Suchergebnisse

Salam [I8] raised a number of questions about my paper, and
these can be briefly summarized here. (1) Inadequate description of
sample. (2) Treatment of irrigated and unirrigated parts of a farm under
same management as separate subfarms is questionable. (3) What prices
have been used for farm products and byproducts consumed on the farm.
(4) Many heterogeneous inputs have been aggregated together. (5) How the
production expenditure presented in Table 3 has been estimated, and what
wage rates have been used in these calculations' (6) Data presented in
Table 2 and its interpretation are confusing and misleading. (7) The
explanation provided for the relatively lower use of purchased inputs on
share cropping farms (Table 5) is incorrect. (8) The estimation and
discussion of returns to scale is redundant. (9) Some of the explanatory
variables e.g. cropping intensity, number of fragments per farm, and
managerial ability have been omitted from the model. (10) Operational
size of farm is not an appropriate explanatory variable. (II) The effect
of farm size on relative economic efficiency has been overlooked. (I2)
Aggregation of gross value of output for multicrop farms is likely to
bias the results in an unknown direction, because crop composition may
not be uniform across farms, and (I3) Measurement of inputs in value
terms are affected by prevailing market imperfections.

This study shows that most share -croppers are small farmers.
There is some evidence that technical efficiency is lower on
share-cropping farms. There is significant allocative inefficiency on
both share-cropping and owner-operated farms, but neither group has
definite advantage in allocating every input. Above all, there does not
seem to be any inherent inefficiencies in the "voluntary sharecropping
system". Share-croppers make intensive use of labour, and in the absence
of gainful off-farm employment opportunities, share-cropping provides
them necessary supplementary income.

There is a pressing need to mobilise the wealth of knowledge from the international mycotoxin research conducted over the past 25-30 years, and to perform cutting-edge research where knowledge gaps still exist. This knowledge needs to be integrated into affordable and practical tools for farmers and food processors along the chain in order to reduce the risk of mycotoxin contamination of crops, feed and food. This is the mission of MyToolBox – a four-year project which has received funding from the European Commission. It mobilises a multi-actor partnership (academia, farmers, technology small and medium sized enterprises, food industry and policy stakeholders) to develop novel interventions aimed at achieving a significant reduction in crop losses due to mycotoxin contamination. Besides a field-to-fork approach, MyToolBox also considers safe use options of contaminated batches, such as the efficient production of biofuels. Compared to previous efforts of mycotoxin reduction strategies, the distinguishing feature of MyToolBox is to provide the recommended measures to the end users along the food and feed chain in a web-based MyToolBox platform (e-toolbox). The project focuses on small grain cereals, maize, peanuts and dried figs, applicable to agricultural conditions in the EU and China. Crop losses using existing practices are being compared with crop losses after novel pre-harvest interventions including investigation of genetic resistance to fungal infection, cultural control (e.g. minimum tillage or crop debris treatment), the use of novel biopesticides suitable for organic farming, competitive biocontrol treatment and development of novel modelling approaches to predict mycotoxin contamination. Research into post-harvest measures includes real-time monitoring during storage, innovative sorting of crops using vision-technology, novel milling technology and studying the effects of baking on mycotoxins at an industrial scale.