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Agricultural Economics - Lecture
Agricultural Economics - Lecture
1INTRODUCTION
● Farming activities
● Food processing.
● Integration of these activities gives rise to a set of products and services that are passed
on until they reach the consumer.
3 Definition
● It helps people to decide what kind of food and how much of each should be
produced in order to supply the needs of a country.
● It also aids decisions about which crops are most profitable for the farmer to
grow.
4 Definition
● Combines the inputs of labour, capital, services and natural resources to yield
farm products.
● Organises the production, distribution, consumption and investment of the farm
products and resources.
6 Agricultural Economics Concerns
● Assumption is that:
o The objective of any farm manager is that of maximizing profits
o Reality:Individual farmers have unique goals.
o One farmer might be more interested in obtaining ownership of the
largest farm in the area.
o Another might have as his/her goal that of owning the best set of farm
machinery.
o Still another might be interested in minimizing his/her debt load.
● The goals and objectives of a farm manager are closely intertwined with a
person’s psychological makeup, and the goals selected by a particular person
may have very little to do with profit maximization.
● Farm manager faces an array of options with regard to what to produce given
available land, labour, machinery and equipment.
● Choices to be made include:
o What to produce
o How much to produce
o How to allocate available resource to competing uses
● Other constraints
10 Resource Allocation
Economic production models assume that the farm manager knows with certainty the
● Farmers may know the prices of they must pay for fuel, fertilizer and seed at the
time they purchase these inputs. However they are almost never aware at the
beginning of the production season the prices that will prevail when outputs are
sold.
● Help producers produce the goods that the consumer wants to buy, in quantities
that fit the demand and at the time the goods are required.
● Help producers allocate restricted resources among competing uses
● Help producers decide on the best use of each resource to bring the highest
return.
● Help producers answer the basic questions in organizing the production such as
o Which inputs to use
o What quantity of different inputs to use
o Which technology to use e.g. in controlling downy mildew what
combination of resources and technology will minimize crop losses for
the least possible cost?
● You could:Choose a resistant variety or cultivars
● Since resources are limited in every economy, when more of them are used to
produce certain goods and services, fewer resources are left to produce other
goods and services.
● Help producers choose the technique (technology) that results in the least cost
possible (in terms of resources used) to produce each unit of a good or service
that the society wants.
● Help producers organize the production process through the price mechanism.
The price of an input normally represents its relative scarcity. If the price of an
input increases in relation to the price of other inputs used in the production
process of a commodity, producers will switch to a technique that uses less of
the more expensive input in order to minimize their cost of production.
● Dictate that the best technique to use in the production process is the one that
results in the least cost of production.
● If fuel prices increase, then minimum tillage could be used
● If greenhouse labor prices increase, then the farmer could decide to use
automated watering technology
● The opposite occurs when the relative price of an input decreases
20 Importance Of Agriculture
21 Importance Of Agriculture
● Serves as a large consumer market for industrial products such as plastic shoes and
boots, buckets, fertilisers, pesticides, agricultural tools and machinery, building and
construction materials, bicycles, trucks, lorries, tractors, boats and many others.
22 Importance Of Agriculture
● Provision of raw materials for the Industries. The ratio of agricultural raw
materials to non-agricultural raw materials used in industries is 4:1.