The abolition of the milk quota regime in April 2015 will provide the opportunity for many profitable Irish dairy farms to increase their production levels. Market risk will influence the decision-making process at the farm level. Dairy farmers have acquired more recent experience of market risk...

This paper compares innovation systems in three main Scottish livestock sectors: dairy, beef, and sheep, using the uptake of Estimated Breed Values (EBVs) across these three sectors. We apply an innovation systems approach to identify systemic challenges within these sectors. Barriers to the...

In food retailing a high degree of static price dispersion between and within stores and between brands has been documented, but at the brand and/or retail outlet level the dynamic behaviour of prices, as well as its causes, have not been analysed in the European food market context. In this...

This paper considers a range of issues relating to the contribution of meat consumption and livestock production to global warming given the need highlighted by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to reduce global GHG emissions by over 50% by 2050. The IPCC Climate Change 2014 report...

In December 2009 the Irish Department of Agriculture launched the Dairy Efficiency Programme. The Programme, which is operated through a series of discussion groups, is designed to promote technology transfer to dairy farmers. Drawing on National Farm Survey data from 2009, the purpose of this...

The dairy landscape in the Republic of Ireland is characterized by pastoral spring-calving systems and a bell-shaped milk production curve. This seasonality at producer level initiates various implications at processor level, such as poor utilization of plant capacity off-peak season, a...

National greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation strategy can benefit from information on the technical and economic viability of abatement options. The life-cycle-analysis (LCA) and marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) approaches provide a good, although partial, indication for the potential of...

In this study the stochastic metafrontier method is used to investigate technical efficiency and technology gaps across three main beef cattle production systems in Kenya. Results show that there is significant inefficiency in nomadic and agro-pastoral systems. Further, in contrast with ranches,...

Two of the primary issues of the next Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform are maximum sustainable yield (MSY) and transferable fishing concessions (TFCs). The European Commission set the goal of achieving MSY for all European fisheries by 2015. Besides, the European Commission agreed on...

There is increasing evidence that improved agricultural technologies benefit smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. This evidence is however relatively clearer for innovations in smallholder crop production systems as compared to innovations in livestock production systems. Moreover, it is...