As part of its continuing commitment to address the causes of climate change, the EU has agreed reduction targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be achieved by 2020. In the case of Ireland the target is a reduction of 20 percent relative to the 2005 level. Agriculture is a major source of...

The paper analyses the effects of communication costs for agro-food trade in OECD countries between 1995 and 2003 using gravity model. We find that the link between the communication costs and agro-food trade flows in developed countries is significantly stronger for agricultural than for food...

This paper reports on a model that was developed to understand the behavioural determinants surrounding farmers’ adoption of forward contracts for agricultural commodities. Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Diffusion of Innovations, 28 hypotheses within the model were written and...

The impact of the introduction of the EU Single Area Payments (SAP) on farm strategy is investigated for a sample of Lithuanian farms, utilising farm accounting and survey data. The applications of two investment models demonstrate that the credit market in Lithuania was imperfect prior to...

Milk quota trading rules differ across EU member countries. In Denmark a biannual milk quota exchange was set up in 1997 to promote a more efficient reallocation of milk quotas as well as to reduce transaction costs related to the searching and matching of sellers and buyers. Using two...

Achieving high compliance rates in incentive-based agri-environmental schemes is an important issue. This paper explores the use of a mixed penalty-reward approach under heterogeneous compliance costs. Specifically, we examine the use of a “compliance reward” under asymmetric information and...

The number of farm households participating in the off-farm labour market has been increasing over the last decade and this additional income has become integral to the sustainability of farm households. The objective of this paper is to assess the availability of off-farm employment and examine...

Agricultural production relies to a great extent on biological processes in natural environments. In addition to volatile prices, it is thus heavily exposed to risks caused by the variability of natural conditions such as rainfall, temperature and pests. With a view to the apparently lacking...

This paper examines optimal business development strategies for rural firms given the specific characteristics of their rural business environment. An investigation of rural business strategy informs public policy formation by helping to determine how rural firms would react to changes in their...

Research into Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from Irish agriculture has focused on two main themes (i) projecting future emission levels and (ii) devising abatement strategies at the farm level such as changes in animal diet, better waste management and or changes in farm management practices....