Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Olga KUTNOHORSKÁ Author-Workplace-Name: Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague, Czech Republic Author-Name: Pavel TOMŠÍK Author-Workplace-Name: University of Economics and Management, Prague, Czech Republic Title: Consumers' perception of the health aspects of organic food Abstract: Organic foods are grown using the principles of organic agriculture that are produced, processed and packaged without using chemicals. They have been accepted due to their several perceived benefits over the conventional food. Health aspects of organic food are, in addition to the ethical, environmental, hedonic and "feel good" aspects, the main benefits that the consumers appreciate in organic food. This paper presents the results of a quantitative survey in the Czech organic food market. By using the factor analysis, it showed that the consumer perception of the health benefits of organic food can be viewed from several different angles. There were found three factors that explain 58.42% of variability, which are, based on their relationship with the original items, interpreted as the "knowledge and responsibility", "being aware, but lax" and "health is important, but not related to food". The first factor contains enough knowledge related to the health care, the conviction of the importance of food choice regarding health and the active interest and effort to do something for one's health. The second factor contains enough knowledge related to health care, but is lacking the interest to apply the knowledge and to do something for one's health, and the third factor contains the conviction that health is an important asset, but the perception of the connection between one's health and food is absent. Keywords: consumer behaviour, factor analysis, marketing mix, quantitative research Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 293-299 Volume: 59 Issue: 7 Year: 2013 DOI: 10.17221/142/2012-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/142/2012-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201307-0001.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:59:y:2013:i:7:id:142-2012-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Phatima MAMARDASHVILI Author-Workplace-Name: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), Zurich, Switzerland Author-Name: Dierk SCHMID Author-Workplace-Name: Research Station Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon ART, Ettenhausen, Switzerland Title: Performance of Swiss dairy farms under provision of public goods Abstract: Farmers provide not only agricultural products but also public goods and services. When analyzing farm performance, these different outputs should be modelled separately. In this study, we investigated Swiss dairy farms located in the plain, hill and mountainous regions for the period between 2003 and 2009. For the representation of production technology, we employed a parametric output distance function and modeled particular public goods and services as a separate output. The resulted elasticities of agricultural output coincided with the corresponding shares of this output. However, the elasticities of particular public goods and services were higher than the corresponding shares. This might be related to the fact that this output contains different kinds of direct payments, "production" of which does not require additional inputs or trade-off with other outputs. Our results showed that the level of pro ductivity in the plain region did not depend on the scale of production, but more on the improvement in the technical efficiency. However, in the hill and mountainous regions, there was potential for scale adjustments. Sample farms in these regions showed significant decreasing returns to scale, which suggests that the average farm in these subsamples could improve its productivity by scaling down its production. Our results might also be confirmation of decelerated structural change, since decreasing returns to scale might reflect an obstacle to growth. We found the wide range of the efficiency scores for Swiss farms, which indicates potentials for improvements. Among others, off-farm income as well as high level of ecological services showed significantly positive influence on the technical efficiency of Swiss farms in all three regions. Keywords: efficiency, direct payments, output distance function, Swiss agriculture Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 300-314 Volume: 59 Issue: 7 Year: 2013 DOI: 10.17221/148/2012-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/148/2012-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201307-0002.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:59:y:2013:i:7:id:148-2012-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Gao YUANDONG Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing, P.R. China Author-Name: Wen TAO Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing, P.R. China Author-Name: Yi WEN Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing, P.R. China Author-Name: Wang XIAOHUA Author-Workplace-Name: College of Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing, P.R. China Title: A spatial econometric study on effects of fiscal and financial supports for agriculture in China Abstract: Since the reform and opening-up, the disparity between Chinese rural economy and the overall national economic development has already become the key constraint for further development of the national economy. In order to increase the farmers' income and to promote rural economic development, the efforts of China's budgetary and financial policies to support agriculture have been strengthened year by year. However, it lacks an accurate and effective assessment to evaluate the effects of China's fiscal and financial policies supports for agriculture. This paper proposes to estimate and measure the effects of China's fiscal and financial supports for agriculture utilizing the Chinese provincial panel data on the basis of the latest spatial panel econometric method. The results show that since China intensified the fiscal and financial support in 2004, the direct effects of fiscal and financial supports for agriculture have improved, but the spatial spillover effects have turned from positive to negative. Keywords: direct effects, effects of policies, spatial panel econometrics, spatial spillover effects Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 315-332 Volume: 59 Issue: 7 Year: 2013 DOI: 10.17221/126/2012-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/126/2012-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201307-0003.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:59:y:2013:i:7:id:126-2012-AGRICECON Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0 Author-Name: Benoit Beila MALAN Author-Workplace-Name: Department of Economics, University of Cocody-Abidjan, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire Title: Volatility and stabilization of the price of coffee and cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire Abstract: The aim of this paper was to study the coffee and cocoa price volatility in Côte d'Ivoire and to understand the mechanism of price stabilization. Thus, this paper shows that the international prices and the farm gate prices of these two products are strongly dispersed around their respective average, from one year to another and within each year. This paper proposes a model of partial stabilization which makes it possible to highlight an alternate mechanism of the coffee and cocoa price stabilization which is relatively efficient compared to the mechanism which currently exists. It shows that a marketing board in the Ivorian coffee and cocoa sector, which constitutes a buffer stock and uses it in a strategic way, has the advantage of reducing significantly the volatility of the international price and the farm gate price. Keywords: farm gate price, international price, price fluctuation, buffer stock, cocoa and coffee markets Journal: Agricultural Economics Pages: 333-340 Volume: 59 Issue: 7 Year: 2013 DOI: 10.17221/145/2012-AGRICECON File-URL: http://agricecon.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/145/2012-AGRICECON.html File-Format: text/html X-File-Ref: http://agriculturejournals.cz/RePEc/caa/references/age-201307-0004.txt Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlage:v:59:y:2013:i:7:id:145-2012-AGRICECON