IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aare10/59090.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Managing Complexity in Modern Farming

Author

Listed:
  • Kingwell, Ross S.

Abstract

Modern farming in Australia is no longer simple. Farms are large, multi-enterprise businesses underpinned by expensive capital investments, changing production technologies, volatile markets and pervasive regulation. The complexity of modern broadacre farming leads to the question: what is the nature of the relationship between farm business complexity and farm profitability? This study uses bioeconomic farm modelling and employs eight measures of complexity to examine the profitability and complexity of a wide range of broadacre farming systems in Australia. Rank order correlations between farm profitability and each measure of complexity show inconsistent relationships, although the most profitable farming systems are found to be reasonably complex on several criteria. Among the set of highly profitable systems are found some characterised by less complexity. Using the farmer’s annual hours worked as a measure of complexity that affects current farm management, the trade-off between profit and this measure of complexity is found not to be large. A case is outlined where the farmer’s annual hours worked could be reduced by 9 percent for a 3 percent reduction in farm profit. If farmers’ workloads are proving problematic now and in the future, then agricultural R&D, service delivery and policy development will need to focus much more on being highly attractive to time-poor farm managers.

Suggested Citation

  • Kingwell, Ross S., 2010. "Managing Complexity in Modern Farming," 2010 Conference (54th), February 10-12, 2010, Adelaide, Australia 59090, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:aare10:59090
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.59090
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/59090/files/Kingwell_%20Ross.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.59090?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chavas, Jean-Paul, 2008. "On the economics of agricultural production," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(4), pages 1-16.
    2. Unknown, 2005. "Trends in Australian Agriculture," Commission Research Papers 31903, Productivity Commission.
    3. Productivity Commission, 2005. "Trends in Australian Agriculture," Research Papers 0502, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia.
    4. Ketelaar-de Lauwere, Carolien & Enting, Ina & Vermeulen, Peter & Verhaar, Kees, 2002. "Modern Agricultural Entrepreneurship," 13th Congress, Wageningen, The Netherlands, July 7-12, 2002 6970, International Farm Management Association.
    5. Kingwell, R., 2002. "Sheep animal welfare in a low rainfall Mediterranean environment: a profitable investment?," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 221-240, November.
    6. O'Connell, Michael & Young, John & Kingwell, Ross, 2006. "The economic value of saltland pastures in a mixed farming system in Western Australia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 371-389, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kingwell, Ross S., 2011. "Managing complexity in modern farming," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 55(01), pages 1-23.
    2. Yu Sheng & Shiji Zhao & Katarina Nossal & Dandan Zhang, 2015. "Productivity and farm size in Australian agriculture: reinvestigating the returns to scale," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 59(1), pages 16-38, January.
    3. Sheng, Yu & Zhao, Shiji & Nossal, Katarina & Zhang, Dandan, 2015. "Productivity and farm size in Australian agriculture: reinvestigating the returns to scale," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 59(01), January.
    4. Fleming, Euan M., 2007. "Use of the single factoral terms of trade to analyse agricultural production," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 51(2), pages 1-7.
    5. Nazrul Islam & Vilaphonh Xayavong & Ross Kingwell, 2014. "Broadacre farm productivity and profitability in south-western Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 58(2), pages 147-170, April.
    6. McFarlane, Jim A. & Blackwell, Boyd D. & Mounter, Stuart W. & Grant, Bligh J., 2016. "From agriculture to mining: The changing economic base of a rural economy and implications for development," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 56-65.
    7. Atifa Asghari & Yuriy Kuleshov & Andrew B. Watkins & Jessica Bhardwaj & Isabella Aitkenhead, 2021. "Improving drought resilience in Northern Murray-Darling Basin farming communities: Is forecast-based financing suitable?," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 109(1), pages 1221-1245, October.
    8. Kym Anderson & Peter Lloyd & Donald Maclaren, 2007. "Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Australia Since World War II," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(263), pages 461-482, December.
    9. Kopke, Emma & Young, John & Kingwell, Ross, 2008. "The relative profitability and environmental impacts of different sheep systems in a Mediterranean environment," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 96(1-3), pages 85-94, March.
    10. Nick Wills-Johnson, 2007. "Regulating Railways in Logistics Chains," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 14(1), pages 51-68.
    11. Mugera, Amin W., 2012. "Sustained Competitive Advantage in Agribusiness: Applying the Resource-Based Theory to Human Resources," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 15(4), pages 1-22, November.
    12. Finlayson, John & Real, Daniel & Nordblom, Tom & Revell, Clinton & Ewing, Mike & Kingwell, Ross, 2012. "Farm level assessments of a novel drought tolerant forage: Tedera (Bituminaria bituminosa C.H. Stirt var. albomarginata)," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 38-47.
    13. Stewart, Fraser & Kragt, Marit & Gibson, Fiona, 2015. "Farmers’ perceptions of foreign investment in Western Australian broadacre agriculture," Working Papers 198540, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    14. Kingwell, Ross S., 2006. "Climate change in Australia: agricultural impacts and adaptation," Australasian Agribusiness Review, University of Melbourne, Department of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 14.
    15. Mullen, John & Keogh, Mick, 2013. "The Future Productivity and Competitiveness Challenge for Australian Agriculture," 2013 Conference (57th), February 5-8, 2013, Sydney, Australia 152170, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    16. Bathgate, A. & Revell, C. & Kingwell, R., 2009. "Identifying the value of pasture improvement using wholefarm modelling," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 102(1-3), pages 48-57, October.
    17. Randall, Alan, 2008. "Is Australia on a sustainability path? Interpreting the clues," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 52(01), pages 1-19.
    18. Matthew Gray & Monica Howlett & Boyd Hunter, 2014. "Labour market outcomes for Indigenous Australians," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 25(3), pages 497-517, September.
    19. Anderson, Kym & Lattimore, Ralph G. & Lloyd, Peter J. & MacLaren, Donald, 2007. "Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Australia and New Zealand," 2007 Conference (51st), February 13-16, 2007, Queenstown, New Zealand 10407, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    20. Kingwell, Ross S. & Metcalf, Tess, 2009. "Low Emission Farming Systems: A whole-farm analysis of the potential impacts of greenhouse policy," 2009 Conference (53rd), February 11-13, 2009, Cairns, Australia 48162, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Farm Management;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aare10:59090. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaresea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.