Next-Generation Agricultural Technologies: Assessing Market and Policy Implications

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-282-8_12How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Technologies; Social Impacts; Farm Revenues; Elastic Demand

Abstract

The historical impact of newer technologies in agriculture has been to increase the supply of food and fiber by increasing output per unit of input. Increases in market supply of food and fiber, net of demand changes, result in lower prices. Generally, this has been good for society in terms of meeting the social need for affordable nutrition and shelter for a growing population. However, lower food and fiber prices may not necessarily be good for farmers because they may result in lower farm incomes. Profitable and viable farms are required for the sustainable use of natural resources. This implies that a new technology may enhance farm productivity, enhance resource conservation but result in lower farm incomes. Such social impacts need to continue to be studied as newer technologies become available. Understanding the market impacts of such technologies is necessary to design food and fiber policies that will ensure that all components of the sustainable use of resources is addressed from both social and economic perspectives. We use market theory to assess the potential impacts of newer technologies on selected farm products. We use changes in supply that could potentially result from newer technologies to estimate the changes in the prices and farm revenues of selected agricultural products. We conclude that newer technologies will reduce the incomes of farmers who produce products that have inelastic demand and increase the incomes of farmers who produce products that have elastic demand.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Godfrey Ejimakor
AU  - Bivian Ejimakor
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/11/22
TI  - Next-Generation Agricultural Technologies: Assessing Market and Policy Implications
BT  - Proceedings of the National Conference on Next-Generation Sustainable Technologies for Small-Scale Producers (NGST 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 97
EP  - 104
SN  - 2468-5747
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-282-8_12
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-282-8_12
ID  - Ejimakor2023
ER  -