74880 - Economics Of Livestock Production

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing students with knowledge of the economic system of animal productions. At the end of the course students are able to understand the market mechanisms for exchanging resources and products relevant for animal productions; to analyse the main common and national policies; to evaluate the dynamics linking production activities and environment; to plan and manage the activities of organizations (from input companies and primary production to processing and distribution enterprises) while considering the interrelationships between phases of the livestock value chains; to assess and manage the economic and policy implications that genetics, nutrition, animal welfare, food safety and security imply for businesses and the food systems; to define and implement business strategies and plans; to use accounting tools and indicators and analyse the economic and financial performances of relevant businesses.

Course contents

I. ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS AND ANIMAL PRODUCTION (30 h, 3 ECTS)

1. Welfare economics

• Efficiency and equity.
• Market failures.

2. Environmental Economics and animal production

• Environmental economics and the commons.
• Externalities: market and environment.
• Sustainable development.
• EU environmental strategies.
• EU agri-environmental policies.
• Environmental policies.
  

3. System and animal production

• Systemic approach.
• Information sources for the knowledge of data relating to the supply chain.
• The chain of typical products.
• The chain of organic products.
• The beef industry - milk.
• The beef industry - meat.
• The chain of swine industry.
• The chain of poultry industry.
• The chain of goats ed equines.

2. LIVESTOCK BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND ANIMAL HEALTH ECONOMICS (30 h, 3 ECTS)

Livestock Business Management

1. Business management and livestock farming.

2. Definitions, classification and legal forms of livestock farm businesses.

3. Aspects of business management: economic, finance, and asset management. The financial and economic balance of the firm.

4. The evaluation of the economic viability of companies: the financial statement. Reclassification and analysis of the balance sheet and the income statement. The balance sheet’s asset and liability items. The income statement’s income and expenditure items.

5. The evaluation of business efficiency: ratios on assets and income components.

6. Tools and techniques for the economic analysis of production: cost analysis, gross margin, partial budgets.

7. Analysis of investments' economic and financial feasibility: business plan, cash flow, discounting of economic values over time, and investment assessment criteria.

8. Risk and uncertainty in investment evaluations.

Animal Health Economics

1. The economic analysis of animal disease control: basic theoretical elements.

2. Private and public utility aspects of animal disease control.

3. Animal health in the human, animal and environmental interface: the One Health approach.

4. The economic analysis of zoonoses and the evaluation of interventions from a One Health perspective: cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis, cost-benefit analysis.

5. Uncertainty in the evaluation of One Health interventions: deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses.

Acquired competences: the student acquires basic notions of bookkeeping and budgeting of livestock farms, the tools for the evaluation of the farms’ economic and financial performance, the economic analysis of production and the evaluation of farm investments. The student masters the concept of One Health applied to the control of animal and zoonotic diseases, and assimilates basic notions on the economic evaluation of their impacts, related health interventions, and how considering uncertainty in the evaluation processes.

 

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

Giulio Zucchi, “Zooeconomia: Economia del Sistema delle Produzioni Animali”, Edizioni Avenue Media, ristampa 2006

Turner K., Pearce D., Bateman I., Economia ambientale, Il Mulino, Bologna 2003 (capp. 1, 2, 5, 10, 12 e 14).

Didactic material: https://virtuale.unibo.it (with further references and webography).

Teaching methods

Front loaded and active learning methodologies; group and individual exercises.

Assessment methods

Knowledge and skills will be evaluated through an oral exam (indicatively, 3 arguments in about 45 minutes).

Regular class attendance will offer the opportunity to alternatively take a written exam (4 arguments, 60 minutes).

Teaching tools

Laptop and beamer

Office hours

See the website of Marco Setti

See the website of Massimo Canali