During the last two decades an increasing amount of large-scale farming operations have emerged all over the world. These agro-businesses go under the name of mega farms or agro-holdings: horizontally or vertically integrated operations with farm sizes of up to 500,000 hectares and sometimes even more. However these types of farms are not only found in crop farming, but also in animal husbandry.
Although some information on agro-holdings and other forms of mega-farming operations is available, a systematic analysis of their prevalence, economic performance as well as their social and environmental implications in an international perspective is missing. The purpose of this pre-conference workshop is to bring together a number of experts working on the different aspects of agro-holdings in various parts of the world to exchange their insights into the driving forces behind the proliferation of agro-holdings, their operations and effects.
Program (version 20-8-2015)
8:45 | Opening / Welcome Alfons Balmann - Download presentation
9:00 – 10:00 | Session 1
- Multi-type large-scale farming operations in China
Zuhui Huang & Shaoshen Jin - Download abstract and presentation - Capital Structures For Large-Scale Agriculture: Perspectives from Australia
Bradley Plunkett - Download abstract and presentation
10:00-10:30 | BREAK
10:30 – 12:30 | Session 2
- Investment in Land Development: An Overlooked Dimension of the Land Grab Discourse on Frontier Agriculture
Derek Byerlee, Will Masters and Daniel Robinson - Download abstract and presentation - Do Agroholding Members Perform Better than Independent Farms? Evidence from the Belgorod Oblast, Orjon and Tatarstan
Ekaterina Gataulina, Heinrich Hockmann and Anton Strokov - Download abstract and presentation - Labor supervision in agro-holdings: Insights from post-socialist agriculture
Martin Petrick - Download abstract and presentation - Agro-holdings and Mega-farming: The evolution of farm networks in Argentina
Sebastián I. Senesi, M. Daziano, Fabio R. Chaddad, H. Palau - Download abstract and presentation
12:30 – 14:00 | LUNCH
14:00 – 15:30 | Session 3
- Productivity and Profitability developments in Ukraine: Agroholding versus independent enterprises
Igor Ostapchuk, Alfons Balmann, Jarmila Curtiss - Download abstract and presentation - Strategic Role of Corporate Reputation: Transparency and Shareholder Value in Agroholdings
Taras Gagalyuk and Alfons Balmann - Download presentation - Swedish Black Earth: The trials and tribulations of the publicly listed,
investor-led, Western farming model in Russia and Ukraine
Brian Kuns, Oane Visser and Anders Wästfelt - Download abstract and presentation
15:30 – 16:00 | BREAK
16:00 – 17:00 | WRAP UP: RESEARCH CHALLENGES AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
29th International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE)
Pre-conference workshop:
“Agro-holdings and other types of mega-farming operations in developed and emerging economies”
8 August 2015
Milan, Italy
