 hour, and the adsorbent doses of 2.5 g/L. The findings revealed that a considerable amount of pollution was mitigated with the reduction in BOD (42.17%), COD (75.00%), Cr2O3 (41.91%), TSS (81.85%), and TDS (84.24%).

Determinants of Ethiopia’s Coffee Bilateral Trade Flows: A panel Gravity Approach

Ethiopia’s export earning is heavily dependent on primary agricultural commodities and raw materials. Coffee has been the principal export commodity of Ethiopia for many years and continued to be the leading export commodity. The objective of this paper was, therefore, to identify the determinants of Ethiopia’s coffee export to the major trading partners. Eighteen countries were selected based on the importance of the country as Ethiopia’s coffee export destination and availability of the required data. Annual panel data from 2001 to 2016 was collected from FAO database and other relevant sources. After appropriate econometric tests had been applied, random effect model was selected and used to analyze the data. From the seven variables entered into the model, four variables were found to affect Ethiopia’s coffee export significantly. GDP of the importing countries and population size of Ethiopia affect Ethiopia’s coffee export positively as expected. Weighted distance between Ethiopia and its trading partners was also found to have an expected effect, negative, on Ethiopia’s coffee export. Contrary to the hypothesis, foreign direct investment flows to Ethiopia affected Ethiopia’s coffee export negatively. Based on the results, the study draws conclusion and policy implications. To increase Ethiopia’s coffee export, government and other stakeholders should give prime attention to countries where there is high demand for Ethiopia’s coffee. Moreover, coffee exporters should exploit the existing nearest market opportunities. Finally, favourable conditions should be created for the large unemployed labor of the country to increase coffee production and export.

Exchange Rate Fluctuations and Sectoral Performance of the Nigerian Economy (1980- 2016)

The structure of Nigerian economy has changed considerably over the years. The economy is classified into five interrelated sectors; the agriculture, Industry, construction, trade and services (CBN 2016). Some of these sectors have contributed to the national output and government revenue at different point in time. Different exchange rate regimes implemented in the country have had varying degrees of impact on the performance of the economic sectors. Depending on the foreign exchange component of inputs into the various sectors and the export earning potential of each sector, sectoral performance has shown high level of sensitivity to exchange rate fluctuations. Fluctuations in exchange rate affect the cost of production in the various sectors of the economy. It is, therefore, not surprising that exchange rate is among the most watched, analysed and government manipulated macroeconomic indicator as it plays a vital role in a country’s level of trade, which is critical for every free market economy in the world. This paper is a review of the performance of the Nigerian economy in the light of the volatility of exchange rates in Nigeria.