Emerging Technology

This paper presents an ex ante analysis of the private and social profitability of the introduction of Bt cotton for a major cotton producing area of northern Mozambique. Cotton is especially relevant to rural poverty reduction because smallholders often have few alternative cash earning activities, and yields are among the lowest in Africa. Multivariate regression is used to quantify the relationship between pest control and yield loss at farm level as a basis for estimating the expected yield gain from the introduction of Bt cotton. Partial budget analysis of technical packages with and without Bt cotton seed reveals a strong divergence between private (negative) and social (positive) profitability. The Mozambique case indicates that effective bio-safety and legal frameworks may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for Bt cotton technology adoption and poverty reduction. Policy changes to align private and social profitability of cotton production with Bt seed, as well as c...

Mozambique’s cotton sector is very important to the economy and to poverty reduction in the rural sector. Cotton production in Mozambique is characterized by low levels of productivity, low prices and low returns. Cotton farmers in Mozambique are often no better off than their neighbors who do not grow cotton. Not surprisingly, many cotton farmers have switched to other crops such as sesame. But the Government of Mozambique and the National Cotton Institute (INE) are committed to improving the profitability of the cotton sector and encouraging new investments by international companies. Looking at cotton production globally, the most important innovation in recent years has been the introduction of transgenic Bt cotton. Bt cotton varieties have built-in resistance to bollworm, a devastating insect pest. Cotton production in countries that have introduced Bt varieties, like India, China and the United States, has soared. Yet no country in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with the exception ...

This research locates a series of risks or hazards within a framework characterised by the level of control respondents believe they have over the risks, and the level of worry the risks prompt. It does this for a set of both food and non-food risks. The means by which this is done is novel, and differs from past risk perception analyses in that it questions people directly regarding their relative assessments of the levels of control and worry over the risks presented. The cognitive burden associated with people ranking and scaling items in large sets is notoriously heavy, so this study uses an elicitation method designed to make the process intuitive and cognitively manageable for respondents. The substantive analysis of the risk perceptions has four main foci concerning the relative assessment of (i) novel as opposed to more familiar risks (e.g. swine flu vs. heart attack), (ii) food risks as opposed to non-food risks, (iii) perceived levels of control over the risks versus how w...

An IMS Learning Design Expert Workshop was held at the University of Vienna on November 20 & 21, 2008. This report contains a description of the purpose of the workshop, its methodologies and results. Participating experts first brainstormed visions and problems of IMS Learning Design (IMS LD), and then developed potential solutions to some of the identified problems. Three groups formed to work on two of the identified problems in more depth: the usability and utility problem, and the life cycle of a unit of learning problem. The proposed solutions regarding the usability and utility problem were to investigate how teachers' and learners' representations of a learning design can be brought together, and to set up a research program to identify how teachers cognitively proceed when designing courses and to map this knowledge to IMS LD. In regard to the life cycle of a unit of learning problem, the group suggested a system that continually exchanges information between runtim...

This paper uses recently developed panel cointegration techniques and error correction modeling to test the hypothesis of induced innovation in a state-level panel of U.S. agricultural production. These methods provide greatly improved power compared to conventional approaches. A 5-step testing procedure is used to test the induced innovation hypothesis based on a 2-stage CES production function with aggregate output and four input categories. For both pairs of inputs, the test fails to support the hypothesis of induced innovation at one or more of the critical steps.

The report gives information on emerging technologies that are considered to be commercially available (Tier 1), currently undergoing research and development (Tier 2), or considered as potentially applicable (Tier 3), for the management of landfill gas (LFG) emissions or for the utilization of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from LFG. The emerging technologies that are considered to be Tier

Le présent travail évalue d'une part la structure des coûts de transaction des principaux produits commercialisés au Togo (maïs, sorgho, oignon, gari, tomate, poisson, volaille et gros bétail), et d'autre part le niveau de l'intégration du marché de maïs qui est devenu le produit dominant dans le système de production, de consommation et de commercialisation au Togo. L'analyse des coûts de transaction réalisée à partir des données primaires a débouché sur le constat global que les coûts de transport représentent le facteur le plus déterminant dans les coûts de transaction. L'analyse de l'intégration du marché de maïs réalisée au moyen de la technique de co-intégration et du modèle de Ravallion appliqués sur des séries de prix a permis de dresser trois constats: 1) il existe un équilibre de long terme stable entre les marchés de Lomé et les autres marchés; 2)Lomé joue le rôle de marché de référence dans le réseau; 3)un retard dans la transmission des changemen...

A metodologia de avaliação de impactos de programas/projetos/intevenções tecnológicas baseia-se na identificação e posterior mensuração ex-post da importância de transformações de aspectos da realidade resultantes do desenvolvimento, adoção e difusão de um programa de pesquisa, programa tecnológico e/ou inovação tecnológica. A metodologia esta baseada nas diferentes possibilidades de interação das dimensões da avaliação procurando preservar suas características particulares em um mesmo marco metodológico no qual estão envolvidos direta ou indiretamente atores relacionados com o objeto da avaliação e que percebem os impactos de forma heterogênea, a partir das suas situações particulares. A análise utilizou para a avaliação de impacto econômico a mensuração do excedente econômico gerado pela alteração da estrutura de custos de produção da amêndoa de castanha de caju com a adoção do novo perfil tecnológico e a Metodologia Sistema de Avaliação de Impacto da Inovação Tecnológica Agropecu...

Recent trend depicts that tomatoes and tomatoes products rank 2nd most important vegetable crop in the United States after potatoes and potatoes products contributing 20 percent of total vegetable production. More-so, tomato is equally ranked 2nd in the United States in terms of production value, generating $1.3 billion after head lettuce that contributed $1.4 billion in the same time period. In 2006, 422,000 acres of tomatoes were planted in the United States. Tomato is equally an important economic crop in the state of Georgia. In 2008, it ranked 14th in the Georgia vegetable acreage as 3,985 acres were planted. It also ranked 6th in terms of farm gate value in the same time period generating $51.2 million. Thrips-vectored tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is a serious disease capable of causing damages to the plant, fruits, quality and reducing yields drastically. Managing TSWV can be complex. For instance, metalized UV-mulch may significantly reduce TSWV, but delay tomato maturit...

The use of water for agricultural production in water scarcity regions requires innovative and sustainable research, and an appropriate transfer of technologies. This paper discusses some of these aspects, mainly relative to on-farm irrigation management including the use of ...

There is considerable evidence of high returns to public investments in agricultural R&D, but because intellectual property in agriculture is considered a public good, little R&D investment by growers themselves. This study investigates the potential for growers to increase commodity sales through product research, development, patenting and promotion in a dynamic commodity-market model. Theoretical hypotheses derived from the solution to this model are tested in an empirical example from Washington apples. Estimation results show that, despite significant spillovers to research and promotion expenditure, growers can improve the effectiveness of generic commodity promotion by funding R&D programs as well.

The traceability allows, for each product, to sketch the manufacturing process through a system documentary, enabling to identify the operational structures involved, the products and the lots, to define the flows of production, packaging and distribution. There are researches that investigate the traceability within the firm, but little work has been carried out on the investigation of the traceability system over the whole supply chain. The supply-chain of fresh produce is constituted of many links: producer/grower, warehouse, packing centre, distribution centre, retailers and finally the consumer. Each of these is a system itself that interacts with the other components of the supply-chain. The non-conformity could occurs in each of these links. Because of processing plant requirement, storage requirements, and because of savings in the traceability process, often small size lots are merged together to form a large size lot at some points in the supply-chain. Larger lot size coul...

This paper considers the implementation of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) as a methodological framework for the development of new food products. This paper focuses on the beef supply chain and develops a horizontal product's quality deployment as a strategic tool for the implementation of consumer-led product innovation strategies. Difficulties in the prioritisation of parameters and setting of target values for the desired performance level of each parameter would limit the implementation of a complete 'four-phase' model in the sector. Thus, the use of complementary management tools, such as SWOT analysis and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) would be necessary to develop more suitable process designs to the specific requirements of the sector.

Environmental and natural resource economists could be more effectively engaged in great research on exciting issues in environmental and natural resource management. After identifying possible obstacles to improved research, the article focuses on opportunities and obstacles associated with obtaining funding from the National Science Foundation. Opportunities abound, both ongoing and in the future, for interdisciplinary work involving environmental and natural resource economists. Keys to exploiting these opportunities for funding include a willingness to face rejection, build teams, contact program officers with specific questions, write detailed research designs, and prepare proposals that promise to go beyond narrow incremental advances.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the perception and adoption of blogs among public relations practitioners and how blog use relates to roles and status.Design/methodology/approachA national e‐mail survey of 216 US public relations professionals was used.FindingsWhile blog use was similar to national audiences, practitioners were maintaining mostly personal blogs and using blogs professionally at low levels. Furthermore, women lagged behind men in the strategic use of blogs. Finally, cluster analysis challenged Porter and Sallot's roles typology, reverting to the previous manager‐technician dichotomy.Practical implicationsWhile practitioners use blogs at a similar level to that of the general population, they may be missing an opportunity to reach publics directly both through blogging and placing stories in blogs.Originality/valueThe paper provides an early look at an emerging technology that most practitioners agree will have a substantial impact on the industry.

There is no improved seed-fertilizer technology available that can generate the needed growth in agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa to meet food demand by the rapidly increasing population. This paper identifies factors associated with inland valley swamp rice farmers' decisions to adopt "improved" varieties and/or fertilizer. To achieve this objective, input-specific logistic models were estimated using survey-generated data collected from a random sample of 221 rice plots (one per farmer) selected from a purposive sample of 12 Mali-Sud bas-fond villages during the 1995-96 cropping season. The model estimation results show that the farther the village is from the closest market, the lower the probability to adopt the "improved" variety, increasing the size of the rice plot will decrease this probability, and men are more likely to adopt "improved" varieties than women because men have access to credit through CMDT, and more alternative s...

Abstract—Radio Tomographic Imaging (RTI) is an emerging technology that uses received signal strength measurements to image the attenuation of objects within a wireless network area. RTI is by nature an ill-posed inverse problem, therefore, regularization techniques must be utilized to obtain accurate images. This paper discusses some common regularization techniques, including Tikhonov, truncated singular value decomposition, and total variation, and presents the results of applying them to RTI.

In Deutschland genießen die Energie- und Klimapolitik und mit ihr die erneuerbaren Energien bereits seit längerer Zeit eine erhöhte Aufmerksamkeit. Von politischer Seite wurden weitreichende Förderungsmaßnahmen und Anreize zur Investition in erneuerbare Energien geschaffen. Aufgrund der guten produktionstechnischen Voraussetzungen der Landwirtschaft zur Erzeugung von Bioenergie hat dies in den vergangenen Jahren zu einem regelrechten Biogas-Boom auf landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben geführt. Für diese Betriebe bedeutet die Investition in eine Biogasanlage gleichzeitig eine Diversifikation des Tätigkeitsspektrums. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht, welche Faktoren (betriebsstrukturelle Merkmale und Einstellungen der Betriebsleiter) diese Diversifikation und somit die Adoption der Innovation "Biogasanlage" begünstigt haben. Datengrundlage bilden die Ergebnisse einer Befragung von 1.055 Landwirten in Niedersachsen, von denen 97 Betriebe in eine Biogasanlage investiert haben.

This paper reports on findings of a study to examine the sources used by farmers in search of agricultural information on striga and/or stemborers control technologies and factors that influence acquisition of such information in Western Kenya region. A random sample of 476 households in Suba and Vihiga districts were interviewed and 15 information pathways were identified. Using principle component analysis (PCA) to derive few latent variables that encapsulate maximum variance in the pathways, two components (latent variables) proxying for ‘agricultural knowledge’ were extracted. Type I-knowledge (first component) loaded heavily with sources that had ‘group’ information searching. Type II-knowledge (second component) loaded heavily with sources requiring individual farmer search. Both types of knowledge positively and significantly influenced the likelihood of households using improved technology to control stemborer, while only Type-II knowledge and social economic factors were im...