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Purpose: China's agricultural production trusteeship is characterized by the organic link between household operation of small-scale peasant economy and agricultural socialized services, which releases agricultural development vitality and promotes agricultural modernization. As one of the agricultural production trusteeship modes, the whole process trusteeship is suitable for the actual situation of China's aging population and labor force transfer. This paper aims to construct an evolutionary game model containing multistakeholder to explore the behavior decisions through numerical simulation and to provide useful suggestions for the formation of a positive and stable trusteeship relationship and the sound development of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production. Design/methodology/approach: The paper incorporates village committees, service organizations and farmers into the same research framework, selects "guarantee + dividends" as the income distribution method and applies the evolutionary game method to analyze behavioral choices and evolutionary paths of stakeholders. By constructing the expectation function, establishing the replicator dynamic equations and analyzing the tripartite evolutionary stability strategy, the authors explore the factors that affect the stakeholders' strategy choice and determine asymptotically stable points and stability conditions. Findings: (1) There is a game relationship among village committees, farmers and service organizations in the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production, asymptotically stable points (0,0,1) and (1,1,1) are obtained through calculation. (2) The proportion of stakeholders' strategy choice, the weight of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production in the performance appraisal of the village committee, the village committee's supervision cost, the village committee's reputation effect and the penalty for false dividends of the service organization will affect the speed at which the curve representing the tripartite relationship approaches two asymptotically stable points. Research limitations/implications: The countermeasures proposed in the paper have excellent reference value. (1) For areas that have realized the project: Village committees can solve the trusteeship problems exposed in the initial areas and improve farmers' satisfaction with the project. (2) For areas that have not realized the project: Those regions will receive more experience references and enhance their confidence in this project. The limitation of the paper is that it takes the main grain-producing areas in only the three northeastern provinces of China as the research object. The next research object will be extended to the whole country. Practical implications: This paper propose strategies for realizing the orderly operation of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production: first, increase the proportion of stakeholders' strategy choices; second, reduce the village committee's supervision cost; third, increase the weight of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production in the performance appraisal of the village committee; fourth, improve the village committee's reputation effect; fifth, increase the penalty for false dividends of the service organization. Originality/value: Agricultural production trusteeship is in its initial stage in China. The interest relationships between stakeholders are not yet clear. The paper innovatively applies the evolutionary game method to the research field of the whole process trusteeship of agricultural production. According to conditions in China, based on ensuring the guaranteed income, the paper introduces the dividend income variable and establishes a tripartite game model of village committees, service organization and farmers. The paper provides suggestions for the orderly and healthy development of China's agricultural production trusteeship and provides experience for the operation of other modes of agricultural production trusteeship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution summarizes two research papers that examine the mechanisms of Russian agriculture subsidization considering the incentives of the key stakeholders involved. We first put Russian agricultural support in an international context, briefly comparing it with the EU's Common Agricultural Policy and other countries' support systems. Then, using a unique dataset from the Russian Ministry of Agriculture and drawing on the political economy literature, we map the incentives of regional and federal governments in the distribution of targeted subsidies among the Russian regions. Results suggest that similar to the US and the EU, the regional and federal levels of the Russian government not only seek to boost agricultural development but also see subsidies as a tool for pursuing political goals. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results and the corresponding policy options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the Canadian labor unions. Compared with its American counterpart, the Canadian labor movement has been remarkably successful. In 1965, both movements represented 30 percent of the nonagricultural work force in their respective countries. Canadian unions now represent 38 percent of the nonagricultural work force, while only 17 percent of Americans who are not farm workers belong to unions. During the 1970s and 1980s Canadian telecommunications, energy, chemical, paper and forestry workers all split from their American parents to create their own organizations.

Information about several papers discussed at a conference on the need for the development of agricultural and rural areas in China, which was conducted in Beijing on December 2005 is presented. The economy in the country can be developed in the right direction if problems relating to agriculture, rural areas and the farmers have been solved properly. The conference was attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice-Premier Huang Ju. INSET: OVERPOPULATION: A MAIN CAUSE OF RURAL POVERTY.

The author discusses a new study on how to alleviate world hunger. Televised images of starving children with distended bellies have brought the problem of global hunger home to people in rich countries. Sadly, however, the problem is far deeper than an immediate lack of food, as a new paper for the Copenhagen Consensus project points out. Jere Behrman of the University of Pennsylvania, Harold Alderman of the World Bank and John Hoddinott of the International Food Policy Research Institute have examined the extent of hunger and malnutrition and four concrete proposals to ameliorate it. Around a billion people, say the authors, are malnourished, and around a sixth of these are children. That is not only a deplorable human tragedy in its own right. It also leads to measurable economic losses--ie, further poverty. But what can be done to address hunger directly? The first course they examine is halting the ill effects of hunger at the earliest possible stage: in utero. Next, the authors investigate improving nutrition in young children. Third is a reduction of deficiencies in key "micronutrients", such as iodine, zinc, vitamin A and iron. The fourth course is to improve agricultural technology--for example, by using higher-yielding crops (which are often genetically modified) and controlling pests better. The authors see investments in technology as the most effective means of increasing the incomes of hungry people.