Technical Efficiency Analysis of Small Scale Rice Production in Cameroon
Boris Igwacho Mouafor* (Kyoto University)
Abstract
Rice production in Cameroon is characterized by small scale farming system facing problems of technical efficiency due to the use of sub-optimal input combinations, climatic conditions and also variation in socio-economic characteristics. Cameroon which is rice import dependent solely depends on rice supply from the international market to cover up for its domestic demands. This study utilizes a stochastic frontier approach to estimate the technical efficiency and its determinants amongst small scale rice producers in Cameroon. The Cobb-Douglas production function fits a combined 2007 and 2008 pooled data of small scale rice producers drawn from the rice-growing basins of Cameroon. The separation of the labor input variable shows the effect of bird chasing labor to rice production in Cameroon with farmers’ spending about 40% of their total labor hours in bird chasing. From our sample, the small-scale rice producers showed an estimated 78 percent technical efficiency score thus suggesting there is still great room for improving farmers’ efficiency through the optimal use of currently available resources. Our study emphasizes that land expansion and improving the availability of seed will increase farmers output. Besides farmer’s gender, irrigation and lowland farming system, are factors which significantly impact the technical efficiency of farmers’ rice production.
Tatsuya Ogura* (University of
Tokyo)
Joseph A. Awuni (University for Development Studies)
Takeshi Sakurai (University of
Tokyo)
Abstract
Yield of
staple crops in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been increased, which is
contributing to increased quantity of domestic supply. However, in the case of
rice, quality improvement is also required to meet the demand of urban
consumers. Despite its importance, it has not yet been well understood how it
can be achieved.
In 2014, a large-scale rice milling plant
was established in Northern region of Ghana, and it has introduced a new pricing
scheme for paddy, in which the milling company determines purchasing price of
paddy depending on 8 quality parameters. Since the milling plant is the first,
modern large-scale facility in Northern region and still the only one even in
2018, the introduction of the new pricing scheme can be seen as a natural
experiment on the impact of paddy-quality grading system. Our hypotheses are
that such a pricing scheme has an externality creating price and quality
relationship even outside the milling company and that the established
price-quality relationship gives rice farmers an incentive to improve the
quality of their paddy. This kind of externality will explain how staple crop
market in SSA will be modernized.
To test the hypotheses,
this study examines the indirect effect of paddy-quality grading system on rice
farmers. In so doing, we utilize unique rice marketing as well as plot-level
rice input and output data collected from randomly selected 1080 rice farmers in
108 villages located around the rice milling plant, which are combined with
geographical location data of the rice milling plant and the 108 sample
villages.
Regression analyses show that farmers live in
places near the rice milling plant are more likely to be concerned with paddy
quality and sell the paddy at higher price. In addition, they are more likely to
adopt market oriented aromatic rice varieties, to apply more chemical and labor
input per hectare for rice production, and to conduct rice seed selection before
sowing, all of which are considered to lead to the improvement of quality of
harvest. Taken together, these results suggest that the establishment of a crop
quality grading system will be a key driver for quality improvement of staple
crops in SSA.
Does Our President Make Me Attractive?: Evidence from the Marriage Market, Zambia
Ken Miura* (Brown University)
Abstract
This paper investigates how changes in the president's ethnicity affect individuals' marriage decisions in Zambia where perceptions about ethnic favoritism and regionalism are prevalent. Using the 2010 population census, estimation results show that when a coethnic president is in office, the hazard into marriage increases for marriage market participants originally from their historical homeland. This effect is explained by the increase in ethnic homogamy among them. On the other hand, the president's coethnics who were born outside homeland are more likely to select individuals from the different ethnic groups as partner (i.e., inter-ethnic marriage), while the net effect on the likelihood of marriage is negative. To further understand the marriage premium, this paper also uses the Choo and Siow (2006)-type marriage market model to provide nonparametric estimates of total marital surplus and inter-spousal transfers for each marriage pattern. Preliminary results find that having a coethnic as president is rewarded through the adjustments in transfers, which is consistent with the idea that marital transfers work as "price" that makes markets clear.
Formal Education and Disaster Response of Children: Evidence from Coastal Villages in Indonesia
Masahiro Shoji* (Seijo
University)
Yoko Takafuji (Rikkyo University)
Tetsuya Harada (Japan
International Cooperation Agency)
Abstract
Although children are exposed to a high mortality risk during disasters, it is largely unexplored what determines their evacuation behavior particularly during earthquakes. The goal of this study is to examine the effect of formal education on their response to earthquake. Using a unique survey collected from elementary school students in the coastal villages of Indonesia, we show that the students with positive attitude to learning science classes are more likely to take appropriate response than the other students. We also find that they have higher risk perception, perceived coping ability, and disaster preparedness. These are consistent with the protection motivation theory. These findings suggest the role of school, community, and family in reducing the mortality risk of children.
農村電化が個人の時間配分に与える短期的な影響―カンボジアの時間使用データを用いた実証分析―
那須田晃子* （大東文化大学）
要 旨
カンボジア農村の電化が，個人の時間使用，特に農業労働，雇用労働，家事労働の時間配分にどのような影響を与えたのかを分析する．電化地域では，未電化地域と比較して男性の雇用労働時間が長く，家事労働時間，特に「薪集めの時間」が短縮されていた．短期的には，薪を使った伝統的な調理法から近代的な調理法への移行や，家事労働を短縮させる家電製品の導入は観察されていない．しかしながら，電化地域と未電化地域では「薪の入手方法」異なり，電化地域では家計が収集した薪の消費量が少なく，購入した薪の消費量が多いことが消費データから明らかになった．また女性の家事労働時間は短縮されておらず，農業労働時間が長かった．
Towa Tachibana* (Chiba University)
Abstract
In low-income countries, deterioration of local natural resources such as forests for firewood, inshore fishery for home and local consumption has been the most urgent environment issue. Various measures have been taken to stem excessive harvesting of local natural resources. A popular measure was/is community management. Little attention has been paid, however, to the seemingly most powerful lifesaver for the local natural resources: the market economy. Out-migration from the marginally productive rural areas would attain both the conservation of natural resources and improvements in human welfare. With the 102 randomly-sampled natural forests in the Middle Hills of Nepal, we compare the impacts of community management and those of out-migration on forest conditions. Forest condition was evaluated by forest inventory conducted in 1997-1999 and 2014-2016.
Masaki Oda* (Kyoto University)
Abstract
In Japan, farming conditions such as land condition, off-farm opportunity, distribution of large-scale farmer among others are varied from region to region. Although each region has different condition, government currently administers new subsidy system and tries to induce village-based farming organization to every region intensely without considering regional differences. This research aims to reveal the regional characteristic differences and to assess the effect of farmland consolidation policy currently administered, using panel data from the three census years, 2005, 2010 and 2015 in three regions of Japan, namely Tohoku, Hokuriku, and Kinki. From the results of panel regression and factor share of significant variables, we verified three critical points. First, farmland consolidation factors are affected by regional characteristics. Second, although farming organizations have positive impact on farmland consolidation, regions where number of farming organization are few accept bigger impact of farmland consolidation from establishment of farming organization. Third, reducing small scale farmers give negative impact on farmland consolidation in some regions. From these results, this research gives two policy implications. First, regional characteristics should be considered to make good farmland policy. Second government needs to facilitate establishment of farming organization with relaxed conditions for the region where farming organizations are currently introduced.
FDI and Labor Market Dynamics in a Developing Country: Evidence from Indonesian Plant-Level Data
Toshiyuki Matsuura (Keio
University)
Hisamitsu Saito* (Hokkaido University)
Abstract
This study examines the impact of inward FDI on wages and employment of skilled and unskilled workers in Indonesian manufacturing plants. Entry of MNEs affects local labor market through spillovers and labor and product market competition. Our results show that spillovers increase labor demand of local plants for unskilled workers, but severe labor market competition reduces that for skilled ones. We also find that product market competition causes resource reallocation from low- to high-productivity plants. Thus, attracting inward FDI is effective to enhance aggregate productivity growth, but it may retard the transition to skill-intensive production in Indonesian manufacturing.
川崎賢太郎* （農林水産政策研究所）
要 旨
温暖化への適応は，将来の食料生産を考える上で重要な研究課題であり，これまで多くの研究が行われてきた．しかし先行研究では一つの作物に着目して品種や作期の変更の効果を分析するものが多く，複数の作物を考慮して経営全体に着目するものは少ない．本稿ではコメと小麦という二つの作物を対象として，二毛作の適地が温暖化によってどれほど拡大するかについて分析を行う．
二毛作とは年に二回，農産物の収穫を行うことである．温暖な気候の下では作物の生育が速まるため，作期が短縮され，二毛作の実施が可能になる．実際，中国南部やインド等では二毛作が広く普及している．我が国においても，北日本では二毛作の実施は困難だが，温暖な九州地方では，小麦の作期が短縮され，またコメの作付時期が遅くなることで，二毛作が実施可能となっている．2010年のセンサスによると，九州では水田の約1/4で二毛作が実施されている．こうした事実は，温暖化が進めば二毛作が実施可能な地域が拡大する可能性を示唆している．本研究では農産物の量と質を考慮して将来における最適な作期を導出し，その下で二期作が可能か否か考察を行う．
具体的にはまず過去の気象データを用いて，気象条件が単収と等級に与える影響をモデル化する．等級はシェアによって計測され，かつ各等級の間には明確な序列関係があるため，そうした特徴を表現できるOrdered
Fractionalモデルを用いる．また気象の影響は作物の生育ステージ別に推計し，Step function, Polynomial function,
Piecewise linear
functionを用いることで非線形性な影響をモデル化する．また気温と作期の長さの関係についても作物学分野で標準的なベータ関数によって特定する．こうして特定された気象条件と単収，品質，作期の関係を，将来の気候予測値にあてはめることで，将来の最適な作期，つまり収益を最大化する作期を特定する．そしてコメと小麦の作期が重複しているか否かを見ることによって，二毛作が実施可能かどうかを判定する．
Welfare Effect of the Competition and Bargaining Power: The Case of Japanese Milk Transactions
Kohei Hayashida* (University of Tokyo)
Abstract
A common global phenomenon is the concern for the buying power of retailers in a modern grocery supply chain. Although policymakers’ interest is arising on the regulation for the bargaining power of retailers, the impact of such policy on social welfare is theoretically ambiguous. This study empirically investigates the welfare effect of the bargaining power and the horizontal level competition in Japanese grocery supply chain. Using consumers’ scanner panel data for milk purchasing, I first estimate the demand substitution pattern and then identify the bargaining parameters. The estimates show that downstream retailers tend to exert full bargaining power over upstream processors while retailers pass-through the benefit of low input prices through cheaper retail prices. The simulation results indicate that social welfare do not improve if the bargaining power of retailers is reduced under the current product competition since the disadvantages for consumer surplus dominates the advantages for upstream firms almost most of the markets. The details for the welfare change is discussed, and I conclude that the policy to regulate the bargaining power is worthy in some products or retail chains, but not in general.