David Zilberman

Highlights and examines the growing convergence between the food and agricultural industries—the technological, environmental, and consumer-related drivers of this change, and the potential outcomes This is the first book of its kind to connect food and the food industry with agriculture, water resources, and water management in a detailed and thorough way. It brings together a small community of expert authors to address the future of the food industry, agriculture (both for plants and animals), and water—and its role in a world of increasing demands on resources. The book begins by highlighting the role of agriculture in today's food industry from a historical perspective—showing how it has grown over the years. It goes on to examine water management; new ways of plant breeding not only based on genetic modification pathways; and the attention between major crops (soy, corn, wheat) and so-called "orphan crops" (coffee, cocoa, tropical fruits). The book then turns towards the future of the food industry and analyzes major food trends, the new food, and "enough" food; discusses possible new business models for the future food industry; and analyzes the impact that the "internet of everything" will have on agriculture and the food industry. Finally, Megatrends in Food and Agriculture: Technology, Water Use and Nutrition offers scenarios about how agriculture, food, and the food industry might undergo some radical transformations. Assesses the evolution of food production and how we arrived at today's landscapeFocuses on key areas of change, driven by both innovation and challenges such as new technologies, the demand for better nutrition, and the management of dwindling resourcesHighlights the role of better-informed consumers who demand transparency and accountability from producersIs written by industry insiders and academic experts Megatrends in Food and Agriculture: Technology, Water Use and Nutrition is an important resource for food and agriculture industry professionals, including scientists and technicians as well as decision makers, in management, marketing, sales, and regulatory areas, as well as related NGOs.

Marketing for Economists and Life Scientists presents a new perspective on marketing, i.e., viewing it as a mechanism to reduce pre-purchase risks. Since products are designed, produced and marketed to pre-selected target markets, there are consumers whose preferences differ from that design and may find ex post that the product does not fit their needs. This long assumed heterogeneity among producers and consumers is viewed as the ground for uncertainty. Spanning over 18 years of research, Heiman and Zilberman focuses on marketing tools designed to reduce uncertainty and incorporates marketing thinking and principles into an economic framework. The mathematical detailing has been reduced to a minimum and the theoretic principles will be presented in the text. The book has been written for economists and life scientists to understand what marketing is and how it can be used to create demand and profit and market innovations.

This textbook is about modern agricultural economics and policy aimed at advanced degree students. Based on the lecture notes taught at the University of California, Berkeley, it presents a comprehensive perspective on agricultural policy, its evolution, challenges, and limitations. The first part of the book includes cutting-edge analytical analysis of production, technology, risk, environmental, and policy issues in agriculture. The second part of the book applies the analysis in areas of agricultural supply chain, food security, land conservation, pesticide use, and climate change. The book provides a multidisciplinary approach to analyse natural resources and environmental issues in agriculture, and introduces readers to the concepts of sustainability, biodiversity, bioeconomy, supply chain, and the role of agriculture and natural resources in addressing climate change. The book includes numerous applications as well as six problem sets with selected solutions.

This textbook is about modern agricultural economics and policy aimed at advanced degree students. Based on the lecture notes taught at the University of California, Berkeley, it presents a comprehensive perspective on agricultural policy, its evolution, challenges, and limitations. The first part of the book includes cutting-edge analytical analysis of production, technology, risk, environmental, and policy issues in agriculture. The second part of the book applies the analysis in areas of agricultural supply chain, food security, land conservation, pesticide use, and climate change. The book provides a multidisciplinary approach to analyse natural resources and environmental issues in agriculture, and introduces readers to the concepts of sustainability, biodiversity, bioeconomy, supply chain, and the role of agriculture and natural resources in addressing climate change. The book includes numerous applications as well as six problem sets with selected solutions.

Modern society is currently facing a cascade of environmental crises. Moving forward, it will be the job of current and future generations to develop sound and creative approaches to addressing them. This book attempts to provide insight into the ways in which society can confront modern agricultural, environmental, and resource challenges. In particular, it provides an economic lens with which to examine and confront these issues. The first part of the book introduces a general economic framework that can be used to analyze these issues. Subsequent chapters rely on this framework to introduce and explain specific concepts in agricultural, environmental, and resource economics, including (but not limited to) non-renewable and renewable resource management, pesticide use, and climate change. The book develops quantitative tools that the readership can use to analyze and better understand the complexities of these challenges. Each chapter includes specific applications, and an accompanying Appendix includes a longer list of practice problems that can be brought into courses as exercises. Resources are available to instructors who adopt this book. More details at www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/13304-sm

Modern society is currently facing a cascade of environmental crises. Moving forward, it will be the job of current and future generations to develop sound and creative approaches to addressing them. This book attempts to provide insight into the ways in which society can confront modern agricultural, environmental, and resource challenges. In particular, it provides an economic lens with which to examine and confront these issues. The first part of the book introduces a general economic framework that can be used to analyze these issues. Subsequent chapters rely on this framework to introduce and explain specific concepts in agricultural, environmental, and resource economics, including (but not limited to) non-renewable and renewable resource management, pesticide use, and climate change. The book develops quantitative tools that the readership can use to analyze and better understand the complexities of these challenges. Each chapter includes specific applications, and an accompanying Appendix includes a longer list of practice problems that can be brought into courses as exercises. Resources are available to instructors who adopt this book. More details at www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/13304-sm

Adoption of Innovations reviews the Bass model and its new generation extensions as well as the alternative approach – the threshold model, which analyzes an individual’s decision whether, and to what extent, to use a new technology given economic conditions. The authors show that the threshold model has a notable advantage in incorporating marketing tools that are targeted to and/or aim at reducing risk. This monograph describes the two models. It shows how they relate to each other, and then discusses how marketing tools, and in particular marketing tools that are designed to reduce risk, can be incorporated into each of the two models.

The success of Brazil in the large-scale production and use of fuel ethanol has been widely discussed and analyzed by other countries interested in adopting policies designed to encourage the use of biofuels. Within this context, certain questions arise: Could the Brazilian experience be replicated in other countries? What were the conditions that enabled the creation of the Brazilian Proálcool (National Ethanol Program and what lessons can be learned? To examine these issues, it is important to understand the functioning of the key, interconnected markets (those for sugarcane, sugar and ethanol), which, from their inception, were the objects of extensive government intervention until 1999. Two main conditions enabled the creation of Proálcool: robust production of sugarcane and sugar (tightly regulated by the government, which applied the numerous regulations then in place); and the military regime that was in place at the time, whose decision-making and enforcement powers were quite broad, facilitating the carrying out of the necessary actions, as well as making it easier to coordinate the activities of the various stakeholders and sectors involved. This book increases understanding of the functioning of the sugarcane supply chain in Brazil, not only during the phase of government intervention but also in recent years (in the free-market environment). The lessons, positive and negative, gleaned from the Brazilian experience can contribute to reflection on and the development of alternative modalities of biofuel production in other countries, making the book of interest to scholars and policy-makers concerned with biofuel and renewable resources as well as economic development.

The success of Brazil in the large-scale production and use of fuel ethanol has been widely discussed and analyzed by other countries interested in adopting policies designed to encourage the use of biofuels. Within this context, certain questions arise: Could the Brazilian experience be replicated in other countries? What were the conditions that enabled the creation of the Brazilian Proálcool (National Ethanol Program and what lessons can be learned? To examine these issues, it is important to understand the functioning of the key, interconnected markets (those for sugarcane, sugar and ethanol), which, from their inception, were the objects of extensive government intervention until 1999. Two main conditions enabled the creation of Proálcool: robust production of sugarcane and sugar (tightly regulated by the government, which applied the numerous regulations then in place); and the military regime that was in place at the time, whose decision-making and enforcement powers were quite broad, facilitating the carrying out of the necessary actions, as well as making it easier to coordinate the activities of the various stakeholders and sectors involved. This book increases understanding of the functioning of the sugarcane supply chain in Brazil, not only during the phase of government intervention but also in recent years (in the free-market environment). The lessons, positive and negative, gleaned from the Brazilian experience can contribute to reflection on and the development of alternative modalities of biofuel production in other countries, making the book of interest to scholars and policy-makers concerned with biofuel and renewable resources as well as economic development.

Environmental, Economic and Policy Aspects of Biofuels provides a timely summary of the current issues contributing to the policy debates on this emerging and important topic. The authors make several key conclusions: Biofuels are diverse and evolving. The next generation of biofuels has the potential to provide improved net benefits but requires significant technological breakthroughs. Greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits vary significantly across various types of biofuels and are dependent on market conditions and policy situation. While biofuel improves the welfare of gasoline consumers and food producers, it has a significant negative affect on food consumers, especially the poor. A diverse set of policies, which have been introduced or proposed, impact biofuels directly including subsidies, mandates, and regulation of carbon content of fuels. However, current policies do not provide incentives that align private and social welfare. Much of the impact assessments of biofuels thus far are ex-ante estimates based on either optimization or equilibrium models. There is a lack of ex-post econometric analysis of the marginal impact of biofuels and biofuel policies on the economy. And the structural relationships between agriculture, the energy sector, and the environment in the context of biofuels have hardly been studied. The biofuel policy debate is likely to be an ongoing one in the near future and Environmental, Economic and Policy Aspects of Biofuels should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding this diverse and growing literature.

The topics addressed in this book are of vital importance to the survival of humankind. Agricultural biodiversity, encompassing genetic diversity as well as human knowledge, is the base upon which agricultural production has been built, and protecting this resource is critical to ensuring the capacity of current and future generations to adapt to unforeseen challenges. Agricultural biodiversity underpins the productivity of all agricultural systems and is particularly important for poor and food-insecure farmers, who maintain highly diverse production systems in response to the marginal and risky production conditions they operate under. Understanding the importance of agricultural biodiversity in the livelihoods of the food insecure and enhancing its performance through the use of a variety of tools, including biotechnology, is a critically important issue in the world today, where over 800 million people have insufficient food to meet minimum needs. A strong theme that runs throughout the book is the importance of good public policy interventions to promote the provision of public goods associated with agricultural biodiversity conservation and directing biotechnology development to meet the needs of the poor. The book's primary innovation is that it describes the relationship between biotechnology and plant genetic diversity and puts these in the context of agricultural development. Both the conservation of plant genetic diversity and agricultural biotechnology have received extensive examination, but the linkages between the two have not, despite the apparently obvious relationship between the two.