Ahmadi, V. (2015). Impacts of Common Agricultural Policy 2015 reforms on animal health and welfare of Scottish dairy herds (Vol. 5).
Abstract: The latest Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2015 reforms bring a substantial change in the way farm support is paid in Scotland where previous direct CAP payments were largely based on historical entitlements. Under the new payment scheme, three rates of payment are designated based on land uses and capabilities. As a result, it is anticipated that, average large dairy farms will lose out up to 32% of their farm net margins, while small dairy farms will lose out between 7-20% of their farm net margins. Such reductions of payment support may force dairy farmers to cut costs of production on farms especially livestock variable costs including labour costs and costs of prevention, control, treatment and management of livestock diseases and welfare conditions. This will have direct and indirect consequences on health and welfare of dairy cattle. This study aims to assess the impact of new support payments under CAP 2015 reforms on financial capabilities of dairy herds in tackling three conditions namely: infertility, mastitis and lameness. A detailed inventory of 42 commercial dairy farms in Scotland that contains both physical (i.e. farm area, nutrition and labour supply, etc.) and health data collected in 2013 and was used to parameterise an optimisation model. The model is a linear programme (LP) model which optimises farm net margin under limiting farm resources. The model also consists of feed demand and supply components that are used to determine monthly feed requirements for each of the animals on a farm as well as grass yield for pasture area of the land. The model is run for both ‘healthy’ and ‘diseased’ herds under previous and future CAP support payments. Details of the model and the dataset used as well as some results will be presented at the conference. No Label
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Angelova, D. (2014). The state-contingent approach to production and choice under uncertainty: usefulness as a basis for economic modeling (Vol. 3). FACCE MACSUR Reports, 3.
Abstract: The state-contingent approach developed by Chambers and Quiggin (2000) constitutes an attractive blend of a theory of production analysis under uncertainty and a theory of decision-making under uncertainty.One of the goals of this contribution is to introduce the reader to the approach by outlining its contents while comparing and contrasting it to related theories. With respect to production analysis: an emphasis is made on the ability of the approach to deliver well defined cost functions corresponding to stochastic production technologies. With respect to decision-making under uncertainty: the comparison with other theories consistent with a rational agent emphasizes the production theoretical basis of the state-contingent approach.It is the author’s belief that appropriately categorizing the state-contingent approach serves the primary goal of this work: to explore its usefulness as a basis for economic modeling. Some challenges regarding an empirical implementation are discussed: challenges in estimating the parameters of a state-contingent technology representation in general, as well as challenges arising from the fact that the approach is constructed around the argument pioneered by Leonard J Savage: that probabilities underlying economic decision-making are inherently subjective.(The financial support of ScienceCampus Halle is gratefully acknowledged.) No Label
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Zander, P. (2015). Modelling regional agricultural land use and climate change adaptation strategies in 4 case study regions Northern Germany (Vol. 4).
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Steen, M. (2015). Warmer, Wetter, Wilder? Climatic Evidence from the Grain Markets (Vol. 4).
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Sinabell, F. (2015). Integrated assessment of policy and climate change impacts: A case study on protein crop production in Austria (Vol. 4).
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