Eradicating hunger and malnutrition is a key development goal of the twenty first century. This paper addresses the problem of optimally identifying seed varieties to reliably increase crop yield within a risk-sensitive decision making framework. Specifically, a novel hierarchical machine learning mechanism for predicting crop yield (the yield of different seed varieties of the same crop) is introduced. This prediction mechanism is then integrated with a weather forecasting model and three different approaches for decision making under uncertainty to select seed varieties for planting so as to balance yield maximization and risk. The model was applied to the problem of soybean variety selection given in the 2016 Syngenta Crop Challenge. The prediction model achieved a median absolute error of 235 kg/ha and thus provides good estimates for input into the decision models. The decision models identified the selection of soybean varieties that appropriately balance yield and risk as a function of the farmer’s risk aversion level. More generally, the models can support farmers in decision making about which seed varieties to plant.
Widespread cultivation of oil palm trees has been both an economic boon and an environmental disaster for tropical developing-world countries. New research points to a more sustainable path forward through engagement with small-scale producers.
Nearly ubiquitous in products ranging from cookies to cosmetics, palm oil represents a bedeviling double-edged sword. Widespread cultivation of oil palm trees has been both an economic boon and an environmental disaster for tropical developing-world countries, contributing to large-scale habitat loss, among other impacts. New Stanford-led research points the way to a middle ground of sustainable development through engagement with an often overlooked segment of the supply chain (read related overview and research brief).
"The oil palm sector is working to achieve zero-deforestation supply chains in response to consumer-driven and regulatory pressures, but they won’t be successful until we find effective ways to include small-scale producers in sustainability strategies,” said Elsa Ordway, lead author of a Jan. 10 Nature Communications paper that examines the role of proliferating informal oil palm mills in African deforestation. Ordway, a postdoctoral fellow at The Harvard University Center for the Environment, did the research while a graduate student in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.
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An oil palm plantation in Cameroon (Image credit: Elsa Ordway)
Using remote sensing tools, Ordway and her colleagues mapped deforestation due to oil palm expansion in Southwest Cameroon, a top producing region in Africa’s third largest palm oil producing country (read about related Stanford research). Contrary to a widely publicized narrative of deforestation driven by industrial-scale expansion, the researchers found most oil palm expansion and associated deforestation occurred outside large, company-owned concessions, and that expansion and forest clearing by small-scale, non-industrial producers was more likely near low-yielding informal mills, scattered throughout the region. This is strong evidence that oil palm production gains in Cameroon are coming from extensification instead of intensification.
Possible solutions for reversing the extensification trend include improving crop and processing yields by using more high-yielding seed types, replanting old plantations, and upgrading and mechanizing milling technologies, among other approaches. To prevent intensification efforts from inciting further deforestation, they will need to be accompanied by complementary natural resource policies that include sustainability incentives for smallholders.
In Indonesia, where a large percentage of the world’s oil palm-related forest clearing has occurred, a similar focus on independent, smallholder producers could yield major benefits for both poverty alleviation and environmental conservation, according to a Jan. 4 Ambio study led by Rosamond Naylor, the William Wrigley Professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies(Naylor coauthored the Cameroon study led by Ordway).
Using field surveys and government data, Naylor and her colleagues analyzed the role of small producers in economic development and environmental damage through land clearing. Their research focused on how changes in legal instruments and government policies during the past two decades, including the abandonment of revenue-sharing agreements between district and central governments and conflicting land title authority among local, regional and central authorities, have fueled rapid oil palm growth and forest clearing in Indonesia.
They found that Indonesia’s shift toward decentralized governance since the end of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998 has simultaneously encouraged economic development through the expansion of smallholder oil palm producers (by far the fastest growing subsector of the industry since decentralization began), reduced rural poverty, and driven ecologically destructive practices such as oil palm encroachment into more than 80 percent of the country’s Tesso Nilo National Park.
A worker in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, loads palm fruit for transport to a factory that will process it into palm oil (Image credit: Joann de Zegher)
A worker in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, loads palm fruit for transport to a factory that will process it into palm oil (Image credit: Joann de Zegher)
Among other potential solutions, Naylor and her coauthors suggest Indonesia’s Village Law of 2014, which devolves authority over economic development to the local level, be re-drafted to enforce existing environmental laws explicitly. Widespread use of external facilitators could help local leaders design sustainable development strategies and allocate village funds more efficiently, according to the research. Also, economic incentives for sustainable development, such as an India program in which residents are paid to leave forests standing, could make a significant impact.
There is reason for hope in recent moves by Indonesia’s government, including support for initiatives that involve large oil palm companies working with smallholders to reduce fires and increase productivity; and the mapping of a national fire prevention plan that relies on financial incentives.
“In all of these efforts, smallholder producers operating within a decentralized form of governance provide both the greatest challenges and the largest opportunities for enhancing rural development while minimizing environmental degradation,” the researchers write.
Coauthors of “Decentralization and the environment: Assessing smallholder oil palm development in Indonesia” include Matthew Higgins, a research assistant at Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment; Ryan Edwards of Dartmouth College, and Walter Falcon, the Helen C. Farnsworth Professor of International Agricultural Policy, Emeritus, at Stanford.
Coauthors of “Oil palm expansion at the expense of forests in Southwest Cameroon associated with proliferation of informal mills” include Raymond Nkongho, a former fellow at Stanford’s Center for Food Security and the Environment; and Eric Lambin, the George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Walter Falcon, the Helen Farnsworth Professor of International Agricultural Policy in Economics (emeritus), writes from an unusual perspective. During the academic year he serves as a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. He spends the summers on his family farm near Marion, Iowa. He returns to campus each year with reflections on the challenges and rewards of faming life in his "Almanac Report." Falcon is former deputy director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment.
These field notes constitute my seventh summer report from our Iowa farm. As readers of prior postings may remember, my wife and I own a medium-sized farm in east-central Iowa that produces corn, soybeans, and beef from a cow-calf herd. We are fourth-generation custodians of these acres – a long-term family relationship that is typical for many Iowa farms. The atypical dimension of our operation is that I am also a Professor at Stanford University, where I have done research and taught courses on the world food economy for more than 40 years. This contrast in surroundings could not be more stark, which I hope generates field notes of interest to friends at both locations.
The title for this year’s edition is probably redundant. Farmers throughout the world ALWAYS talk about bad weather, low prices, and inept governments. That combination has certainly been front and center this year. The 8 a.m. gathering of farmers at our old Waubeek “restaurant” on the Wapsipinicon River continues to produce interchanges on the latest farm happenings, usually about who or what is to blame for distressed rural conditions.
Trump trade-wars, with farmers as casualties came up frequently in the conversations. There also seemed to be less banter this year and fewer new pick-up trucks.
There has been justifiable concern about the weather, since the 2018 crop year has been strange, even for Iowa. The year began very early, with corn tasseling by Independence Day – completely destroying the old maxim of knee-high by the Fourth of July. Many days of intense heat then occurred during the kernel-filling stage, prompting concerns about low test-weights for the projected harvest. Nevertheless, in late July, both corn and soybeans held prospects for record crops.
Then in August the rain gods became agitated. The local newspaper ran the headline “Rain, Rain, Rain – Heat, Humidity, Tornadoes & Floods.” We received 12 inches of rain in 10 days. Nearby creeks and rivers overflowed; soybeans got driven into the mud from the hard rains and the accompanying high winds; and we dodged a nearby tornado spinning away about four miles from us.
Wet conditions caused white mold and spurred “sudden death syndrome” in some soybean fields – the latter caused by a soil fungus that seems to thrive in damp conditions. Corn ears that had not “fallen” (going from their upright-pointed position on the stalk to the downward position that occurs with maturity) began to collect moisture, creating mildew and ear rot inside the husk. Corn having more than 4 percent damage is very difficult to sell without large price discounts, or to use as cattle feed.
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Credit: D. Hogan, example of damaged ear from our farm.
Farmers are also growing increasingly concerned about the added propane costs that will be incurred if corn must be dried before it can be sold. They worry as well that elevators and other shipping points will be “full” because of trade disruptions. Crops that had looked so promising on August 1looked more dubious on September 15.
There is a tendency always to generalize nationally from local conditions, but the prevailing neighborhood view is that the USDA has overestimated the harvest. These conditions have also created considerable discussion about climate change and extreme weather events. For farmers, the concerns are not about climate science, but are much more about risk, farm profitability, and upcoming conversations with bankers.
The weather uncertainty has been compounded by price and trade issues. Soybean prices plunged to a nine-year low, and in mid-September cash prices in rural Iowa markets were about $7.25 per bushel. That level was only about 70 percent of prices in 2013 – even without adjusting for inflation. The soybean supply chain is congested with large stocks in elevators, and uncertainty about the direction of flows is affecting cash prices. Will Midwestern beans go to Pacific ports for shipment to China, as has been the case in recent years, or will they go to Atlantic and Gulf ports for shipment to Europe, as Brazil and the U.S. (partially) exchange customers because of trade disruptions?
At the other end of the crop-price spectrum, hay and straw markets have gone crazy in the opposite direction. Supplies of both are in short supply, largely because of drought in the southern plains and floods in the northern Midwest.
Prices of hay for our cowherd were more than double that of last year, and we also paid dearly – $75 per 3’ x 3’ square bale – for straw that originated in North Dakota! More famers will bale corn stalks for use as bedding this year, but for reasons of nutrients, tilth, and erosion, we are reluctant to remove corn residues from our fields.
The livestock sector also poses a murky outlook for (the typically large) farmers who specialize in raising pigs and/or feeding cattle. Though helped by low feed prices, both the pork and beef sectors are plagued with large numbers of animals on feed, with uncertain exports to China, Mexico, and Europe, and with high prices for replacement animals.
Given the smallness of our cowherd – for us, a cheaper sport than golf – the economic consequences are not overly severe. Even so, we are looking at a great calf crop, the prize of which is “my” shorthorn steer calf shown below. “My” is used advisedly, since my wife would prefer that our herd be Angus, whereas my family’s tradition was with Shorthorns. I was in special trouble, therefore, when, during my Stanford absence, my wife and a neighbor had to pull this particular calf in the middle of the night in a driving rainstorm. As for the herd more generally, we have compromised. Half are Shorthorn and half are Angus, and this year my wife won the tiebreaker – our herd bull is mostly Angus. He is massive, fitting his name “Samson,” and he is both a pet and a pest. He is trained to lead, likes people, knows his name, and sometimes behaves like a kitten. Unfortunately, his well-intentioned shoulder nudges can send one sailing.
Credit: L. Harney: “Hogie” at two months.
Credit: L. Harney, “Hogie” at two months.
The implications of commodity prices on land prices are still uncertain as very little cropland is being offered for sale. But negotiations on cash rents are much more contentious this year. There is quite clear evidence that cash rents, many of which were in the $275-$300 per acre range only a couple of years ago, have come down by 20 percent.
This somewhat dismal rural outlook sets the scene for the upcoming midterm elections. Iowa voted for Trump in 2016, where he ran very strongly in rural areas. As an “outside-insider” (especially from California!) it has been especially challenging for me to read the current political attitudes of farmers. They do not talk politics very openly, so I first looked at what was happening at the Iowa State Fair.
Even without the obvious political overlay, the fair was spectacular. It attracted more than a million visitors – remarkable given that Iowa has only 3.1 million people in total. The traditional cow, sculpted in 600 pounds of butter, stood alongside a butter version of a “1919 Waterloo Boy,” a forerunner to John Deere tractors.
Then there was also the new culinary treat – pork belly with brown sugar on a stick. This specialty was complemented by a demonstration of foot-stomping wine making. Not surprisingly, I drew MUCH anti-California ire when I suggested that this process might actually improve the quality of Iowa wine. And of course there was superbull (3,030 pounds) and superboar (1,165 pounds)!
Credit: Iowa State Fair, butter sculpture of Jersey cow and1919 tractor.
What was most notable, at least to me, was the fair’s political overtone – “corn dogs with a side of politics” noted one local pundit. There was lots of campaigning for state-level offices, and also for the races for the U.S. House of Representatives. At the national level, one would have thought it was 2020. Presidential hopefuls showed up in large numbers. One candidate known by almost no one, John Delaney, had already visited all 99 Iowa counties – a “full Grassley,” named after Iowa’s long-term Senator who has made 38 annual visits to all 99 counties an integral part of his political strategy.
The question that I most hear from my liberal California friends concerns buyer’s remorse. Their assumption is that with tariffs, trade, turmoil, and Trump, farmers must be up in arms and ready to change their political allegiance. My conjecture is that many are not changing – at least not yet – and that the reasons are complicated.
Iowa’s population is now more than 90 percent white, with the farmer percentage even higher. Many farmers, and especially rural women, do not care for Trump or his shaky moral compass; however they are not resonating to Democratic minority messaging either. They like tax cuts, and especially the prospects of E15 ethanol that the president and secretary of agriculture have been dangling in front of them.
Soybean farmers might seem to have the most to complain about as a result of the Chinese imposition of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans as part of the ongoing trade war. Soybean exports to China through July 2018 were down more that 50 percent as compared to last year. On the other hand, the value of total soybean exports was off by only 8 percent as a consequence of substituting customers among U. S., Brazilian, and other exporters.
I also sense two other related points. First, farmers seem to be assuming (hoping?) that the trade war will be a matter of months not years. Second, many have not yet “priced” (hedged or sold for forward delivery) much of the current year’s soybean crop. In that sense, the tariff/trade impacts have yet to hit home. When they do, political views may change. Interestingly, the bulk of the soybean harvest will occur just a month before the mid-term elections.
Government policy is also at work. While all of the key farm organizations are on record as preferring trade to subsidies, farmers will certainly cash government checks! Under a supplemental program announced by the president (some would say cynically as an election-year “sweetener” for his wrong-headed tariff policy), soybean farmers with yields of 50 bushels per acre will receive a special bonus of about $40 per acre.
Finally, crop insurance serves as a safety net. More than 90 percent of Iowa soybean farmers purchase 80 percent, revenue-guaranteed insurance. This insurance contains key price and yield details, but basically, farmers are compensated for any gross-revenue losses – whether caused by yields or prices – of greater than 20 percent as compared to what they received in 2017.
Whatever one may think about farmer political preferences, the economics of their changing that support is much more complicated than first meets the eye. My conclusion is that Iowa will continue to be a fierce battleground state, and that neither Republicans nor Democrats can take Iowa for granted in either 2018 or 2020.
Iowa is not exactly a major tourist destination. With a few exceptions, like the state fair and the bike ride across Iowa (RAGBRAI) where 20,000 bicyclists (willingly!) ride 450 miles in the summer heat from the Missouri River on the west to the Mississippi River on the east, the common view is that not much happens here.
When my wife and I were growing up, “tourism” meant going for short Sunday drives. Mostly these trips were for the purpose of our fathers comparing the straightness of neighbors’ cornrows. And there were always “Sauerkraut Days” in the town of Lisbon, “Pickle Days” in Walker, plus all of the church-sponsored ice cream socials and dinners.
Then as now, however, Iowa is dotted with interesting historical communities, especially the Amish who settled in Iowa during the last half of the 19thcentury. We have restarted the short-drive tradition, and one of the more interesting visits was to Hopkington, an Amish community just to our north. The devout members of the community do not believe in motors or electricity, and the local scenes are very bucolic: large white houses, not electrified, for their typically large families; horse-drawn farming implements and horse-drawn buggies tied up in neat rows at the church; women in long skirts and bonnets and men with bib-overalls and wide brimmed hats; and wonderful baked goods, cheeses, quilts, and other specialties for sale at roadside stands.
Credit: R. Naylor, Amish buggy and roofers at work.
Horse sales are big events in these communities, with both draft and driving horses featured at auction. Truth in advertising seems to be the order of the day – though I confess some of the descriptions had me thinking of Washington, D. C. For example, an eight-year old draft horse –“pulls hard from either the right or left side”, and a three-year old gelding – “leads real well, but needs more time on the buggy.”
The Amish are struggling with the 21stcentury. Finding enough farmland, in keeping with their tradition of providing all sons with space to farm, is causing some of these communities to break apart. The correct type of schooling is also an issue. And adapting religious norms raises both questions and eyebrows.
It is interesting that a high percentage of all of the roofing of barns and other farm buildings in the entire region is done by Amish men. But how do they get to job sites? If it is too far to drive their horses, they now deem it acceptable to ride in autos with others, so long as they do not drive. A friend of ours is essentially the “Uber-driver” for the Amish roofers of Hopkington. It is interesting, in Iowa and the entire world, what happens when economics and religion clash.
For someone whose day job has been teaching risk analysis and the world food economy, being in Iowa during the summer of 2018 was like living in a 24/7 laboratory. I hope that this experience has given me both the inspiration and ammunition to keep ahead of a fresh batch of bright Stanford students, many of whom have never been on a farm. I will soon know – classes begin this week.
Companies' sustainable sourcing practices play an increasing role in addressing the social and environmental challenges in agricultural supply chains. Yet the approaches companies take to regulate their supply chains continue to evolve. I use the chocolate industry as a critical case to explore how and why companies have changed their approaches to sustainable cocoa sourcing over the last 20 years. Drawing on an analysis of 205 company documents, 95 newspaper articles and over 50 in‐depth interviews, I trace the evolution of chocolate manufacturers' sustainable sourcing practices from a focus on industry initiatives to a commitment to sustainability certification and now to companies increasingly moving toward own‐supply chain programs. These shifts can in part be explained by the evolving salience of different stakeholder groups over time. This study highlights the dynamic nature of sustainable sourcing practice adoption and suggests companies are building upon previous strategies to incorporate more stakeholder voices over time.
Large and regular seasonal price fluctuations in local grain markets appear to offer African farmers substantial inter-temporal arbitrage opportunities, but these opportunities remain largely unexploited: small-scale farmers are commonly observed to "sell low and buy high" rather than the reverse. In a field experiment in Kenya, we show that credit market imperfections limit farmers' abilities to move grain inter-temporally. Providing timely access to credit allows farmers to buy at lower prices and sell at higher prices, increasing farm revenues and generating a return on investment of 28%. To understand general equilibrium effects of these changes in behavior, we vary the density of loan offers across locations. We document significant effects of the credit intervention on seasonal price fluctuations in local grain markets, and show that these GE effects shape individual level profitability estimates. In contrast to existing experimental work, the results indicate a setting in which microcredit can improve firm profitability, and suggest that GE effects can substantially shape microcredit's effectiveness. In particular, failure to consider these GE effects could lead to underestimates of the social welfare benefits of microcredit interventions.
Pamela Ronald was a Visiting Professor at the Center on Food Security and the Environment in 2018 and remains an FSE affiliate. She is also a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and the Genome Center at UC Davis and serves as Director of Grass Genetics at the Joint Bioenergy Institute in Emeryville, California and Faculty Director of the UC Davis Institute for Food and Agricultural Literacy.
Ronald’s laboratory studies the genetic basis of resistance to disease and tolerance to stress in rice. Together with her collaborators, she has engineered rice for resistance to disease and tolerance to flooding, which seriously threaten rice crops in Asia and Africa. For example, Ronald and collaborators discovered the rice XA21 immune receptor and the rice Sub1A submergence tolerance transcription factor. In 2015, five million farmers planted Sub1 rice varieties developed by breeders at the International Rice Research Institute. In 1996, she established the Genetic Resources Recognition Fund, a mechanism to recognize intellectual property contributions from less developed countries.
Food retailers and manufacturers are increasingly committing to address agricultural sustainability issues in their supply chains. In place of using established eco-certifications, many companies define their own supply chain sustainability standards. Scholars remain divided on whether we should expect such company-led programs to affect change. We use a major food retailer as a critical case to evaluate the effectiveness of a company-led supply chain standard in improving environmental farm management practices. We find that the company-led standard increases the adoption of most environmental best management practices among the company's fruit, vegetable and flower growers in South Africa. This result is robust across two identification strategies: a panel analysis of over 950 farm audits and a cross-sectional matching analysis using original survey data. In-depth interviews suggest that the program's unique focus on capacity building through audit visits by highly trained staff, coupled with a close business relationship between the retailer and their growers help to explain the increased effectiveness of the program as compared to other private environmental standards. Contrary to the argument that company-led initiatives are mere window dressing, this study provides a critical example of the positive role private governance mechanisms can play in improving environmental farm management practices globally.
A critical question for agricultural production and food security is how water demand for staple crops will respond to climate and carbon dioxide (CO2) changes1, especially in light of the expected increases in extreme heat exposure2. To quantify the trade-offs between the effects of climate and CO2 on water demand, we use a ‘sink-strength’ model of demand3,4 which relies on the vapour-pressure deficit (VPD), incident radiation and the efficiencies of canopy-radiation use and canopy transpiration; the latter two are both dependent on CO2. This model is applied to a global data set of gridded monthly weather data over the cropping regions of maize, soybean, wheat and rice during the years 1948–2013. We find that this approach agrees well with Penman–Monteith potential evapotranspiration (PM) for the C3 crops of soybean, wheat and rice, where the competing CO2 effects largely cancel each other out, but that water demand in maize is significantly overstated by a demand measure that does not include CO2, such as the PM. We find the largest changes in wheat, for which water demand has increased since 1981 over 86% of the global cropping area and by 2.3–3.6 percentage points per decade in different regions.
Policies that promote biofuels in major agricultural economies raise important questions for food prices and food security at local to global scales. Global biofuel output rose from 38 billion liters to 131 billion liters between 2005 and 2015, boosting the demand for annual- and perennial-crop feedstocks such as maize, sugar, soy, rapeseed, and palm oil. Although ethanol volume was three times that of biodiesel in 2015, the share of biodiesel in total biofuel output rose from 10% to almost 25% over the course of the decade (EIA, n.d.; REN21, 2016). Biodiesel production increased 700% between 2005 and 2015 and is expected to rise by another 35% by 2025 (OECD/FAO, 2014). In this paper, we examine the linkages between biodiesel, oil crop, and energy markets, and ask: What are the food security implications of biodiesel policies in major agricultural economies? How do governments adjust biodiesel policies in response to international commodity prices, trade opportunities, and their changing economic and environmental priorities?
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Global Food Security
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Rosamond L. Naylor
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The rise in global biodiesel production: Implications for food security
A worker in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, loads palm fruit for transport to a factory that will process it into palm oil (Image credit: Joann de Zegher)
Credit: L. Harney: “Hogie” at two months.
