Recent pollinator declines highlight the importance of evaluating economic risk of agricultural systems heavily dependent on rented honey bees or native pollinators. Our study analyzed variability of native bees and honey bees, and the risks these pose to profitability of Maine's wild blueberry industry. We used cross-sectional data from organic, low-, medium-, and high-input wild blueberry producers in 1993, 1997-1998, 2005-2007, and from 2011 to 2015 (n = 162 fields). Data included native and honey bee densities (count/m2/min) and honey bee stocking densities (hives/ha). Blueberry fruit set, yield, and honey bee hive stocking density models were estimated. Fruit set is impacted about 1.6 times more by native bees than honey bees on a per bee basis. Fruit set significantly explained blueberry yield. Honey bee stocking density in fields predicted honey bee foraging densities. These three models were used in enterprise budgets for all four systems from on-farm surveys of 23 conventional and 12 organic producers (2012-2013). These budgets formed the basis of Monte Carlo simulations of production and profit. Stochastic dominance of net farm income (NFI) cumulative distribution functions revealed that if organic yields are high enough (2,345 kg/ha), organic systems are economically preferable to conventional systems. However, if organic yields are lower (724 kg/ha), it is riskier with higher variability of crop yield and NFI. Although medium-input systems are stochastically dominant with lower NFI variability compared with other conventional systems, the high-input system breaks even with the low-input system if honey bee hive rental prices triple in the future.

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Les consommateurs sont de plus en plus soucieux du bien-être animal. Plusieurs régions, incluant laCalifornie et l'Europe, interdissent l'élevage de poules dans des systèmes de cages traditionnelles. Au Québec, ce type de cage sera graduellementéliminé, les producteurs ayant collectivement décidé que les nouvelles constructions serontéquipées de cages enrichies ou de système alternatif. Puisqu'un système de cages enrichies implique des coûts additionnels pour les producteurs, il est important de vérifier la réceptivité des consommateurs pour les oeufs produits dans ce type de système de logement. Les données d'une expérienceà choix discret sont analysées, notamment par segment de consommateurs. Les résultats indiquent une valeur positive pour le système enrichi, mais les différentes composantes du système de cages enrichies sont valorisées différemment selon les segments de consommateurs. Toutefois, l'espace supplémentaire, la possibilité de bains de poussières et le coussin de grattage sont peu ou pas valorisés, et ce, pour l'ensemble des segments de consommateurs.

The objective of this paper is to gauge to what extent there are regional differences in meat and fish demand across Canada. Three regions are defined for this purpose and the notorious problem of zeros in survey data is addressed by endogenizing the probability of purchase through the Shonkwiler and Yen approach applied to a QUAIDS demand system for each region. Probabilities of purchase and marginal effects are computed and compared as well as price and expenditure elasticities. The empirical distributions of the elasticities are simulated through bootstrapping. This allows us to formally test the null hypothesis of no regional differences between elasticities for central, western and Atlantic Canada and the null hypothesis of weak separability of fish from meats. While some significant regional differences were uncovered that can be exploited by food retailers, other findings were robust across regions. For example, the demand for fish tends to be more price and expenditure inelastic than the demand for meats. [EconLit citations: D120, C150, L660]. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 22: 175-199, 2006.