› › Delegation Of Quality Control In Value Chains

Delegation of quality control in value chains

Author : Saak, Alexander E.

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 56 pages

File Size : 27,84 MB

Release : 2016-04-21

Category : Social Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

This paper studies the decision of a firm that sells an experience good to delegate quality control to an independent monitor. In an infinitely repeated game consumers’ trust provides incentives to (1) acquire information about whether the good is defective and (2) withhold the good from sale if it is defective. If third-party reports are observable to consumers, delegation of monitoring lessens the first and dispenses with the second moral hazard concern but also creates agency costs due to either limited liability or lack of commitment. In equilibrium the firm controls quality without an independent monitor only if trades are sufficiently frequent and consumer information about quality is sufficiently precise. This result holds under different assumptions about feasible contracts, collusion, verifiability of reports, joint inspections, and the number of firms that hire the third-party monitor. If third-party reports are not publicly observed, delegation can be optimal only if two or more firms hire the third-party monitor because then both moral hazard concerns are present under delegation.



Understanding compliance in programs promoting conservation agriculture

Author : Ward, Patrick S.

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 28 pages

File Size : 19,89 MB

Release : 2016-05-13

Category : Political Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

Land degradation and soil erosion have emerged as serious challenges to smallholder farmers throughout southern Africa. To combat these challenges, conservation agriculture (CA) is widely promoted as a sustainable package of agricultural practices. Despite the many potential benefits of CA, however, adoption remains low. Yet relatively little is known about the decision-making process in choosing to adopt CA. This article attempts to fill this important knowledge gap by studying CA adoption in southern Malawi. Unlike what is implicitly assumed when these packages of practices are introduced, farmers view adoption as a series of independent decisions rather than a single decision. Yet the adoption decisions are not wholly independent. We find strong evidence of interrelated decisions, particularly among mulching crop residues and practicing zero tillage, suggesting that mulching residues and intercropping or rotating with legumes introduces a multiplier effect on the adoption of zero tillage.



A model of reporting and controlling outbreaks by public health agencies

Author : Saak, Alexander E.

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 48 pages

File Size : 49,81 MB

Release : 2016-05-03

Category : Social Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

When an outbreak of an infectious disease is suspected, a local health agency may notify a state or federal agency and request additional resources to investigate and, if necessary, contain it. However, due to capacity constraints, state and federal health agencies may not be able to grant all such requests, which may give an incentive to local agencies to request help strategically. We study a model of detection and control of an infectious disease by local health agencies in the presence of imperfect information about the likelihood of an outbreak and limited diagnostic capacity. When diagnostic capacity is rationed based on reports of symptoms, the decision to report symptoms or not creates a trade-off. On the one hand, rigorous testing allows one to make an informed disease control decision. On the other hand, it also increases the probability that the disease will spread from an untested area where fewer precautionary measures are taken. Symptoms are overreported (respectively, reported truthfully, or underreported) when the cost of disease control is sufficiently small (respectively, in some intermediate range, or sufficiently large). If the disease incidence decreases or infectiousness increases, symptoms are reported less frequently. If the precision of private signals increases, the extent of overreporting of symptoms may increase. For different values of the parameters it can be socially optimal to subsidize or tax requests for additional investigations and confirmatory testing.



Long-term drivers of food and nutrition security

Author : Laborde Debucquet, David

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 44 pages

File Size : 24,83 MB

Release : 2016-05-18

Category : Political Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

The 2015 Global Hunger Index suggests that despite progress in reducing hunger worldwide, hunger levels in 52 of 117 countries in the 2015 Global Hunger Index remain “serious” or “alarming.” Since achieving and maintaining food and nutrition security (FNS) remains a goal for all countries, it is important to understand the individual, national, and global factors that affect FNS. This paper proposes an analytical framework to identify and analyze the respective roles of key long-term drivers of FNS. We start by identifying what the key variables affecting FNS are at the household and country level, and then we continue by defining what the main exogenous or endogenous drivers affecting these variables are. We discuss the key drivers of both aggregated food supply and demand and therefore their impact on prices. Specifically, for aggregated food demand, we discuss demographic factors, income growth, changes in dietary preferences, aggregated domestic distortions, and overall quality of the food system. With respect to the drivers of aggregated food supply, we discuss land available for food products and the drivers behind land availability, the share of waste/losses generated by the food system, and the normalized average yield. We define yield as the amount of nutrients produced by unit of land. It depends both on the physical yield of the crop or the livestock and on the quality of the food produced. It also can be affected by the changes in production patterns linked to the different dietary patterns of the consumers and by climate change. We emphasize the fact that in many cases, key drivers may have ambiguous effects on the FNS situation of different agents. For instance, more liberal trade policies will affect real income, terms of trade, demand and supply, returns of factors, foreign direct investments, and food prices and thus may lead to the improvement of the global-level FNS, that is, the FNS of the majority of the population. At the same time, more liberal trade policies may bring food insecurity to some households. Therefore, careful quantitative assessment is needed for each policy option. Finally, we propose a typology of variables that will help modelers adapt their models to study the different drivers through both direct and indirect effects.



Linking smallholder farmers to commercial markets

Author : Ebata, Ayako

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 32 pages

File Size : 19,37 MB

Release : 2016-07-01

Category : Political Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

Access to modern commercialization channels is key for smallholder farmers to be able to move away from subsistence farming and overcome poverty. However, achieving that goal is challenging for smallholders given their lack of appropriate managerial practices, production technology and infrastructure. This paper examines the effect of receiving training in two different entrepreneurial practices designed to link farmers to commercial markets: one direct aimed at the individual and farmer-association level and another indirect focused at the community level. We exploit an extensive panel dataset of staple bean farmers in Nicaragua who participated in a program run by a nongovernmental organization between 2007–2012. We find that the two market-linkage training activities had opposite effects on the commercialization of beans, especially on the intensive margin or volume of sales. While receiving direct training on entrepreneurial practices is positively associated with sales in commercial markets, training on municipality engagement (ME) activities is negatively associated. The market-linkage activities mainly affected entrant farmers as opposed to those already participating in commercial markets. We further find varying effects of the ME activities by plot size and leadership position. Additional results show that training activities that appear to work for bean producers do not necessarily work for other crop producers, and vice versa.



Global and regional pulse economies

Author : Joshi, Pramod Kumar

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 149 pages

File Size : 34,11 MB

Release : 2016-07-22

Category : Political Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

The pulse sector is undergoing dynamic changes globally and in several regions and countries to meet the challenge of growing demand in the face of sluggish production growth. Realizing the importance of pulses in the human diet, 2016 has been declared the International Year of Pulses (IYP). This report captures the dynamics of the pulse sector during the last three decades. The examination of pulse supply, demand, uses, trade, prices, and outlook would help researchers and policy makers make more informed decisions related to the sector. Pulse-based food is an important source of dietary protein and essential minerals, particularly for the vegetarian population. At the global level, the average share of pulses is only 5 percent of the total protein consumption but their contribution in several developing countries range between 10 and 40 percent. To meet the growing demand and raise their per capita availability, countries made efforts to increase production and explore trade opportunities to augment domestic supply. Overall between 1980 and 2013, pulses production at the global level grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent but there were, however, two phases of pulses production at the global level. While there was almost a period of stagnation in production of pulses during the1990s, production has sharply increased since 2005. The bulk of the increase in production came from developing countries where both area and yield growth (from a low base) contributed to the production. For developed countries—where production also grew—the center of production shifted from Europe to North America and Oceania. For developing countries, two new centers of production emerged in Eastern Africa and Southeastern Asia (Myanmar).



A farm-level perspective of the policy challenges for export diversification in Malawi

Author : Johnson, Michael E.

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 52 pages

File Size : 21,26 MB

Release : 2016-08-26

Category : Political Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

The primary goal of the study is to investigate the potential to expand oilseeds, specifically soybeans,as an alternative commercialcrop to tobacco among Malawian farmers. A principal motivation for undertaking the study at the microeconomic level is to determine, in a theoretically consistent fashion, the type of policy and economic environment under which farmers begin to shift more of their scarce resources to oilseed production.The study aims to provide recommendations to a growing demand among policy makers and development partners for a greater diversification of exports and crop production systems of the majority smallholder farmers in Malawi. Using representative farm models, the study examinesthe potential for expanding production of soybeans among typical smallholder farming systems in Malawi. The results will help guide future policies and investments targeted at promoting greater crop diversification and incomes, in order to reduce poverty and malnutrition in Malawi. Given the amount of labor and land resources allocated to maize production for food security purposes, we also consider the policy challenges that emerge for crop diversification as a result



The Encyclopedia of Operations Management

Author : Arthur V. Hill

Publisher : FT Press

Page : 406 pages

File Size : 15,90 MB

Release : 2012

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 0132883708

Get eBook

Book Description

This is the perfect field manual for every supply chain or operations management practitioner and student. The field's only single-volume reference, it's uniquely convenient and uniquely affordable. With nearly 1,500 well-organized definitions, it can help students quickly map all areas of operations and supply chain management, and prepare for case discussions, exams, and job interviews. For instructors, it serves as an invaluable desk reference and teaching aid that goes far beyond typical dictionaries. For working managers, it offers a shared language, with insights for improving any process and supporting any training program. It thoroughly covers: accounting, customer service, distribution, e-business, economics, finance, forecasting, human resources, industrial engineering, industrial relations, inventory management, healthcare management, Lean Sigma/Six Sigma, lean thinking, logistics, maintenance engineering, management information systems, marketing/sales, new product development, operations research, organizational behavior/management, personal time management, production planning and control, purchasing, reliability engineering, quality management, service management, simulation, statistics, strategic management, systems engineering, supply and supply chain management, theory of constraints, transportation, and warehousing. Multiple figures, graphs, equations, Excel formulas, VBA scripts, and references support both learning and application. ... this work should be useful as a desk reference for operations management faculty and practitioners, and it would be highly valuable for undergraduates learning the basic concepts and terminology of the field. Reprinted with permission from CHOICE http: //www.cro2.org, copyright by the American Library Association.



The distribution of power and household behavior

Author : Wouterse, Fleur Stephanie

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 28 pages

File Size : 25,34 MB

Release : 2016-08-12

Category : Political Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

Niger is a landlocked Sahelian country, two-thirds of which is in the Sahara desert. Although only one-eighth of the land considered arable, more than 90 percent of Niger’s labor force is employed in agriculture, which is predominantly subsistence oriented. Food security remains a major challenge in rural areas of Niger, and gender is a significant basis for the inequality among household members with respect to access to land. Access to land, which is a measure of the income-earning potential of an individual, is an important determinant of the distribution of bargaining power within the household. Because households may not act in a unitary manner when making decisions, the power of individuals within the household to exert their own preferences may determine welfare outcomes, such as spending on nutritious foods or healthcare. In this paper, we use new data for Niger and regression analyses to assess the importance of the intrahousehold distribution of power for the behavior of rural households. Our results reveal that men are significantly more empowered than women in rural households in Niger and that social protection programs such as water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and food-for-training contribute significantly to the empowerment of women. Our findings also point to the validity of the collective approach to modeling household behavior, as the distribution of power was shown to affect household behavior. In particular, we found that an increase in power in favor of the adult female significantly increases expenditures on healthcare and reduces spending on vices (cigarettes and alcohol).



Boserupian pressure and agricultural mechanization in modern Ghana

Author : Cossar, Frances

Publisher : Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Page : 32 pages

File Size : 18,76 MB

Release : 2016-04-29

Category : Political Science

ISBN :

Get eBook

Book Description

The adoption of machinery in agricultural production in Africa south of the Sahara has been far behind the level of mechanization found in Asia and Latin America. However, recent survey data have revealed high levels of machinery use in localized areas of cereal production in northern Ghana. A survey conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute, in partnership with the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute, found that in some areas more than 80 percent of farmers were using machinery for at least one operation. This paper considers the theoretical drivers of agricultural intensification, as outlined by Boserup, Pingali, and Binswanger, and the extent to which they are able to explain the spatial variation in machinery use found in northern Ghana. Population pressure, market access, and agroecological conditions are considered key drivers that cause farmers to find ways to increase productivity and adopt new technologies. Combining survey data with geospatial datasets, the empirical analysis finds that population growth and travel time to the local urban center explain a significant and large proportion of the variation in machinery use by farmers.