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Disease resistant crop varieties are important for both disease control and for reducing chemical pesticide use. However, there is often a trade-off between disease resistance and yield. While the European Union has banned the use of some pesticides in agriculture, large amounts are still applied to various crops, including wheat. Market-based instruments could motivate farmers to adopt more environmentally friendly production methods. In this study we aimed to explore farmers' adoption of resistant varieties in different wheat price scenarios and their willingness to forgo yield when cultivating more resistant varieties. We conducted face-to-face interviews with 192 farmers using a choice experiment. Results showed that farmers preferred traits of yield stability (fungal disease resistance, lodging resistance and drought tolerance) over yield. Preferences for traits varied with the production system; livestock production was negatively associated with the importance of yield; cultivated land area was positively associated with protein content. The market price scenario did not change preferences. We calculate that farmers are willing to forgo more yield by cultivating highly disease resistant varieties than they are likely to recuperate from reducing costs of pesticides. Overall, we conclude that farmers' choices are based more on a combination of the production system, drought experience, climate change belief and the potential impact of further regulations to reduce the use of chemical pesticides than on the expected wheat price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The empirical evidence that economies predominantly reliant on their natural resources are characterized by slower economic growth-the so-called Resource Curse (RC)-is in many ways confirmed by the case of Zambia. Haber and Menaldo (Am Polit Sci Rev 105(1):1-26, ) identify Zambia's extreme dependence on copper exports as one of the worldwide most striking examples for a country suffering from this 'curse.' In topical literature, the RC is traced back to the generation of natural resource rents regardless of economic performance, which among other problems leads to suboptimal reinvestment. The World Banks indicator for the 'weak' sustainable development of a country-the so-called Genuine Savings (GS)-considers exactly this reinvestment of rents from the depletion of natural capital rents into physical or human capital. Although it has been shown empirically that countries dependent on primary exports on average feature negative GS rates and that the determinants of the RC influence both present economic growth and future sustainability as measured by GS, no case studies have been conducted to confirm this. Against this background, we qualitatively survey the relationship between the most discussed determinants causing the RC in Zambia and the country's GS rate. We show that all theoretical relationships between the GS rates of a country and RC determinants such as consumption behavior, volatile world market prices, the so-called Dutch disease as well as political and institutional structures apply to Zambia between 1964 and 2010: an extreme dependency on copper exports and insufficient reinvestments of income from the depletion of Zambia's natural capital constitutes one of the main reasons for slow growth and negative GS until the copper price booms in the second half of the 2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many industries benefit from public biodiversity conservation through the use of genetic resources in R&D processes. The conservation of biodiversity, though, is an under-provided public good. The aim of this paper is to analyze a global mechanism as a policy tool to internalize the positive conservation externalities accruing to commercial users of genetic resources. The United Nations ‘Convention on Biological Diversity’ (CBD) and its ‘Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilisation’ provide a framework for such mechanism. In light of economic arguments in favor of a global mechanism, we study official CBD documents and an online discussion forum launched by the Convention’s Secretariat on a global multilateral mechanism, as well as conduct expert interviews with important political stakeholders on genetic resource trade. We find that the economically preferable instrument of a comprehensive global mechanism is politically not feasible any time soon due to path dependencies and an arguably narrow understanding of national sovereignty. Technological progress in genetic resource use, though, might finally induce countries to establish a confined one in the mid-term future. We provide substantiated findings on countries’ preferences for its scope and modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the relationships between the marginal abatement costs ( MAC) of greenhouse gas ( GHG) emissions on dairy farms and factors such as herd size, milk yield and available farm labour, on the one hand, and prices, GHG indicators and GHG reduction levels, on the other. A two-stage Heckman procedure is used to estimate these relationships from a systematically designed set of simulations with a highly detailed mixed integer bio-economic farm-level model. The resulting meta-models are then used to analyse how MAC vary across farm-level conditions and GHG measures. We find that simpler GHG indicators lead to significantly higher MAC, and that MAC strongly increase beyond a 1-5% emission reduction, depending on farm attributes and the chosen indicator. MAC decrease rapidly with increasing farm size, but the effect levels off beyond a herd size of 40 cows. As expected, the main factors driving gross margins per dairy cow also significantly influence mitigation costs. Our results indicate high variability of MAC on real life farms. In contrast to time consuming simulations with the complex mixed integer bio-economic programming model, the meta-models allow the distribution of MAC in a farm population to be efficiently derived and thus could be used to upscale to regional or sector level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The reform of the European Common Fisheries Policy ( CFP) in 2013 decides whether the European fisheries can be put on a sustainable course in the next 10 years. The CFP reform must halt overexploitation of fish resources and stop harm to the marine environment by fishing activities. The European Commission published a reform proposal just recently. This proposal is already an important first step in the right direction, but is under threat of being watered down by the Fisheries Council. Necessary improvements of the current CFP include among others a binding definition of a sustainable stock management, a discard ban for all fish species, transferable fishing concessions and a cessation of all aid for building new vessels. These modifications pave the way for placing micromanagement in the hands of regions and fisheries so as to foster self-responsibility among fishers and give greater consideration to regional circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is broad debate about including agriculture in greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction efforts such as the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Since most agricultural GHG emissions originate from non-point sources, they cannot be directly measured, and therefore have to be derived by calculation schemes (indicators). We designed five such GHG indicators for dairy farms and analyzed the trade-offs between their feasibility, measurement accuracy, and level of induced abatement costs. Analyses of induced abatement costs and calculation accuracy are based on emission reduction simulations with a highly-detailed single-farm optimization model. Feasibility is discussed in a qualitative manner. Our results indicate that the trade-offs depend on both farm characteristics and the targeted reduction level. In particular, the advantages of detailed indicators decrease for higher abatement levels. Only the least feasible indicator led to abatement costs that would result in emission efforts at given prices in the European Emissions Trading Scheme, although with a rather small potential. Our results thus suggest little potential for including dairy production into market-based reduction policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Renewable-Energy-Source-Act (EEG) promotes German biogas production in order to substitute fossil fuels, protect the environment and prevent climate change. In this paper we quantitatively analyse the EEG-reform in 2008. Results imply that the reform contributes to an expansion of biogas electricity generation and thus to substitution of fossil fuels. However, subsidies, land and transport emissions per unit of electricity produced increase. An alternative analysis shows that an EEG with tariffs independent from plant-types would provide the highest subsidy-efficiency, lower land requirements and higher transport emissions compared to EEG before its reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the strong relation between the factors that lead to the resource curse ( RC) and factors that lead to a decline of genuine savings ( GS). There is substantial empirical evidence that economies that rely predominantly on their natural resources are also characterized by slower economic growth. This so-called RC is commonly traced back to the fact that natural resources' generate rents that are independent of a country's economic performance, which can lead to suboptimal reinvestments of this consumed natural capital. We argue that the factors responsible for the RC also have a negative effect on GS, a concept that measures 'weak' sustainable development by considering reinvestment of natural capital rents in physical and human capital. We discuss whether the RC hampers possibilities for resource abundant countries to obtain sufficiently high rates of GS, and find indeed many reasons why resource-dependent countries have problems achieving positive GS rates. We survey both areas of research, emphasizing the influence of the exogenous and endogenous determinants of economic growth, which are usually used to theoretically and empirically explain the RC on the three different forms of capital considered by GS. We specify why most countries suffering from the RC have negative GS rates and explain in detail where the linkages are. This overview could help with potential advancements in the explanation of GS through the inclusion of RC effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses conservation payments to reindeer herders in Sweden for losses by carnivores. The payments are made for surviving offspring of wolverines, lynx, and wolves. According to the authors, the system works because payments are made based on conservation outcomes not numbers of livestock lost. They argue that this avoids moral issues and payments are made before there is damage so there is no delay. They state that payments are based on expected losses during the lifetime of the carnivore and the money is divided among the villagers in the area where the carnivore offspring are found.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to an article on the need of a common agricultural policy for European public goods by Valentin Zahrnt that was published in one of the previous issues.