Smallholder planning for Bali cattle fattening in Barru Regency, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

This study aims to analyse enterprise budgeting and the factors that affect the smallholder Bali cattle fattening income in Barru Regency, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The total respondents were 46 farmers include 11 farmers at Bali cattle fattening enterprise six-month period and 35 farmers at fattening enterprise nine-month period. Respondents were selected using a purposive method. The data of the research was collected using interviews with questionnaires. Analysis of economic potential as follows net income and return to labour and management used enterprise budgeting analysis. The factors that affect the income of farmers using multiple linear regression analysis. The results showed that the 6- and 9-month fattening period of the smallholder Bali cattle fattening have net income of IDR 23,122,086 / farmer/period and IDR 11,926,657/farmer/period. In addition, it provides returns to labour and management of IDR 27,428,173/farmer/period and IDR 15,111,982/farmer/period. The number of feeder cattle and non-formal education dummy partially and significantly influence (P<0.01) income smallholders. Smallholder Bali cattle fattening enterprise is a potential business alternative to generate income for rural communities.

Agricultural Returns to Labour and the Origins of Work Ethics

We examine the historical determinants of differences in preferences for work across societies today. Our hypothesis is that a society’s work ethic depends on the role that labour has played in it historically, as an input in agricultural production: societies that have for centuries depended on the cultivation of crops with high marginal returns to labour effort will work longer hours and develop a preference for working hard. We formalise this prediction in the context of a model of endogenous preference formation, with altruistic parents who can invest in reducing their offsprings’ disutility from work. To empirically found our model, we construct an index of potential agricultural labour intensity, that captures the suitability of a location for the cultivation of crops with high estimated marginal returns to labour in their production. We find that this index positively predicts work hours and attitudes towards work in contemporary European regions. We investigate various mechanisms of persistence, including cultural transmission, as well as a society’s production structure and institutions.

Population, Technology, and Economic Growth in the Roman World

Archaeological data that show radically increased levels of consumption are combined with economic theory regarding population, technology, and economic growth. The purpose of this exercise is to understand both the scope and constraints of per-capita income, living standards, and consumption in a context of population growth. Malthusian models on economic and demographic developments in preindustrial societies have been fiercely debated by economic historians working on later periods. The fixity of land and the diminishing returns to labour were indeed constraining factors, but the more important factor was the ability of the economy to respond positively to the stimulus of population growth. The role of technological changes should not be overestimated, though. The most important technological progress in the Roman world does not concern new inventions, but the wider implementation of knowledge that had been available for centuries. Investment in human capital and innovation were no obstacles, as they were responses to rather than causes or preconditions of economic growth. An increase in output in the Roman economy can to a large extent be explained by the transfer of underemployed agricultural labour to more intensively utilized urban and rural non-agricultural labour. Against prevailing Malthusian views, it is argued that a significant rise in per-capita income in the Roman world resulted in higher average living standards and different consumption patterns, which in turn significantly changed the conditions not only of manufacturing and trade, but also of investment and innovation.

Economics of Black gram cultivation and its impact on farmers livelihood in two selected districts of Bangladesh

The present study is an attempt to assess the existing agronomic practices of black gram cultivation, its impact on farmers livelihood and constraints of black gram production and marketing. Primary data from 85 farmers were collected during February to March 2016 through face to face interviews. Descriptive statistics and Garret ranking method were used to analyze the data. The majority of the farmers had sown seeds during the last week of September to first week of October. The average seed rate was found to be 19.36 kg per hectare which indicated that all farm households used below recommended dose of seeds (35-40 kg/ha). The average yield of black gram was found higher than the national average. The average net income was observed to be Tk. 26990 and Tk. 19845 in Sherpur and Jamalpur respectively. The average gross margin was observed to be Tk. 37629 on total variable cost basis. It was also found that average returns to labour was Tk. 1000/man-day in Sherpur and Tk. 692/man-day in Jamalpur district respectively. It was also observed that all kinds of livelihood assets of the selected farmers increased significantly through black gram farming. The results revealed that the main constraints faced by black gram grower were lack of irrigation facility, non availability of HYV seeds, low output price, labour scarcity, lack of knowledge about improved varieties with their production technology, excessive rainfall after flowering and weak research-extension farmers linkage etc. Farmers also faced some marketing related problems such as limited buyers, price instability, lack of storage facilities and high market toll. Farmers cultivated black gram because of higher yield, higher income, and easy growing. SAARC J. Agri., 16(2): 83-96 (2018)

The European extension

Across much of Europe in the late nineteenth century there was a fundamental problem, notably in those zones where industrialisation had had little impact and where the agricultural sector confronted declining returns to labour. Population growth was evidently occurring in a transforming context of agrarian and industrial change, which carried the ultimate causes of mass migration. The absorbent capacity of European cities and towns was the critical factor in the long run. The scale of intra-European migration was extraordinary: Europe’s industrial cities attracted foreigners in vast numbers. The Canadian historian Norman Macdonald declared that the great diasporic European phenomenon was a migration with ‘many roots, chiefly the adverse conditions in the Old World and the appeal of the New’. By the late nineteenth century, emigrants were streaming out of most parts of Europe.

Derived demand for African indigenous vegetable seed: implications for farmer-seed entrepreneurship development

African indigenous vegetables (AIVs) hold potential to address food security and nutrition in Africa. Their production and consumption remain constrained by lack of quality seed. Efforts to promote commercial seed production lack information about the effective demand of AIV seed. This study estimated derived demand for input seed in central Uganda using trans-log production model. Own-price and cross-price elasticities for production inputs were estimated using marginal approach. Seed demand analysis showed that farmers would utilise seed from market sources of approximately 32 tons per year, against current formal supply of 4.4 tons. Estimated price elasticities showed that purchased seed was less sensitive to its own price, implying less significant effect of price change on the quantity of seed demanded over time. Seed production exhibited higher gross margins and returns to labour day compared to vegetable production, suggesting prospects of profitability and sustainability of farmer-seed enterprises as an alternative source of quality seed for farmers.