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The fisheries sector is vital for food security but remains vulnerable to supply fluctuations and uncertain stock availability. This study develops a forecasting framework for buffer stock estimation by applying the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Fuzzy Time Series Markov-Chain (FTS-MC) approaches to historical data from Makassar City, Indonesia during 2021–2025. The ARIMA (2,1,0) model produced acceptable accuracy with a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 13.67%, whereas the FTS-MC method delivered superior outcomes with reduced errors (MAPE 10.91% and RMSE 246.94). These findings confirm the capability of FTS-MC in addressing volatility and uncertainty, offering more dependable projections of raw material reserves. The study provides practical implications for enhancing fisheries governance, stabilizing market distribution, and supporting strategic planning. Future research should incorporate broader datasets, real-time observations, and environmental parameters to refine predictive performance across varied contexts.

This study investigates the possible causal relationship between buffer stock operations in Ghanaian agriculture and the well-being of smallholder farmers in a developing world setting. We analyze the differences in the objective and subjective well-being of smallholder farmers who do or do not participate in a buffer stock price stabilization policy initiative, using self-reported assessments of 507 farmers. We adopt a two-stage least square instrumental variable estimation to account for possible endogeneity. Our results provide evidence that participation in buffer stock operations improves the objective and subjective well-being of smallholder farmers by 20% and 15%, respectively. Also, with estimated coefficient of 1.033, we find a significant and robust relationship between objective well-being and subjective well-being among smallholder farmers. This relationship implies that improving objective well-being enhances the subjective well-being of the farmers. We also find that the activities of intermediaries decrease both the objective and subjective well-being of farmers. This study demonstrates that economic, social, and environmental aspects of agricultural life could constitute priorities for public policy in improving well-being, given their strong correlation with the well-being of farmers. Based on the results of this study, we provide a better understanding, which may aid policy-makers, that public buffer stockholding operations policy is a viable tool for improving the well-being of smallholder farmers in a developing country.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to develop a joint production, maintenance and quality control strategy involving a periodic preventive maintenance policy.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed integrated policy is defined and modeled mathematically.FindingsThe paper focuses on finding simultaneously the optimal values of the preventive maintenance period, the buffer stock size, the sample size, the sampling interval and the control chart limits, such that the expected total cost per time unit is minimized.Practical implicationsThe paper attempts to integrate in a single model the three main aspects of any manufacturing system: production, maintenance and quality. The considered system consists of one machine subject to a degradation process that directly affects the quality of products. The process and product quality control is carried out using an “x-bar” control chart. In the proposed model, a preventive maintenance action is performed every α inspections of product quality in order to reduce the shift rate to the “out-of-control” state. A corrective maintenance action is undertaken once the control limits are exceeded. In order to palliate perturbations caused by the stopping of the machine to undergo maintenance actions, a buffer stock is built up to ensure the continuous supply of the subsequent machine. The main goal of this work is to develop a model that captures the underlying link between the preventive maintenance policy, the buffer stock size and the parameters of an “x-bar” control chart used to control the quality of the product. Numerical experiments and a study of the effects of the input parameters variation on the obtained results are performed.Originality/valueThe existing models that simultaneously consider maintenance, inventory and control charts consist of a condition-based maintenance (CBM) policy. Periodic preventive maintenance (PM) has not been considered in such models. The proposed integrated model is original, in that it links production through buffer stocks, quality through a control chart and maintenance through periodic preventive maintenance (different practical settings and modeling approach than when CBM is used). Hence, this paper addresses practical situations where, for economic or technical reasons, only systematic periodic preventive maintenance is possible.

This study investigates the impact of agricultural marketing program on smallholder investment behavior. The study is based on cross-sectional household data from a survey of 507 smallholder maize farmers from rural communities in Ghana. The study employed propensity score matching (PSM) to estimate the average treatment effect of the marketing program on farmers' investment behavior. The results show that smallholder farmers' participation in buffer stock marketing program is influenced positively by gender, transportation cost and access to extension service and negatively by marital status among others. Overall, the results show that the buffer stock marketing program has positive impacts on smallholder farmers' investment behavior of increasing input usage, farm expansion and yield smallholder farmers. However, the highest impact is on farm expansion. The results of the study reveal that the marketing program stimulates investment in farm size expansion more than in inputs usage. To derive the most impact from the program, a possible review of the program could look at strategy of focusing on the implementation of the program in rural areas rather than in peri-urban areas where land access is more constrained. This study contributes to a better understanding of f farmers' investment behavior of input usage and farm expansion. This knowledge could help policymakers and development organizations shape future interventions for increased uptake.

Purpose The debate to find a solution for domestic price support under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) has been a long one. The stance of India is critical to determine due to its large population. This paper aims to analyse the benefits or demerits of minimum price support and what approach could be adopted by India. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a mix of both analytical and theoretical research. The paper first provides a background on the issues related to public stockholding and further analyses some data at which India procures wheat and rice from the farmers and then compares it with retail market prices in India. Findings The paper finds that the difference in price between minimum price support and retail market prices in India for wheat and rice is minimal. Therefore, the concern that India might be taking advantage of the minimum price is uncalled for. India also needs to balance its own interests as well as abide by its WTO obligations. The paper finds that cooperation among countries or regional blocks might help to address the problem of food insecurity. Originality/value The paper portrays India’s stance with regard to WTO AOA as well as studies the Indian market for wheat and rice.

Buffer stock intervention is a hedging policy against income losses due to price fluctuations, primarily from farming activities, notably the production of cereals. This paper investigates the impact of buffer stock intervention on smallholder farmers' food security in Ghana. To this end, the motivation was to estimate the nutrient-content household dietary diversity index (NHDDI) based on a cross-sectional data set. We apply Coarsened Exact Matching, Weighted Least Squares, and Weighted Ordered Probit analysis as econometric methods. We find that marital status, gender, education, and income positively impact food security, while the household size and the number of children under five years old have a negative impact. We also find that income and education, which have a positive direct impact on food security, have a mitigating effect on the negative impact of children under five years. The most important finding is that participation in the buffer stock operations improves the household food security of participating smallholder farmers. NAFCO in its present form has positive effects on food security for participants, positive but smaller price effects for non-participating smallholder farmers, and negative effects for consumers at large. The latter effect could be reduced by implementing a buffer stock policy consisting of buying during the glut and selling when supply is tight.

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to develop a mathematical model for simultaneously determining the optimal period of preventive maintenance actions and the optimal size of buffer stock for a production unit that is owned by a lessor and leased to a lessee under a lease contract. Design/methodology/approach: A mathematical model is formulated and a numerical procedure is developed for finding the optimal period of preventive maintenance actions and the optimal size of buffer stock to minimize the total expected costs considering both a lessor and a lessee over a lease period. Findings: The proposed model gives better solutions than those where the maintenance cost to the lessor and the production inventory cost to the lessee are minimized separately. Originality/value: The joint determination of preventive maintenance and safety stock is a topic that has been extensively studied for decades. The majority of the models reported in the literature implicitly assume that the firm owns the production unit and maintenance actions are done in-house. However, equipment acquisition through leasing is a common practice nowadays. Normally, under a lease contract, the lessor who owns the equipment is responsible for maintenance services. This may lead to a conflict between the lessor and the lessee concerning the optimal choice of maintenance actions. To solve this conflict, we propose a joint determination of preventive maintenance and safety stock model for a production unit under a lease. The objective of our model is to simultaneously determine the optimal period of preventive maintenance actions that the lessor needs to perform and the optimal size of buffer stock the lessee needs to produce so that the total combined expected costs to both parties over the lease period are minimized

In recent years, central banks have increasingly turned to forward guidance as a central tool of monetary policy. Standard monetary models imply that far future forward guidance has huge effects on current outcomes, and these effects grow with the horizon of the forward guidance. We present a model in which the power of forward guidance is highly sensitive to the assumption of complete markets. When agents face uninsurable income risk and borrowing constraints, a precautionary savings effect tempers their responses to changes in future interest rates. As a consequence, forward guidance has substantially less power to stimulate the economy.

Laboratory and field studies of time preference find that discount rates are much greater in the short-run than in the long-run. Hyperbolic discount functions capture this property. This paper solves the decision problem of a hyperbolic consumer who faces stochastic income and a borrowing constraint. The paper uses the bounded variation calculus to derive the Hyperbolic Euler Relation, a natural generalization of the standard Exponential Euler Relation. The Hyperbolic Euler Relation implies that consumers act as if they have endogenous rates of time preference that rise and fall with the future marginal propensity to consume (e.g., discount rates that endogenously range from 5% to 41% for the example discussed in the paper).

Using new transaction data, I find considerable deviations from consumption smoothing in response to large, regular, predetermined, and salient payments from the Alaska Permanent Fund. On average, the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is 25% for nondurables and services within one quarter of the payments. The MPC is heterogeneous, monotonically increasing with income, and the average is largely driven by high-income households with substantial amounts of liquid assets, who have MPCs above 50%. The account-level data and the properties of the payments rule out most previous explanations of excess sensitivity, including buffer stock models and rational inattention. How big are these “mistakes?” Using a sufficient statistics approach, I show that the welfare loss from excess sensitivity depends on the MPC and the relative payment size as a fraction of income. Since the lump-sum payments do not depend on income, the two statistics are negatively correlated such that the welfare losses are similar across households and small (less than 0.1% of wealth), despite the large MPCs.