Ecuadorian banana farms should consider organic banana with low price risks in their land-use portfolios.

ABSTRACT: Organic farming is a more environmentally friendly form of land use than conventional agriculture. However, recent studies point out production tradeoffs that often prevent the adoption of such practices by farmers. Our study shows with the example of organic banana production in Ecuador that economic tradeoffs depend much on the approach of the analysis. We test, if organic banana should be included in economic land-use portfolios, which indicate how much of the land is provided for which type of land-use. We use time series data for productivity and prices over 30 years to compute the economic return (as annualized net present value) and its volatility (with standard deviation as risk measure) for eight crops to derive land-use portfolios for different levels of risk, which maximize econ

SUBMITTER: Castro LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4370856 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature