Search results for: government payments to the farm sector

Authors: Shruti Sengupta

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According to the nationally representative data, about 73% of India's rural workforce is engaged in agriculture. While women make significant contributions to total agriculture production, they contribute to about one-third in India. In terms of gender composition, about 80% of the female and 69% of the male workforce is engaged in agriculture in rural India. Still, it is common to find gender differences in plot management within the household. In the last two and half years, India's agri-food system has undergone several changes due to this pandemic, both the demand and supply side, making agriculture more information and knowledge-intensive. Therefore, this paper investigates, using a nationally representative sample, how information asymmetry affects the net returns per hectare of land between female and male farm managers. Empirical results show that information intensity has a significant positive effect on net farm returns per hectare. Results suggest that if females have the same access to technical information as their male counterparts, their farm income can go up by .96 pp compared to male-headed farms. Results also indicate that literate females have higher farm incomes than non-literate females. The study contributes to the literature by employing gender differentials in farm income due to the information gap.

Keywords: agriculture, gender, information asymmetry, farm income, social bias

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Authors: Alhaji M. H. Conteh, Xiangbin Yan, Alfred V. Gborie

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The goal of this study was to increase the awareness of the description and assessments of rice acreage response and to offer mechanisms for agricultural policy scrutiny. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) technique was utilized to determine the coefficients of acreage response models for the rice varieties. The magnitudes of the coefficients (λ) of both the ROK lagged and NERICA lagged acreages were found positive and highly significant, which indicates that farmers’ adjustment rate was very low. Regarding lagged actual price for both the ROK and NERICE rice varieties, the short-run price elasticities were lower than long-run, which is suggesting a long-term adjustment of the acreage, is under the crop. However, the apparent recommendations for policy transformation are to open farm gate prices and to decrease government’s involvement in agricultural sector especially in the acquisition of agricultural inputs. Impending research have to be centred on how this might be better realized. Necessary conditions should be made available to the private sector by means of minimizing price volatility. In accordance with structural reforms, it is necessary to convey output prices to farmers with minimum distortion. There is a need to eradicate price subsidies and control, which generate distortion in the market in addition to huge financial costs.

Keywords: acreage response, rate of adjustment, rice varieties, Sierra Leone

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Authors: Lala Rukh, Muhammad Abbas Choudhary, Saddam Akber Abbasi

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In Pakistan, the privatization of major sector of the national economy i.e. power, telecom, and gas is very strongly advocated since 80s. With varying degree of progress made in these sectors, it has been the government’s approach that the privatization accelerates the sectorial growth, increases operational efficiency and attracts the foreign investment and is of special significance for developing economies. The gas sector was not an exception and the privatization in this sector has moved through various stages during this time within the realms of socio-political agenda. This paper presents the overview of the gas sector in the country. The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) Ordinance and privatization commission policy position as depicted in the press briefings provides philosophical foundations to the privatization and sectorial restructuring in this paper. The role of the major players from privatization perspective is discussed with special reference to the importance of natural gas sector. The case study further discusses the economic regulations that are being adopted by utility regulators in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world and some issues that the Regulatory Authority will be concerned are outlined. Major operators in the gas sector including Oil & Gas Development Corporation (OGDC), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL), Sui Southern Gas Pipelines Limited (SSGPL) is also presented.

Keywords: privatization, economic regulation, OGDCL, SSGCL, SNGPL

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Authors: Symbat Moldabekova

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This research explores the practice of decision-making in commercial banks in Kazakhstan. It focuses on recent technologies, such as contactless payments and QR code, and uses interviews with bank executives and industry practitioners to gain an understanding of how decisions are made and the role of financial assessment methods. The aim of the research is (1) to study the importance of financial techniques to evaluate IT investments; (2) to understand the role of different expert groups; (3) to explore how market trends and industry features affect decisions on IT; (4) to build a model that defines the real practice of decision-making on IT in commercial banks in Kazakhstan. The theoretical framework suggests that decision-making on IT is a socially constructed process, where actor groups with different background interact and negotiate with each other to develop a shared understanding of IT and to make more effective decisions. Theory and observations suggest that the more parties involved in the process of decision-making, the higher the possibility of disagreements between them. As each actor group has their views on the rational decision on an IT project, it is worth exploring how the final decision is made in practice. Initial findings show that the financial assessment methods are used as a guideline and do not play a big role in the final decision. The commercial banks of Kazakhstan tend to study experience of neighboring countries before adopting innovation. Implementing contactless payments is widely regarded as pinnacle success factor due to increasing competition in the market. First-to-market innovations are considered as priorities therefore, such decisions can be made with exemption of some certain actor groups from the process. Customers play significant role and they participate in testing demo versions of the products before bringing innovation to the market. The study will identify the viewpoints of actors in the banking sector on a rational decision, and the ways decision-makers from a variety of disciplines interact with each other in order to make a decision on IT in retail banks.

Keywords: actor groups, decision making, technology investment, retail banks

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Authors: Shruti Sengupta

Abstract:

According to the nationally representative data, about 73% of India's rural workforce is engaged in agriculture. While women make significant contributions to total agriculture production, they contribute to about one-third in India. In terms of gender composition, about 80% of the female and 69% of the male workforce is engaged in agriculture in rural India. Still, it is common to find gender differences in plot management within the household. In the last two and half years, India's agri-food system has undergone several changes due to this pandemic, both the demand and supply side, making agriculture more information and knowledge-intensive. Therefore, this paper investigates, using a nationally representative sample, how information asymmetry affects the net returns per hectare of land between female and male farm managers. Empirical results show that information intensity has a significant positive effect on net farm returns per hectare. Results suggest that if females have the same access to technical information as their male counterparts, their farm income can go up by .96 pp compared to male-headed farms. Results also indicate that literate females have higher farm incomes than non-literate females. The study contributes to the literature by employing gender differentials in farm income due to the information gap.

Keywords: agriculture, gender, information asymmetry, farm income, social bias

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Authors: Anjali Chouksey, Riya Nimje, Jahanvi Saraf

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Online transactions have increased dramatically in this new ‘social-distancing’ era. With online transactions, Fraud in online payments has also increased significantly. Frauds are a significant problem in various industries like insurance companies, baking, etc. These frauds include leaking sensitive information related to the credit card, which can be easily misused. Due to the government also pushing online transactions, E-commerce is on a boom. But due to increasing frauds in online payments, these E-commerce industries are suffering a great loss of trust from their customers. These companies are finding credit card fraud to be a big problem. People have started using online payment options and thus are becoming easy targets of credit card fraud. In this research paper, we will be discussing machine learning algorithms. We have used a decision tree, XGBOOST, k-nearest neighbour, logistic-regression, random forest, and SVM on a dataset in which there are transactions done online mode using credit cards. We will test all these algorithms for detecting fraud cases using the confusion matrix, F1 score, and calculating the accuracy score for each model to identify which algorithm can be used in detecting frauds.

Keywords: machine learning, fraud detection, artificial intelligence, decision tree, k nearest neighbour, random forest, XGBOOST, logistic regression, support vector machine

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Authors: Kibret Berhanu Getinet

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Off-farm income diversification by farm rural households has gained the attention of researchers and policymakers due to the fact that agriculture failed to meet the needs of people in developing countries like Ethiopia. The objective of this study was to investigate income diversification strategies into off-farm activities among rural households in Hawassa Zuria Woreda, Sidama National Regional State, Ethiopia. The study used primary and secondary data sources for the primary data collection questionnaire employed as a data collection instrument. A multistage sampling technique was used to collect data from a total of 197 sample households from four kebeles of the study area. Descriptive statistics, as well as econometrics methods of data analysis, were employed. The descriptive statistics result indicates that the majority of sample rural households (68.53 %) have engaged in off-farm income diversification activities while the remaining 31.47% of households did not participate in the diversification in the study area. The choice of participants among the strategies indicates that 6.60% of respondents participated in off-farm wage employment, 30.46% participated in off-farm self-employment, and about 31.47% of them participated in both off-farm wage employment. The study revealed that the share of off-farm income in total annual earnings of households was about 48.457%, and thus, the off-farm diversification significantly contributes to the rural household income. Moreover, binary and multinomial logistic regression models were employed to identify factors that affect the participation and the choices of the off-farm income diversification strategies, respectively. The binary logit model result indicated that agro-ecological zone, education status of the households, available technical skills of the household, household saving, total livestock owned by the households, access to electricity, road access and being married of household head were significant and positively affected the chance of diversification in off-farm activities while the on-farm income of households is negatively affected the chance of diversification. Similarly, the multinomial logistic regression model estimate revealed that agroecological zone, on-farm income, available technical skills, household savings, and access to electricity are positively related and significantly influenced the household’s choice of employment into off-farm wage employment. The off-farm self-employment diversification choice is significantly influenced by on-farm income, available technical skills, household savings, total livestock owned, and access to electricity. Moreover, the result showed that the factors that affect the choice of farm households to engage in both off-farm wage and self-employment are ecological zone, education status, on-farm income, available technical skills, household own saving, market access, total livestock owned, access to electricity and road access. Thus, due attention should be given to addressing the demographic, socio-economic, and institutional constraints to strengthen off-farm income diversification strategies to improve the income of rural households.

Keywords: off-farm, incoem, diversification, logit model

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Authors: Selda Uzal Seyfi

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Goat and sheep milk is quite significant in human nutrition. It is considered as more important day by day. This study was carried out in order to determine applied manure management system and their possibilities of improvement in goat and sheep farm in between 2012 and 2013 years. In the study, it was investigated manure management systems of 25 pieces of sheep and goat farms. It was analyzed the manure collecting, storage and treatment features of farms and whether or not they are suitable for animal breeding. As a result of the study, it was determined that the applied manure management systems in the farm were insufficient. Planning the manure management systems in goat and sheep breeding is appropriate technical criteria is useful in respect of the animal welfare, animal health, the health of workers in the barn and environmental pollution.

Keywords: goat farm, sheep farm, manure storage, manure management

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Authors: M. Celeska, K. Najdenkoski, V. Dimchev, V. Stoilkov

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Accurate determination of wind turbine performance is necessary for economic operation of a wind farm. At present, the procedure to carry out the power performance verification of wind turbines is based on a standard of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). In this paper, nonparametric statistical inference is applied to designing a simple, inexpensive method of verifying the power performance of a wind turbine. A statistical test is explained, examined, and the adequacy is tested over real data. The methods use the information that is collected by the SCADA system (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) from the sensors embedded in the wind turbines in order to carry out the power performance verification of a wind farm. The study has used data on the monthly output of wind farm in the Republic of Macedonia, and the time measuring interval was from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2016. At the end, it is concluded whether the power performance of a wind turbine differed significantly from what would be expected. The results of the implementation of the proposed methods showed that the power performance of the specific wind farm under assessment was acceptable.

Keywords: canonical correlation analysis, power curve, power performance, wind energy

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Authors: Ossama Al-Maliki

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Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV) is one of the most popular payment protocol in the world. The EMV protocol supports Chip and PIN Transactions, Chip and Signature transactions, and Contactless transactions. This protocol suffers from tens of £ millions of lost per year due to many fraudulent payments. This is due to several reported vulnerable points in the protocols used for such payments that allow skimming, replay, cloning, Mole Point of Sale (POS), relay, and other attacks to be conducted. In this paper, we are focusing on the EMV contactless specification and we have proposed two proposal solutions to the addition of a localization factor to enhance the payment authentication of such transactions designed to prevent relay, cloning, and Mole-POS attacks. Our proposed solution is a back-end localization scheme to help the Issuer-Bank compare the location of the genuine cardholder in relation to the used POS. Our scheme uses 'something you have' which is the Cardholder Smartphone (CSP) to provide the location of the cardholder at the time of the transaction and without impacting the contactless payment time/protocol. The Issuer-bank obtain the CSP Location using tried and tested localization techniques, and independently of the cardholder. Both of our proposal solutions do not require infrastructure changes, and it uses existing EMV/SP protocol messages to communicate our scheme information.

Keywords: NFC, RFID, contactless card, authentication, location, EMV

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Authors: Zakari Mustapha, Clinto Aigbavboa, Wellinton Didi Thwala

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Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) issues has been a major challenge to the Ghanaian government. The purpose of the study was to examine OHS practices in Ghana. The study looked at various views from different scholars about OHS practices in order to achieve the objective of the study. Literature review was conducted on OHS in Ghana. Findings from the study shows Ministry of Roads and Transport (MRT) and Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing (MWRWH) are two government ministries in charge of construction and implementation of the construction sector policy. The Factories, Offices and Shops Act 1970, Act 328 and the Mining Regulations 1970 LI 665 are the two major edicts. The study presents a strong background on OHS practices in Ghana and contribute to the body of knowledge on the solution to the current trends and challenges of OHS in the construction sector.

Keywords: ILO convention, OHS challenges, OHS practices, OHS improvement

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Authors: D. Mokatsanyane, J. Jansen Van Rensburg

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This paper analyses the influence and impact of COVID-19 on major agricultural commodity prices in South Africa. According to a World Bank report, the agricultural sector in South Africa has been unable to reduce the domestic food crisis that has been occurring over the past years, hence the increased rate of poverty, which is currently at 55.5 percent as of April 2020. Despite the significance of this sector, empirical findings concluded that the agricultural sector now accounts for 1.88 percent of South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP). Suggesting that the agricultural sector's contribution to the economy has diminished. Despite the low contribution to GDP, this primary sector continues to play an essential role in the economy. Over the past years, multiple factors have contributed to the soaring commodities prices, namely, climate shocks, biofuel demand, demand and supply shocks, the exchange rate, speculation in commodity derivative markets, trade restrictions, and economic growth. The COVID-19 outbursts have currently disturbed the supply and demand of staple crops. To address the disruption, the government has exempted the agricultural sector from closure and restrictions on movement. The spread of COVID-19 has caused turmoil all around the world, but mostly in developing countries. According to Statistic South Africa, South Africa's economy decreased by seven percent in 2020. Consequently, this has arguably made the agricultural sector the most affected sector since slumped economic growth negatively impacts food security, trade, farm livelihood, and greenhouse gas emissions. South Africa is sensitive to the fruitfulness of global food chains. Restrictions in trade, reinforced sanitary control systems, and border controls have influenced food availability and prices internationally. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the behavior of agricultural commodity prices pre-and during-COVID to determine the impact of volatility drivers on these crops. Historical secondary data of spot prices for the top five major commodities, namely white maize, yellow maize, wheat, soybeans, and sunflower seeds, are analysed from 01 January 2017 to 1 September 2021. The timeframe was chosen to capture price fluctuations between pre-COVID-19 (01 January 2017 to 23 March 2020) and during-COVID-19 (24 March 2020 to 01 September 2021). The Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) statistical model will be used to measure the influence of price fluctuations. The results reveal that the commodity market has been experiencing volatility at different points. Extremely high volatility is represented during the first quarter of 2020. During this period, there was high uncertainty, and grain prices were very volatile. Despite the influence of COVID-19 on agricultural prices, the demand for these commodities is still existing and decent. During COVID-19, analysis indicates that prices were low and less volatile during the pandemic. The prices and returns of these commodities were low during COVID-19 because of the government's actions to respond to the virus's spread, which collapsed the market demand for food commodities.

Keywords: commodities market, commodity prices, generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH), Price volatility, SAFEX

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Authors: Aswathaman Vijayan, Manish Jha, Ullas Theertha

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Climate change and Global warming have become an issue for both developed and developing countries and perhaps the biggest threat to the environment. We at ITC Limited believe that a company’s performance must be measured by its Triple Bottom Line contribution to building economic, social and environmental capital. This Triple Bottom Line strategy focuses on - Embedding sustainability in business practices, Investing in social development and Adopting a low carbon growth path with a cleaner environment approach. The Agri Business Division - ILTD operates in the tobacco crop growing regions of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka province of India. The Agri value chain of the company comprises of two distinct phases: First phase is Agricultural operations undertaken by ITC trained farmers and the second phase is Industrial operations which include marketing and processing of the agricultural produce. This research work covers the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) management strategy of ITC in the Agricultural operations undertaken by the farmers. The agriculture sector adds considerably to global GHG emissions through the use of carbon-based energies, use of fertilizers and other farming operations such as ploughing. In order to minimize the impact of farming operations on the environment, ITC has a taken a big leap in implementing system and process in reducing the GHG impact in farm value chain by partnering with the farming community. The company has undertaken a unique three-pronged approach for GHG management at the farm value chain: 1) GHG inventory at farm value chain: Different sources of GHG emission in the farm value chain were identified and quantified for the baseline year, as per the IPCC guidelines for greenhouse gas inventories. The major sources of emission identified are - emission due to nitrogenous fertilizer application during seedling production and main-field; emission due to diesel usage for farm machinery; emission due to fuel consumption and due to burning of crop residues. 2) Identification and implementation of technologies to reduce GHG emission: Various methodologies and technologies were identified for each GHG emission source and implemented at farm level. The identified methodologies are – reducing the consumption of chemical fertilizer usage at the farm through site-specific nutrient recommendation; Usage of sharp shovel for land preparation to reduce diesel consumption; implementation of energy conservation technologies to reduce fuel requirement and avoiding burning of crop residue by incorporation in the main field. These identified methodologies were implemented at farm level, and the GHG emission was quantified to understand the reduction in GHG emission. 3) Social and farm forestry for CO2 sequestration: In addition, the company encouraged social and farm forestry in the waste lands to convert it into green cover. The plantations are carried out with fast growing trees viz., Eucalyptus, Casuarina, and Subabul at the rate of 10,000 Ha of land per year. The above approach minimized considerable amount of GHG emission at the farm value chain benefiting farmers, community, and environment at a whole. In addition, the CO₂ stock created by social and farm forestry program has made the farm value chain to become environment-friendly.

Keywords: CO₂ sequestration, farm value chain, greenhouse gas, ITC limited

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Authors: Olurankinse Felix, Fatukasi Bayo

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Over the years, the medium through which government financial statements are prepared has been on cash basis of accounting. This basis was characterised with some shortcomings ranging from non- disclosure of quality and detail information relating to government financial transactions, ill informed assessment of government resource allocation, weak internal control system that inhibits accountability and transparency and non- standardisation of reporting ethics for the purpose of comparability. The emergence of international public sector accounting standards (IPSAS) is therefore seen as leverage as it aims at improving the quality of general purpose financial reporting by public sector entities thereby increasing transparency and accountability. IPSAS is a new concept that all institutions must fully adopts. The crux of this paper is to find out to what extent is the awareness and adoption of IPSAS to both students and lecturers interms of teaching, learning and inclusion in the curriculum of accounting education. The methodology involved the use of well designed questionnaires to obtain information from some selected institutions and the analysis was done with the use of maximum likelihood ordered probit regression. The result of the analysis shows that despite a high level of sensitisation/awareness of IPSAS, the degree of adoption is still low due to low level of desirability by students and lecturers. The paper recommend the need for the government to enact an enabling law to back up the adoption and more importantly to institute appropriate sanctions to ensure full compliance.

Keywords: assessment, awareness, adoption, IPSAS, cash basis

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Authors: А. А. Yessekeyeva, А. S. Moldagaliyeva, G. K. Shulanbekova

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The purpose of this article is to describe challenges associated with enhancement of government control over agro industrial sector in order to maintain food security. The need for government control over agricultural industry stems from the fact that the State is accountable to its citizens for establishing their standard living conditions, food and other agricultural product supplies. Agro industrial sector is in a special position within the market place preventing its full and equal participation in an interdisciplinary competition. Low-profit agricultural industry that is dependent on the natural and strongly marked seasonal and cyclical production factors is more underdeveloped in terms of technology and relatively static industry as compared to the manufacturing industry. Therefore, agricultural industry development directly affects food security of the country.

Keywords: food security, agro-industry, Kazakhstan, food security

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Authors: Innocent Pangapanga, Eric Mungatana

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Fall armyworm (FAW) (Spodoptera frugiperda), an invasive lepidopteran pest, has caused substantial yield loss since its first detection in September 2016, thereby threatening the farm productivity food security and poverty reduction initiatives in Malawi. Several stakeholders, including households, have adopted chemical pesticides to control FAW without accounting for its costs on welfare, health and the environment. Thus, this study has used panel data endogenous switching regression model to investigate the impact of FAW and the integrated pest management (IPM) –related practices on-farm productivity and food security. The study finds that FAW substantively reduces farm productivity by seven (7) percent and influences the adoption of IPM –related practices, namely, intercropping, mulching, and agroforestry, by 6 percent, ceteris paribus. Interestingly, multiple adoptions of the IPM -related practices noticeably increase farm productivity by 21 percent. After accounting for potential endogeneity through the endogenous switching regression model, the IPM practices further demonstrate tenfold more improvement on food security, implying the role of the IPM –related practices in containing the effect of FAW at the household level.

Keywords: hunger, invasive fall army worms, integrated pest management practices, farm productivity, endogenous switching regression

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Authors: Mohammad Rahman, Guy Burton, Megan Mathias

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Strategic management as an organizational practice was adopted by the public sector in the New Public Management (NPM) era that began in most parts of the world in the 1980s. Strategy as a new public management concept was subscribed by governments in both developed and developing world, as they were persuaded that clearly defined vision, mission and goals, as well as programs and projects - aligned with the goals - could potentially help achieve government vision at the national level and organizational goals at the service-delivery level. The advocates for strategic management in the public sector saw an inherent link between strategy and performance, claiming that the implementation of organizational strategy has an effect on the overall performance of an organization. Arguably, many government entities that have failed in enhancing team and individual performance had poorly-designed strategy or weak strategy implementation. Another key argument about low-level performance is linked with lack of strategic sense-making and orientation by middle managers in particular. Scholars maintain that employees at all levels need to understand strategic management plan in order to facilitate its implementation. Therefore, involving employees (particularly the middle managers) from the beginning potentially helps an organization avoid the drop in performance, and on the contrary would increase their commitment. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is well known for adopting public sector reform strategies and tools since the 1990s. This observation is contextually pertinent in the case of the Government of Dubai, which has provided a Strategy Execution Guide to all of its entities to achieve high level strategic success in service delivery. The Dubai public sector also adopts road maps for e-Government, Smart Dubai, Expo 2020, investment, environment, education, health and other sectors. Evidently, some of these strategies are bringing tangible (e.g. Smart Dubai transformation) results in a transformational manner. However, the amount of academic research and literature on the strategy process vis-à-vis staff performance in the Government of Dubai is limited. In this backdrop, this study examines how individual performance of public sector employees in Dubai is linked with their sense-making, engagement and orientation with strategy development and implementation processes. Based on a theoretical framework, this study will undertake a sample-based questionnaire survey amongst middle managers in Dubai public sector to (a) measure the level of engagement of middle managers in strategy development and implementation processes as perceived by them; (b) observe the organizational landscape in which role expectations are placed on middle managers; and (c) examine the impact of employee engagement in strategy development process and the conditions for role expectations on individual performance. The paper is expected to provide new insights on the interface between strategic sense-making and performance in order to contribute a better understanding of the current culture/practices of staff engagement in strategic management in the public sector of Dubai.

Keywords: employee performance, government of Dubai, middle managers, strategic sense-making

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Authors: R. Santos Alimi

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Using time-series techniques, this study empirically tested the validity of existing theory which stipulates there is a nonlinear relationship between government size and economic growth; such that government spending is growth-enhancing at low levels but growth-retarding at high levels, with the optimal size occurring somewhere in between. This study employed three estimation equations. First, for the size of government, two measures are considered as follows: (i) share of total expenditures to gross domestic product, (ii) share of recurrent expenditures to gross domestic product. Second, the study adopted real GDP (without government expenditure component), as a variant measure of economic growth other than the real total GDP, in estimating the optimal level of government expenditure. The study is based on annual Nigeria country-level data for the period 1970 to 2012. Estimation results show that the inverted U-shaped curve exists for the two measures of government size and the estimated optimum shares are 19.81% and 10.98%, respectively. Finally, with the adoption of real GDP (without government expenditure component), the optimum government size was found to be 12.58% of GDP. Our analysis shows that the actual share of government spending on average (2000 - 2012) is about 13.4%.This study adds to the literature confirming that the optimal government size exists not only for developed economies but also for developing economy like Nigeria. Thus, a public intervention threshold level that fosters economic growth is a reality; beyond this point economic growth should be left in the hands of the private sector. This finding has a significant implication for the appraisal of government spending and budgetary policy design.

Keywords: public expenditure, economic growth, optimum level, fully modified OLS

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Authors: Ewa Krasnodębska

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The article presents the costs and income maize cultivation for grain four selected varieties with different numbers of FAO in 2013-2014. Results of the experiments are derived from a field experiment conducted in indywidulnym farm specializing in the production plant located in the eastern part of Mazowieckie voivodship. The experiment examined the profitability of four varieties of maize cultivation: medium early: P8400 (FAO 240) and P8589 (FAO 250), and an average of late: PR38N86 (FAO 270) and P9027 (FAO 260). In order to evaluate the profitability of grain maize production was calculated income from 1 ha of crops in zł and profitability index taking into account the direct payments up to 1 ha. Analyzing the value of crop production can be concluded that the value of the total production of each variety was very much varied and very much depend on the sales price and yield of maize obtained from 1 ha of cultivation. The largest average seed yield of two years at a moisture content of 15% was achieved in a variety PR38N86, which amounted to 12.1 t / ha and the lowest in the variety P8400 - 9.8 t / ha. Income from 1 ha of crops including EU subsidies ranged from 4916.4 zł / ha in 2013 for variety and only 528.7 PR38N86 zł / ha for a variety of P8400 in 2014. Profitability index reached the highest average late PR38N86 variety of FAO 290 over the entire two-year period under study, and the lowest rate of profitability achieved P8400 medium early variety of FAO 240. The profitability of production ranged from 8964.0 zł / ha in 2013 for a variety of PR38N86 to 5616.0 zł / ha for a variety of P8400 in 2014. Cultivation of maize for grain production is attractive and does not require large amounts of work, but its economic rationale is based primarily on the resulting yield and the price of buying.

Keywords: corn, grain, income, profitability

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Authors: Mas Pertiwi I. G. AG Istri, Sri Kristinayanti Wayan, Oka Aryawan I. Gede Made

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Ability of government to meet the needs of infrastructure investment constrained by the size of the budget commitments for other sectors. Another barrier is the complexity of the process of land acquisition. Public Private Partnership can help bridge the investment gap by including the amount of funding from the private sector, shifted the responsibility of financing, construction of the asset, and the operation and post-project design and care to them. In principle, a construction project implementation always requires the investor as a party to provide resources in the form of funding which it must be contained in a successor agreement in the form of a contract. In general, construction contracts consist of contracts which passed in Indonesia and contract International. One source of funding used in the implementation of construction projects comes from funding that comes from the collaboration between the government and the private sector, for example with the system: BLT (Build Lease Transfer), BOT (Build Operate Transfer), BTO (Build Transfer Operate) and BOO (Build Operate Own). And form of payment under a construction contract can be distinguished several ways: monthly payment, payments based on progress and payment after completed projects (Turn Key). One of the tools used to analyze the feasibility of the investment is to use financial models. The financial model describes the relationship between different variables and assumptions used. From a financial model will be known how the cash flow structure of the project, which includes revenues, expenses, liabilities to creditors and the payment of taxes to the government. Net cash flow generated from the project will be used as a basis for analyzing the feasibility of investment source of project financing Public Private Partnership could come from equity or debt. The proportion of funding according to its source is a comparison of a number of investment funds originating from each source of financing for a total investment cost during the construction period by selected the contract system and several alternative financing percentage ratio determined according to sources will generate cash flow structure that is different. Of the various possibilities for the structure of the cash flow generated will be analyzed by software is to test T Paired to compared the contract system used by various alternatives comparison of financing to determine the effect of the contract system and the comparison of such financing for the feasibility of investment toll road construction project for the economic life of 20 (twenty) years. In this use case studies of toll road contruction project Bali Mandara. And in this analysis only covered two systems contracts, namely Build Operate Transfer and Turn Key. Based on the results obtained by analysis of the variable investment feasibility of the NPV, BCR and IRR between the contract system Build Operate Transfer and contract system Turn Key on the interest rate of 9%, 12% and 15%.

Keywords: contract system, financing, internal rate of return, net present value

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Authors: Okunola Solomon Olufemi

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The study focused on the contribution of urban agriculture to the livelihood of 107 respondents in Kwara State of Nigeria. The study employed structured questionnaire to collect relevant data for the study while descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution and percentage were employed to analyses the objectives. Most respondents (82.9%), were one time or the other in a married state and they had formal education (80.4%) while many of the lot (58.9%) had superior education ranging from OND to Ph.D level. These farmers were either retired government workers or those trying to argument their family income or trying to be food sufficient. Most of the respondents (77.4%) had a farm size of less than or equal to 3 hectares showing that most the urban farmers were smallholders which might be as a result of stiff completion for land resource. Most of the respondents had a relatively large family size of 6 and above members. Most respondents used family labor (59.8%). Respondents in the study area also made use of the cooperatives and daily contributions for loanable funds, while few respondents utilized the formal sector. .Urban agriculture accounted for 84.4% of the Livelihood outcomes of the respondents. While non-farming activities contributed 17.6%.Most of the respondents (31.8%) participated in non-farming activities to generate extra income while their major constraints were shortage of land both in term of access and tenure (34.1%), limited access to resource and agricultural inputs (29.3%), and prohibitive urban policies and regulation (23.2%).

Keywords: poverty throes, urban agriculture, rigors of farming, non-farming, married state

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Authors: Kurias George, Ildefonso Cuesta Romeo, Clara Salueña Pérez, Jordi Sole Olle

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With the growing prevalence of wind energy there is a need, for modeling techniques to evaluate the impact of wind farms on meteorology and oceanography. This study presents an approach that utilizes the WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting )with that include a Wind Farm Parametrization model to simulate the dynamics around Parc Tramuntana project, a offshore wind farm to be located near the Gulf of Roses off the coast of Barcelona, Catalonia. The model incorporates parameterizations for wind turbines enabling a representation of the wind field and how it interacts with the infrastructure of the wind farm. Current results demonstrate that the model effectively captures variations in temeperature, pressure and in both wind speed and direction over time along with their resulting effects on power output from the wind farm. These findings are crucial for optimizing turbine placement and operation thus improving efficiency and sustainability of the wind farm. In addition to focusing on atmospheric interactions, this study delves into the wake effects within the turbines in the farm. A range of meteorological parameters were also considered to offer a comprehensive understanding of the farm's microclimate. The model was tested under different horizontal resolutions and farm layouts to scrutinize the wind farm's effects more closely. These experimental configurations allow for a nuanced understanding of how turbine wakes interact with each other and with the broader atmospheric and oceanic conditions. This modified approach serves as a potent tool for stakeholders in renewable energy, environmental protection, and marine spatial planning. environmental protection and marine spatial planning. It provides a range of information regarding the environmental and socio economic impacts of offshore wind energy projects.

Keywords: weather research and forecasting, wind turbine wake effects, environmental impact, wind farm parametrization, sustainability analysis

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Authors: Pouneh Soleimaninejadian, Chengyu Yang

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In this paper, we use data on Household Income and Expenditure survey of Statistics Centre of Iran, conducted from 2005-2014, to calculate several inequality measures and to estimate the effects of Iran’s targeted subsidy reform act on consumption and income inequality. We first calculate Gini coefficients for income and consumption in order to study the relation between the two and also the effects of subsidy reform. Results show that consumption inequality has not been always mirroring changes in income inequality. However, both Gini coefficients indicate that subsidy reform caused improvement in inequality. Then we calculate Generalized Entropy Index based on consumption and income for years before and after the Subsidy Reform Act of 2010 in order to have a closer look into the changes in internal structure of inequality after subsidy reforms. We find that the improvement in income inequality is mostly caused by the decrease in inequality of lower income individuals. At the same time consumption inequality has been decreased as a result of more equal consumption in both lower and higher income groups. Moreover, the increase in Engle coefficient after the subsidy reform shows that a bigger portion of income is allocated to consumption on food which is a sign of lower living standard in general. This increase in Engle coefficient is due to rise in inflation rate and relative increase in price of food which partially is another consequence of subsidy reform. We have conducted some experiments on effect of subsidy payments and possible effects of change on distribution pattern and amount of cash subsidy payments on income inequality. Result of the effect of cash payments on income inequality shows that it leads to a definite decrease in income inequality and had a bigger share in improvement of rural areas compared to those of urban households. We also examine the possible effect of constant payments on the increasing income inequality for years after 2011. We conclude that reduction in value of payments as a result of inflation plays an important role regardless of the fact that there may be other reasons. We finally experiment with alternative allocations of transfers while keeping the total amount of cash transfers constant or make it smaller through eliminating three higher deciles from the cash payment program, the result shows that income equality would be improved significantly.

Keywords: consumption inequality, generalized entropy index, income inequality, Irans subsidy reform

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Authors: Hadeel Abdulatif, Maha Alkhaffaf

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E-government is the use of Information and Communication Technology to enrich the access to and delivery of government services to citizens, business partners and employees, Policy makers and regulatory bodies have to be cognizant of the degree of readiness of a populace in order to design and implement efficient e-government programs. This paper aims to provide a transparent situation analyses for the case of e-government official website in Jordan, it focuses on assessing e-government in Jordan; web site assessment by using international criteria for assessing e-government websites, However, the study analyses the environmental factor consisting of cultural and business environment factors. By reviewing the literature the researchers found that government's efforts towards e-government may vary according to the country's readiness and other key implementation factors which will lead to diverse e-government experience; thus, there is a need to study the impact of key factors to implement e-government in Jordan.

Keywords: e-government, environmental factors, website assessment, readiness

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Authors: Tabitha Mberi, Tirus Wanyoike, Joseph Sevilla

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The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Government is gradually becoming a major requirement to transform delivery of services to its stakeholders by improving quality of service and efficiency. In Kenya, the devolvement of government from local authorities to county governments has resulted in many counties adopting online revenue collection systems which can be easily accessed by its stakeholders. Strathmore Research and Consortium Centre (SRCC) implemented a revenue collection system in Taita Taveta, a County in coastal Kenya. It consisted of two systems that are integrated; an online system dubbed “CountyPro” for processing county services such as Business Permit applications, General Billing, Property Rates Payments and any other revenue streams from the county. The second part was a Point of Sale(PoS) system used by the county revenue collectors to charge for market fees and vehicle parking fees. This study assesses the success and challenges in adoption of the integrated system. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were used to collect data on the adoption of the system with the researcher using focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires to collect data from various users of the system An analysis was carried out and revealed that 87% of the county revenue officers who are situated in county offices describe the system as efficient and has made their work easier in terms of processing of transactions for customers.

Keywords: e-government, counties, information technology, online system, point of sale

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Authors: Simon Ayorinde Okanlawon

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The youths’ prevalent negative attitude to farming is partly due to amenities and facilities found in the urban centers at the expense of the rural areas. Hence, there is the need to create a befitting and conducive farm environment to retain farm employees and attract the youth to farming. This can be achieved through the provision of services and amenities that will ensure a comfortable standard of living higher than that obtained by a person of equal status in other forms of employment in urban centers, thereby eliminating the psychological feeling of lowered self-esteem associated with farming. This study assessed farm settlements’ facilities and patronage in Oyo State with a view to using the information to encourage sustainable agriculture in Nigeria. The study becomes necessary because of the dearth of information on the state of facilities in the farm settlements as it affects patronage of farm settlements for sustainable agriculture in the developing countries like Nigeria. The study utilized three purposely selected farm settlements- Ogbomoso, Fasola and Ilora out of the seven existing ones n Oyo State. One hundred percent (100%) of the 262 residential buildings in the three settlements were sampled, from where a household head from each of the buildings was randomly chosen. This translates to 262 household heads served with questionnaire out of which 47.7% of the questionnaires were recovered. Information obtained included respondents’ residency categories, residents’ status, residency years, housing types, types of holding and number of acres/holding. Others include the socio-economic attributes such as age, gender, income, educational status of respondents, assessment of existing facilities in the selected sites, the level of patronage of the farm settlements including perceived pull factors that can enhance farm settlements patronage. The study revealed that the residents were not satisfied with the adequacy and quality of all the facilities available in their settlements. Residents’ satisfaction with infrastructural facilities cannot be statistically linked with location across the study area. Findings suggested that residents of Ogbomoso farm settlements were not enjoying adequate provision of water supply and road as much as those from Ilora and Fasola. Patronage of the farm settlements were largely driven by farming activities and sale of farm produce. The respondents agreed that provision of farm resort centers, standard recreational and tourism facilities, vacation employment opportunities for youths, functional internet and communication networks among others are likely to boost the level of patronage of the farm settlements. The study concluded that improvement of the facilities both in quality and quantity will encourage the youths in going back to farming. It then recommends that maintenance of existing facilities and provision of more facilities such as resort centers be ensured.

Keywords: encourage, farm settlements' facilities, Oyo state, patronage

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Authors: Biback Das

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New Public Management, a phenomenal tool, which is used to enforcing in public administration in different country’s to enhance the capacities. Since the 1980s, New Public Management (NPM) is primarily focusing to modernize the public sector. From the initial period, many developed countries such as UK, New Zealand, Australia, and the USA are applied in their administration to modernize. Almost 1990s, it has been applied in many developing countries. This study can describe the real situations of NPM based administration. Bangladesh Government has taken many projects to reform the public sector under NPM. Even many Development Agencies like UN, UNDP, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and so on, along with many developed countries also invested and prescribed to take NPM based reform that can to restructure the public sector so that it can maximize the efforts to provide the better service. This study examines using many factors that effects work on Public Administration in Bangladesh and also assessing its endeavor to adopt in it. Although Government has taken such initiatives to implement NPM originated reform, it’s not effectively been implemented to bring positive change about as per NPM objectives. This study mainly examines some initiatives in Bangladesh that have the influence of NPM as well as some drawbacks that can’t help the satisfaction of these initiatives. This article help to identify the efforts of many development agencies providing a fund to enhance the NPM based projects with their specific conditions that are prescribed by them helping to get fund. Therefore, to establish effective public management or to follow NPM model, Bangladesh need having an institutional framework, sound rule of law, proper structure, effective civil service system, appropriate checks, and balances to restructure the public sector help along with donor agencies ad implement in it. Bangladesh Government has applied its recent days to enhance the capabilities in its Public Administration. Moreover, this study mainly identifies how the designing strategies, program formulating, its implementation in various sector such as education, health sector etc. and how to reduce the backdrop the during problem by smooth functioning. This paper is also assessing the influence of many projects like PPP (Public-Private and Partnership) to work along with private organizations for smooth service delivery. Accordingly, this paper briefly reviews how it applies in a global context following the taken many initiatives and the consequences of Bangladesh context.

Keywords: new public management, capacity building, conditionalities, service delivery, public-private-partnership

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Authors: Amare Nigatu, Mågne Bratveit, Bente E. Moen

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Background: Pesticide exposure is an important public health concern in Ethiopia, but there is limited information on pesticide intoxications. Residents may have an increased risk of pesticide exposure through proximity of their homes to farms using pesticides. Also the pesticide exposure might be related to employment at these farms. This study investigated the prevalence of acute pesticide intoxications (API) by residence proximity to a nearby flower farm and assessed if intoxications are related to working there or not. Methods: A cross-sectional survey involving 516 persons was conducted. Participants were grouped according to their residence proximity from a large flower farm; living within 5 kilometers and 5-12 kilometers away, respectively. In a structured interview, participants were asked if they had health symptoms within 48 hours of pesticide exposure in the past year. Those, who had experienced this and reported two or more typical pesticide intoxication symptoms, were considered as having had API. Chi-square and independent t-tests were used to compare categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Confounding variables were adjusted by using binomial regression model. Results: The prevalence of API in the past year among the residents in the study area was 26%, and it was higher in the population living close to the flower farm (42%) compared to those living far away (11%), prevalence ratio (PR) = 3.2, 95% CI: 2.2-4.8, adjusted for age, gender & education. A subgroup living close to the farm & working there had significantly more API (56%) than those living close & did not work there (16%), adjusted PR = 3.0, 95% CI: 1.8-4.9. Flower farm workers reported more API (56%) than those not working there (13%,), adjusted PR = 4.0, 95% CI: 2.9-5.6. Conclusion: The residents living closer than 5 kilometers to the flower farm reported significantly higher prevalence of API than those living 5-12 kilometers away. This increased risk of API was associated with work at the flower farm.

Keywords: acute pesticide intoxications, self-reported symptoms, flower farm workers, living proximity

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Authors: Abhilash Balan Paleri

Abstract:

Hand woven fabric embellishes an exceptional identity in the social milieu of Kerala; still, the artisans and handloom sector is undergoing crisis due to various reasons. The hand woven school uniform initiative of Govt. of Kerala launched in 2016 aims at enhancing the sector, ensuring sustainability at artisan and end-user levels. The Kerala Government already distributed 23 lakhs meters of cloth (for shirting, suiting, and skirting) woven by 4085 artisans in their traditional looms covering 4.5 lakhs of students in the public education sector which covers cover 3,701 schools in the state. The 2019-20 year production is expected to be 42 Lakhs meters of hand woven clothing catering 8.6 lakhs of students in the primary sector. This particular investigation unveils the upshots of the initiative, and the observations are derived through systematic enquiry with artisans, authorities, and end-users. The findings show a remarkable positive impact in the livelihood of artisans and the entire handloom sector.

Keywords: handloom school uniform initiative of Kerala, hand woven fabric, sustainability, handloom weavers

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Authors: Nevine Henry Wasef

Abstract:

The research discusses how Egyptian citizens perceive the performance of public sector officials, particularly the ethical values manifested in their behavior. It aims at answering the question of how Egyptian citizens’ perception of public officials affects citizens' trust in the government at large and the process of public service delivery specifically. The hypothesis is that public opinion about civil servants’ ethical values would be proportional to citizens’ trust in the government, which means that the more citizens regard administrators with high ethical standards, the higher trust in the government they would have and vice versa. The research would focus on the independent variable of trust in the government and the dependent variable of public perception of administrators’ ethical performance. The data would be collected through surveys designed to measure the public evaluation of public officials they are interacting with and the quality of services delivered to them. The study concludes that implementing ethical values in public administration has a crucial role in improving citizens’ trust in the government based on various case studies of governments that successfully adopted ethical training programs for their civil servants.

Keywords: trust, distrust, ethics, performance, integrity, values, public service

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