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This special issue contributes to the development economics literature by highlighting the role of information communication and technologies (ICTs) in supporting rural and agricultural development. It is comprised of nine papers. Key findings from this special issue include: (1) internet use increases rural consumption diversity and agricultural productivity; (2) smartphone use empowers rural women in household decision‐making and off‐farm work participation; (3) smartphone‐based agricultural extension services boost rural income growth; (4) a lack of ICT infrastructure and inadequate skills to use digital technologies are two key factors that lead to digital poverty traps for smallholder rural farmers; (5) ICT adoption increases the probability of rural households' access to credit and empowers rural women and farm households in relatively less developed regions to access credit; (6) digital financial inclusion reduces farmers' vulnerability to poverty; and (7) e‐commerce adoption increases both sales prices and marketing costs, but the magnitude of increasing the former is higher than the magnitude of increasing the latter, which finally contributes to a higher gross return. This special issue also proposes practical instruments and implications for advancing the application of ICTs in rural areas to accelerate rural and agricultural development in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents list of topics included in the previous issues from 1960 to 1990 of the journal "Socioligia Ruralis." The topics discussed are "Conflict of Norms and the Behaviour of Recipients of Social Welfare Assistance in Finland," "Participation in Community Services-a Cases Study of Health Service," "Comparative Analysis of Settlements," "Rural Social Organisation," "Changes in The Structure and Functions of the Rural Community," "Planning in Agricultural Regions," "Problems of Planning in Underdeveloped Areas," "Aspects of the Rural and Urban," "Rural Settlement in Great Britain," "Problems of Planning and the Rural Sociologist," "A Study of New Framers in Israel," "The Organization of Extension Evaluation," "Changing Functions of the Community," "Impact of Changes in Agriculture on Political Life in Asia," "The Role and Function of Rural Sociology in Asia," "The Role and Function of Rural Sociology," "Values in European Agricultural Policies," "The Effectiveness of German Pilot Farms," "The Rural-Urban Variable Reconsidered," "The Rural-Urban Continuum: A Reply to Eugen Lupri."

The article discusses about rural development in different social, economic and political contexts bringing together the analysis of European and Third World situations and tendencies. The article analyses the characteristics and outcomes of contrasting types of rural development policy. The analysis of policy issues requires that people take account policy content, administration means which concerns the organization of implementation and the social, economic, and political consequences of the policy, under different local conditions and as experienced by different social groups. There should be study of the differential responses to change and to programs of development shown by different social groups or classes of a rural population. The emphasis on differential responses is particularly important because it acts as a corrective to centralist views on development that interpret changes in the organization and activities of local populations simply as to externally initiated change and recognizes the heterogeneity of rural communities. A further issue concerns cultural and ideological dimensions. The exploration of these dimensions brings back to the importance of State policies that affect the rural sector.

The rapid development of rural e‐commerce in China has caught the attention of economists around the world. Through incorporating rural e‐commerce platform into the general equilibrium model, this paper theoretically analyzes the impacts of rural e‐commerce platform on industrial structure and the potential mechanisms. Then, taking the exogenous policy of Comprehensive Demonstration of National E‐commerce into Rural Areas in China as a quasi‐experiment, this paper constructs a staggered difference‐in‐differences model to empirically examine how rural e‐commerce platforms affect the output proportion of nonagricultural sector with samples of 2305 counties in China from 2009 to 2019. The findings indicate that the construction of rural e‐commerce platform promotes the transformation of industrial structure through technological advances and reduction of transaction costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Gang Canal region of Rajasthan, the cropping pattern changed from a labour intensive crop, cotton, to a mechanized crop, cluster beans. The shift in cropping pattern not only displaced workers from farm wage work but also brought changes in labour hiring contracts with large scale conversion of daily wage rate contracts to piece‐rate contracts. Drawing on a primary survey in a village from Gang Canal region, the paper examines the change in the agrarian relations in rural Rajasthan by analysing the emerging development in the rural labour relations. For piece‐rate work in farm wage work in some parts of Rajasthan, the wage rate is unilaterally decided by the landlords and large capitalist farmers and is denoted as the ‘village rate’. The manual workers have negligible bargaining power vis‐à‐vis the village rate. The conversion of daily wage rate contracts to piece‐rate contracts has enhanced the duration of working day that involves a rise in the rate of surplus value. Access and availability of low wage labour facilitates the accumulation of capital. With the limited availability of employment in the non‐farm sector (in both public and private sectors), workers are compelled to sell their labour power at wages that do not exceed the level of subsistence. The paper concludes with a brief examination of continuum of coercion and varied degree of unfreedom among worker in the village. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Geoparks are territorial landscape protection and promotion organisations with aims of geoheritage conservation, geo‐education, and sustainable regional development using geotourism products. Building on an analytical literature review, using the Scopus database, this paper shows that geopark studies remain solidly positioned in the domain of the geosciences and have objectified, expert‐based interpretations of landscape. This situation has resulted in a research gap concerning the role of communities, and their landscape values, in geoparks. The paper makes three claims that form a starting point for advancing our knowledge of geoparks: (1) (geo)heritage cannot be decoupled from people's activities and interpretations, (2) geoparks are not community‐free environments, and (3) increased attention to communities is needed to assess sustainable regional development in geoparks. In the final analysis, there is a need to move beyond the realm of the geosciences to advance our understanding of the societal value of geoparks, and of their sustainable development potential. Building on an analytical literature review, using the Scopus database, this paper identifies a research gap concerning the role of communities, and their landscape values, in geoparks. The paper makes three claims that form a starting point for advancing our knowledge of geoparks: (1) (geo)heritage cannot be decoupled from people's activities and interpretations, (2) geoparks are not community‐free environments, and (3) increased attention to communities is needed to assess sustainable regional development in geoparks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the context and the systemic experiential theories that have informed the praxis of educating agricultural systems practitioners. The praxis has involved a process of action research with students and with clients in farming and other rural community organizations. The praxis encourages learners to bring a range of methodologies of inquiry to bear upon problematic issues, contingent upon the nature of such issues. Informed by a number of different theories, and by reflecting on our own work, an earlier model of a nested hierarchy of systems of inquiry has been reconstructed to become a more useful guide to educational strategies: Each contingent methodology can now be seen to have its own learning, meta-learning, and epistemic learning dimensions. A key to enriched learning for responsible changes in agriculture and rural development lies in the facilitation of the consciousness of, and competency at, such a systemic pluralism of methodologies. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of research collaboration on scientific productivity has been widely investigated (Katz & Martin, [3]; Lee & Bozeman, [4]), and various sources of collaboration opportunities have been identified; the latter include spatial proximity, informal communication, and teacher-student relationships (Ponds, Van Oort, & Frenken, [5]). They share this experience at the Regional Economic Application Laboratory (REAL) of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the current Emeritus Director Prof Geoffrey J. D. Hewings. REAL has received over 500 scholars from more than 40 different countries, and the resulting worldwide network of scholars co-operate according to reciprocal research interests. [Extracted from the article]

As rural decline sweeps the world and draws public attention, it becomes necessary to consider the relationship between urbanization and rural development. The paper investigates this topic in China for the period 1989–2018. The research results find positive contribution of urbanization to rural economy in the research period but with a decreasing tendency. Compared to less developed areas, rural economy of developed regions has become less dependent on cities and can flourish in a larger context with the support of modern transportation and telecommunication technologies. However, those peripheral rural areas tend to face continuous and large‐scale rural–urban migration which has aggravated rural decline. Rural economic growth helps to decrease rural outmigration and people will stay in their hometown with available job opportunities to raise their families and maintain livelihood. The paper proposes balance‐friendly urbanization structure and diversified rural economy to improve rural resilience to meet the challenge of rural decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Urban & Regional Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The past four decades have witnessed unprecedented economic growth and rapidly rising food demand in China. This paper provides an introduction to readers with useful information summarising the development of China's agricultural sector and the transformation of its rural economy over the 40 years of economic reform. It is, however, impossible to cover all aspects of this recent and rich history in a single journal special issue. Nevertheless, we are of the view that these papers address the most fundamentally important and insightful topics including: land reform and rural development; technology progress and productivity growth; changing food consumption patterns; rural education and human capital accumulation; and poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on two conferences concerning anthropology. 'Rural-Urban Relations and Representations: Comparative Perspectives' held in London, England during April 26-28, 2000; ''Where Only Man Is Vile'--Congress on Cultures and Biodiversity,' held in Kunming, China during July 21-31, 2000.

The seminal work of the Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on pollinators, pollination, and food production, informed scientific studies on the understudied impacts of mining on agriculture sub‐sectors. This paper assesses the potential impacts of mining activities on beekeeping as an agricultural sub‐sector, and the flow‐on effects on associated economic values and enterprises to enhance sustainable development. A case study is conducted in the emerging northwest gold mining region of Ghana. The Location Quotient (LQ) and Location Association (La) models are used to explore the economic significance of beekeeping, its spatial links with tree habitats, and mining activities. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to analyze the spatial interactions between concessions, trees, and beekeeping. The paper finds that districts with LQ < 1 in beekeeping also record LQ > 1 in mining, and La < 50 between beekeeping and mining. The findings are useful for stakeholder decision‐making toward harnessing and leveraging the prospects of mining on integrated rural and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor infrastructure maintenance of basic services in developing countries undermine economic development and sustainability. The process of reactive maintenance on equipment are practiced in many rural projects, resulting in a range of challenges, including high cost, shorter life expectancy of equipment and inefficient use of project engagement time by project teams. This paper proposes the use of low data rate sensors for the monitoring of rural infrastructure to assist in the practice of preventive maintenance in rural projects. The paper argues and demonstrates the importance of on‐going operation and performance monitoring of infrastructure to implement preventive maintenance throughout the life cycle of rural infrastructure projects with the use of a case study—a remote village in rural South Africa. The implementation of preventive maintenance practices in rural projects show that project maintenance budgets can be utilized more efficiently when compared to traditional reactive maintenance. In addition to the reduction of maintenance cost, the implementation of preventive maintenance can lead to better life expectancy of equipment as well as safer operating and maintenance conditions for operators and maintenance teams. Findings reveal that the utilization of low data rate sensors for equipment operation and performance monitoring can support rural development as it assists preventive maintenance solutions, replacing reactive maintenance strategies. The paper further aims to assist project teams working in rural projects to improve support and maintenance of deployed infrastructure and equipment to improve the sustainability of these rural projects. The contribution of this paper is the demonstration of how the implementation of low bandwidth network technologies and sensors can be utilized for operation and performance monitoring in deep rural projects without incurring major costs to support the sustainability of these projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) New Zealand's engagement with regional and local development has been a rather modest undertaking reflected more in political pronouncement than in significant intervention and policy support on the scale which characterised post-war Britain and the European Union over recent decades (see Barca, McCann, & Rodgriguez-Pose, [1]; Pike, Rodriguez-Pose, & Tomaney, [10]; McNeill, [5]). The papers which follow in this special issue provide insight into the post-1980s experience of local and regional development in New Zealand (NZ), paying particular attention to the regions that is, the smaller towns, rural areas and administrative regions which make up non-metropolitan NZ. [Extracted from the article]

Agricultural research and development projects face structural barriers to the equitable participation of women. Applying an intersectional approach can facilitate women to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development within the existing patriarchal and colonial structures, ultimately challenging and subverting these structures. This paper argues that development initiatives must seek to understand the ways of being within specific localised projects, to tailor support and mitigate disadvantage. Through an exploration of two female‐led agroforestry projects in Vanuatu and Fiji, this paper demonstrates how centring the sovereignty of women over their own experience and livelihood aspirations can lead to familial, community and regional wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In global pattern reconstruction, ecological civilization construction and integrated urban–rural development in the new era as well as outlining a new framework for rural development and promoting efficient operation of the coordination mechanism for rural development are urgently required. This paper considers three northeastern provinces of China as an example, attempts to analyze the relationship between the subsystems of rural development, and examines the coupling coordination mechanism of population, land, and industry money in the four‐dimensional system. It explores the evolution path and defects of rural development in Northeast China under the background of transformation from a systematic perspective. We found that the coupling degree of "population‐land‐industry‐money" in rural Northeast China is high, while the coordination degree is low. The degree of spatial and temporal differentiation of the coupling coordination degree gradually increases, and the rural development of each province is highly unbalanced. The results also indicate that the main reasons for the low level of the coupling coordination degree are improved land development levels, a relative shortage of labor force, backward industrial development, and increasingly weak rural investment levels. Finally, this paper illustrates that the main solutions to rural revitalization are stimulating rural investment through policies and promoting the revival of agriculture, with financial support as the starting point, before establishing the linkage and mutual feed development of "population‐land‐industry‐money" in rural areas. The results will help countries, especially developing countries, to further consider methods toward achieving rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial system of rural residential areas is a key carrier to support the high‐quality development of rural residential areas. The effective identification of the space quality and its coordinated characteristics of rural residential areas are helpful to provide scientific basis for rural revitalization. From the perspective of space, the high‐quality development of rural residential area may be seen as a state of spatial coordination aiming at rural revitalization under the high‐level development of material space and social space. Taking Ningjin County of Shandong Province as the research area, this paper discusses the quality characteristics of rural residential areas in plains areas through representative case studies. For this purpose, the quality of material space and social space of these areas, and their coordinated development patterns, are obtained using the entropy weight TOPSIS, the mutual exclusivity matrix, and the coordinate quadrant method. Finally, the paper provides an identification of barriers by the obstacle degree diagnosis model and then proposes some quality improvement strategies for rural revitalization. The results show that: (a) The quality of material space and social space of rural residential areas in Ningjin County are medium and high. (b) The coordinated development patterns of material‐social space of rural residential areas in Ningjin County are characterized by medium‐quality‐led, low‐quality second‐class, high‐quality less. (c) The obstacle factors of high‐quality development of rural residential areas in Ningjin County are mainly reflected in the four dimensions of living space, production space, cultural space, and communication space. (d) Rural revitalization in Ningjin County can be achieved through the coordinated optimization of high‐quality development patterns, the focused improvement of medium‐quality development patterns, and the comprehensive consolidation of low‐quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agricultural sector is a cornerstone of social and economic life in the Western Balkan (WB) countries. However, it faces challenges of slow productivity growth, limited access to assets, and vulnerability to external shocks like climate change. Agricultural policies are crucial to enhance productivity, efficiency, and standards compliance in the European Union (EU) integration context. In this context, WB countries have been developing institutional frameworks while steadily increasing budgetary transfers to agriculture and rural development. The paper enables a comparative analysis of the agriculture and rural development support policy in Albania and North Macedonia with focus on main trends and reasons for potential shortcomings in relation to the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Efforts to enhance policy frameworks, institutional capacities, and agricultural productivity will be critical in achieving alignment and fulfilling the aspirations of EU accession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent papers have argued that spatial justice should be pursued through a place‐based approach, which enables local people to assert their own capacity to act and to pursue their own positive visions: an approach fundamental to LEADER. This paper considers the extent to which LEADER constitutes local action addressing spatial justice through a case study in England. Analysis of this case leads to questions about the extent to which apparent localism is constrained by 'government at a distance' and how this can affect the ability of LAGs to pursue spatial justice. It is suggested that LEADER displays a tension between network and hierarchy modes of governance, increasingly under control of hierarchy in this instance despite its origins as networked CLLD. The paper concludes that LEADER has potential to contribute to spatial justice – both distributive and procedural – but that this may be frustrated by the imposition of different priorities and controls at local or from higher levels. Further case studies will be required to investigate how widely this potential is realised or frustrated across Europe's varying national and local political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of climate change on the spatial distribution of agricultural production in Turkey between 2004 and 2019. Our findings show that climate change has a pervasive impact on agricultural development. The empirical results show that the average temperature is negatively associated with agricultural land use, grain, and legume production. Moreover, regional variability analyses reveal the nonmonotonic relationships between climatic factors and agricultural output. Climate change hurts agricultural production in northern and central regions the most. This finding points out the ineffectiveness of one‐size‐fits‐all‐type policies for mitigating the adverse effects of climate change in topography with sizeable spatial dissimilarities. Overall, our results suggest that climate change will significantly threaten the evolution of agricultural activities that are critical for regional development. In addition, findings show that spatial spillovers and heterogeneity will be crucial for designing climate change policies for rural and agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to control the growth of agricultural carbon emissions while developing tourism has become the primary issue that needs addressing in the development of rural China. This paper explores the impact of tourism on agricultural carbon emissions and further analyses the mediating effect of labor transfer in this relationship. The analysis is evaluated using provincial panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2007 to 2019 with a sequential regression model. The results show that tourism development increases agricultural carbon emissions, which is more pronounced in areas with advanced economies or higher education levels. Second, labor transfer to nonfarming industries suppresses the increase in agricultural carbon emissions caused by tourism. Finally, (i) the impact of tourism on labor transfer in less developed and less educated regions is limited, and (ii) there is the expectation of large‐scale use of agricultural machinery due to labor transfer in economically developed or highly educated areas. The heterogeneity test shows these two reasons lead to a mediating effect of labor transfer on agricultural carbon emissions in different regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart infrastructure is positioned as central to the liveability and viability of rural and regional towns in Australia. The Australian Government's Smart Cities Plan and Regional Connectivity Program includes Smart Investment in regional areas and the New South Wales Government has prioritised connectivity and telecommunications infrastructural development through the Regional Digital Connectivity program. And yet regional and rural communities are typically excluded from the evidence base for smart technologies and services. Local Aboriginal Land Councils are also important stakeholders in managing the digital processes associated with information and infrastructure moving across different Countries. This paper draws on data from the 'It just works!': Regional and rural consumer understandings of smart technologies in North West New South Wales project, including over 130 survey responses and interviews with shire councillors, land councillors, and consumers on smart development and Internet infrastructure in the region. In the areas surveyed, smart regional policy is variously emerging, non‐existent, or assembled from existing policy domains and regulation involving the Internet, telecommunications, regional development, First Nations, and local government. We argue that regional and rural understandings of growth and development are experienced through the infrastructuring processes of Internet quality, availability, and speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of big data, strategy is an indicator that determines business growth and directly guides the sustainable development of business. This paper aims to study the construction of the SWOT (S stands for strength, W stands for weakness, O stands for opportunity, and T stands for threat.) structure analysis model of e‐commerce tourism development strategy based on the experience of big data. Through empirical analysis, it explores the factors that affect the development strategy of e‐commerce business, and proposes practical measures and development directions. Based on big data theory, this paper uses SWOT analysis to analyze the e‐commerce development strategy of China's rural tourism cooperatives in detail, and uses the analytic hierarchy process to analyze the green development direction of e‐commerce tourism enterprises. The experimental results of this paper show that the order of enterprise development strategy selection in the context of big data for tourism electronics is: SO strategy, ST strategy, WO strategy and WT strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomass value chains for energy, fuels and bio‐based products involve complex, cross sector interactions between their upstream and downstream stages. Overarching policymaking to date has included the use of biomass to deliver sector specific aims (e.g. climate change, energy, etc.) however, this is mostly planned without adjusting support across the most challenging stages of biomass value chains and exploiting specific advantages related to their geographic settings (e.g. domestic feedstocks, local markets, etc.). Policies to date have, therefore, resulted in fragmented, suboptimal biomass use and debates for sustainability and resource efficiency. This opinion paper arose from the project Strategic Initiative for Resource Efficient Biomass Policies Funded by the EU Commission. It discusses the development of a dedicated Biomass Policy Framework which applies the principles of value chain analysis in policy design to enable the market uptake of sustainable, domestic, resource efficient biomass solutions. Firstly, it explains how to provide context by identifying value chains which can offer competitive advantages for biomass mobilization, market infrastructures, rural and economic development within their geographic setting. Then the work builds on the context and prioritized value chains and further rationalizes policy needs and aims within individual value chain stages. This is done by identifying policy‐related challenges and gaps that constrain sustainable and resource efficient deployment of the selected value chains. Also, it suggests policy interventions that will overcome challenges, resolve gaps and as a result mobilize local biomass and improve market uptake. Finally, it discusses the contrasting paradigms for biomass policy formation within single sector target setting and the value chain approach of the Biomass Policy Framework and uses the case of low carbon biomass heat to illustrate the strengths of the suggested approach. The paper concludes with remarks for the concept of biomass value chain analysis in policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper makes the case that justice scholarship cannot adequately account for the rural grievances that helped launch Trump to the presidency. This relative blind spot in the literature offers an opportunity for rural sociologists and rural studies scholars more generally to elevate their relevance in the academy and beyond. From late‐2012 to late‐2017, I traversed the state of Colorado interviewing and participating alongside non metro residents from its 24 "rural" and 23 "frontier" counties—the latter designation refers to those counties with a population density of six or fewer persons per square mile (the state has 64 counties in total). The argument is informed by 129 face‐to‐face interviews with residents from across these 47 counties. An additional 144 participant observation‐related conversations help further inform the argument. After explaining why rural grievances driving much of today's populism remains a problem for justice scholarship, I document injustices experienced among those interviewed, categorizing them along the three axes of distribution, recognition, and representation. I then offer tentative suggestions for building recognition and empathy between metro and non metro Coloradans. The paper concludes discussing its limitations and the next steps for future scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the right conditions, compounding socio‐political and economic change can dramatically alter government policy. From 2000, Western Australia, a resource‐rich jurisdiction, experienced significant change owing to a once‐in‐a‐generation resources boom, which forced a break with earlier development approaches. In 2008, regional interventionism returned to the State via the State Government's Royalties for Regions program. Departing from the neo‐liberal tradition, the program allocated 25 per cent of the State's royalty income to non‐metropolitan regions, over and above existing regional allocations, and its success remains disputed. While it is easy to question the program retrospectively, the socio‐economic and political circumstances from 2000 to 2008 reveal a "perfect storm" of conditions enabling the transition from neo‐liberalism to interventionism in regional development. This paper sets out to understand the multi‐faceted conditions that enabled the dramatic paradigm shift embodied by the program. To this end, it examines the State's rural–urban settlement dichotomy, its staples economy, and the policy context leading up to the program. Following that, the paper proposes a causal framework mapping out the factors driving and rationalising the program. These factors are then examined in detail and include perceived rural voter disenchantment, ineffectual regional development policy, the State's mining boom, inadequate regional development funding, the contrasting fortunes of two regions (illustrative of the impact of growth, and the lack thereof), and the political manoeuvring during the 2008 election. Finally, the paper concludes by considering how the conversion of these conditions resulted in the State's most significant regional policy redirection in decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Solomon Islands, women's groups play an important role in promoting socially inclusive development and women's empowerment. In this paper, we summarise the experiences of a 5‐year participatory action research partnership to enhance rural livelihood activities based on aquatic foods. The women's savings groups that participated in this research identified solar‐powered freezers as an innovation suitable to their skills and environment. The 12 freezers we used in our partnership to pilot this innovation had tangible benefits. More than 700 unique users accessed the freezers, 3900 kg of fish was stored and over USD6,000 was saved in total; however, accumulation of savings varied greatly between groups. The women's groups demonstrated that operating solar‐powered freezers can be financially viable, and the innovation integrated well with their livelihood activities. This conclusion provides an alternative to dominant development narratives, which tend to focus on building large‐scale infrastructure, and often exclude women. Existing marketing skills and cooperation were strengths on which the women built. Poor‐quality technology was the biggest impediment to success. Solving this basic problem should be a priority for any future cold‐storage initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the impact of a rural community‐driven development programme in Myanmar, which promoted village‐level microfinance for income generation. Utilizing a three‐round household survey consisting of 100 treatment and 50 comparison villages with approximately 8500 households per round, we employ difference‐in‐differences and two‐stage least squares estimations. Our analysis shows three key findings. First, the programme significantly increased access to microfinance, primarily for production. Second, formal and informal finance were substituted in part with village‐level microfinance. As a result, treated households were less likely to borrow money from formal banks or informal lenders such as their relatives, friends or neighbours. Third, the village‐level microfinance nudged rural households to harvest, yield and sell their products more, which led to increase in seasonal income. Our study suggests that microfinance targeted for productive investment can significantly improve income of rural households in developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As land is one of the most important production factors in rural areas, it is becoming an important challenge for rural revitalization strategy to realize land value and promote the socioeconomic development of villages through the collective action of self‐organized collective land use. Various studies have discussed the relationships among land governance, rural revitalization and self‐organization, but few studies have focused on village cadres' roles and village rules. This paper aims to establish an analytical framework to explore these two operating mechanisms of self‐organization in collective land use. Two villages in eastern China and one village in western China are selected as typical cases to demonstrate how collective land use is self‐organized by village cadres' roles and village rules. The results indicate that village cadres play roles in the entrepreneurial spirit and resource access capacity to promote village economic and social development. In the utilization of collective land for farmers to live in peace and work happily, the configuration of rules at the village level to regulate the behaviour of villagers is a qualification on demand and "see who can take part", cost sharing and benefit sharing, graduated sanction and supervision. The analysis in this article may provide an understanding of the mechanism driving the promotion and improvement of land self‐organization, which has important policy implications for China and other developing countries adopting this mode to promote regional economic development in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the announcement made by the publication entitled "Natural Resources Forum," a quarterly journal issued by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and published by Blackwell, urging interested parties to submit papers in the U.S. The publication calls interested parties to submit papers for a special series over the 2007-2009 period on themes to be considered by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development on its 16th and 17th sessions. Interested parties who wish to submit articles should follow the criteria set by the publication. Presented are the details of the deadline for submission of entries and the rules in writing the abstract.

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent research and policy advice by international development organizations have, by their own account, sought to reverse a prior neglect of conditions in agriculture and rural areas. In pursuit of this, they have developed a vision of dynamic but incremental development in rural areas, anchored in a smallholder‐based and economically diversified market economy. This vision, articulated in the World Bank's 2008 World Development Report and continuing to animate research and policy advice today, presents itself as a solution to persistent poverty in the world's least developed countries. This paper adopts a historical sociological lens to use the case of Japan, in the period from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the opening decades of the twentieth, to assess how realistic this vision is. This analysis shows that the lessons of Japan's experience are chastening for this vision of rural development. The mechanisms of growth in Japan were remarkably similar to those advertised by the World Bank's vision. However, its rural economic dynamism was based on deep socioeconomic inequalities and brought improved material conditions and greater economic security to agricultural households only with excruciating slowness, if at all. Rather than demonstrating the potential of incremental, market‐oriented rural development to offer a path towards widespread poverty reduction, Japan instead serves as a warning of this development model's limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural shrinking is an ongoing phenomenon in many parts of Europe. Against this backdrop neo‐endogenous rural development has been gaining support as a conceptual and policy approach which stress the combination of local and external actors, resources and forces for enhancing an integrated development of rural areas. Within this governance framework rural social enterprises have been stressed as potential key actors contributing to rural development. This paper explores, through 36 semi‐structured interviews with diverse stakeholders of two Irish community‐based rural social enterprises, the role of these organizations in contributing to a neo‐endogenous development. Our findings show how their mobilization of the social attachment of their members, their collective character and their delivery of tangible results have been key to develop collaborative dynamics with stakeholders from different sectors and situated at various spatial scales. Moreover, these organizations have accommodated global‐exogenous forces buffering their effects through locally‐focused solutions which address the needs of their rural communities, despite their incapacity to address the causes of these global‐exogenous trends. We conclude that rural community‐based social enterprises can play a relevant role in contributing to neo‐endogenous development, however, institutional frameworks that address the diversity of rural areas and that enhance balanced collaborations among different rural development stakeholders are a precondition to unlock their potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how social innovation can provide a range of ecosystem services to local people while supporting public policies and private sector initiatives in delivering successful and innovative food distribution channels. In the Mediterranean basin, the status of commercial fish stocks is critical. In this sense, small‐scale, low‐impact fishing is a way to sustainably utilise socially innovative practices in the use of natural assets and to provide support to rural livelihoods while having minimal impacts on the marine environment. We use an innovative evaluation method, based on the integration of qualitative information with quantitative indicators, to assess social innovation initiatives and their impacts. The use of the methodology is demonstrated on the example of the project A Box of Sea, Greece. The results obtained show that this social initiative provides a novel food consumption and distribution model aiming at making low impact fishing more economically viable, and therefore achieving a triple sustainability for the sector (environmental, social, and economic). We identify third sector social innovation schemes as key tools to develop novel distribution systems supporting local communities (providing employment, fostering new networks and collaborations across fishers), while improving governance practices of the current fishing sector by creating a fairer market that protects the marine environment. Our findings provide a foundation upon which future evaluations of similar projects can build and compare. Such comparisons are crucial in determining patterns related to the innovation transfer processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social innovations are grassroots processes aiming to achieve impacts beyond an individual level and towards a broader societal good. The environmental dimension of impacts refers to any direct change to the environment resulting from social innovation activities, products, or services, which are not addressed by pre‐existing systems. In this paper, we determine the role of social innovation in addressing environmental impacts by analyzing a database of social innovation examples in European and circum‐Mediterranean rural areas, compiled within the H2020 Project SIMRA. We conceptualize the overall aim of environmentally‐focused social innovation initiatives as furthering the sustainable development of their territories. To address the environmental impacts of initiatives in a structured way, we use the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) classification, to describe social innovation environmental impacts in relation to specific targets. We analyzed 238 initiatives from the SIMRA catalog and associated initiative websites to identify and classify their direct environmental impacts. Our results indicate that 68% of the cases have at least one direct environmental impact that aligns with a SDG target. The most common impacts are related to sustainable natural resource management (SDGs target 12.2), sustainable food production systems (2.4), and equal access to land (2.3). This SDG‐based classification proved to be a useful analytical tool for categorizing internationally policy‐relevant environmental impacts of social innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A call for papers for a special series on Africa, agriculture, desertification, drought, land and rural development is presented.

Large‐scale land acquisitions (LaSLAs) have been a common feature of neoliberal transformation in which state entities facilitate foreign investments; yet the related governance dynamics remain poorly understood. This paper combines policy analysis and interview data to investigate governance dynamics of LaSLAs and analyses competing authority and power relations among national actors mediating land access for the case of Zambia. Our findings show that corporate interests, donor and regional support drive LaSLAs, but national factors predominate. While possibilities for LaSLAs are created by state institutions, the state agencies seeking to administer land‐based resources also limit their potential through competing authority and agendas. The demand for land and water, accompanied by government and donor resources, heightens tensions among state entities over decision‐making and creation of new frontiers of resource control. By focusing on state and non‐state actors and their articulation in LaSLAs, our study shows that the top‐down nature of governance of land, labour and water resources is problematic for long‐term sustainable agriculture and rural development. The paper highlights the importance of state entities and their control, legal extensions and governance practices in relation to local subjects in delivering LaSLAs and facilitating the emergence of a more locally rooted agro‐vision for agriculture for sustainable and socially just rural development. This paper shows that whilst possibilities for large‐scale land acquisitions are created by state institutions, the state agencies seeking to administer land‐based resources also limit their potential through competing authority and agendas. The demand for land and water, accompanied by government and donor resources, heighten tensions among state entities over decision‐making and creation of new frontiers of resource control. By focusing on state and non‐state actors and their articulation in LaSLAs, our study shows that the top‐down nature of governance of land, labour and water resources is problematic for long‐term sustainable agriculture and rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, we leverage on a case study about the governance of groundwater and the hazard of land subsidence in Yunlin, Taiwan, to address the state's political strategies of producing 'hydro‐social territories'. Our goal is to examine how local agents and their knowledge of the socio‐technological system shape groundwater use, with particular attention on how that system has changed due to the governmentalized regulation of groundwater resources as a means to mitigate land subsidence. Drawing from the local agrarian development and its tube well irrigation networks that underlie the groundwater‐scape in this research, the paper demonstrates that the 'hydro‐social territory' itself is complicated, as local farmers who rely on groundwater are never fully controlled by the state, regardless of whether or not they use groundwater for agricultural cultivation or other purposes, yet at the same time, the intention of governmentalizing the local groundwater regime is concealed and has become more concrete with the introduction of new sciences and technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent strategies to address rural poverty and food insecurity in Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Delta emphasize the scope for market‐based and smallholder‐led agricultural development to catalyze broader positive change for rural populations. This paper challenges the appropriateness of this development model for the Ayeyarwady Delta. Assumptions of latent growth potential among an emerging smallholder capitalist agricultural class fundamentally misinterpret how farming is embedded within the Delta's regional economy. Using a long historical perspective informed by the food regimes approach, as well as household‐level data from a recently completed livelihoods survey in two townships, we reveal a contemporary situation in which medium‐sized and large landholders control most agricultural production. We argue that this is a path‐dependent legacy from how the Delta has been successively incorporated into the politics of food production and trade at global and national scales. These arrangements have left the Delta without a broad smallholder base, meaning that policies that prioritize smallholder‐led market development will not generate the type of pro‐poor outcomes required to address the Delta's pervasive rates of food insecurity and poverty. Instead, a rural development agenda for the Delta should focus on its actually existing social and economic dynamics that are a legacy of its history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disasters affect economic activities and welfare of small‐scale producers in developing countries, but may also offer opportunities to reinvest in productive asset, economic capital, and new technologies for future economic prospects. This paper investigates the impacts of a livelihood recovery project that provided access to finance and rehabilitated communal infrastructures in the coastal communities of Tamil Nadu, India which were severely affected by the 2004 tsunami. We replicate the project's eligibility criteria to build the counterfactual to identify control households based on the validation of secondary data and administrative records. Using data from a carefully designed primary survey, we estimate the impacts of providing access to finance and rehabilitating communal infrastructures on economic and livelihood outcomes. Results indicate positive and significant impacts on income, asset and food security. These impacts are mainly driven by improved access to finance provided and participation in groups. Findings highlight the importance of ensuring access to finance for sustainable economic recovery among small‐scale producers, particularly in the aftermath of natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In rural areas, social and economic differentiation profoundly impact rural development patterns, which, in return, impacts rural village social and economic structures and the land transfer decisions of rural households residing within the village. Research on agricultural land transfer has rarely been discussed under the lens of the differentiated socioeconomic structure of rural villages, as well as rural governance capacities. This paper contributes to the existing body of research on the determinants of rural land transfer by examining the role of village socioeconomic differentiation and rural governance based on a quantitative analysis of factors at different scales. The results show that: (1) compared with clan‐based unity structure, kinship‐based split structure and dispersed structure have a positive effect on household land out‐transfer and a negative effect on land in‐transfer. (2) The homogeneity of residents had a negative impact on out‐transfer, while the financial revenue of the village had significant positive influences on households' out‐transfer. (3) The higher the trust in cadres and the evaluation of the local government, the greater the tendency of households to transfer land in, but none of this effect is significant. (4) The socialized agricultural services and the share of non‐farm have significant effects on land transfer. Moreover, households with better geographical conditions, such as those near the county capital and towns, are more likely to transfer their land out. These findings offer significant insights for the management of agricultural scale and the revitalization of rural areas in China, while also offering valuable ideas for the implementation of differentiated agricultural control and rural governance policies in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the institutional root of China's rural industrialization to a historical policy, which paired factories in urban areas with people's communes in the countryside during the Send‐Down Movement in the 1970s. The policy, initially intended to improve the lives of sent‐down youth (SDY), is believed to have provided some initial impetus for industrial development in rural areas before the marketization reform that began in the late 1970s. Based on a manually collected county‐level panel dataset of Zhejiang Province, we find that following the implementation of the pairing policy in 1974, counties that received a higher concentration of SDY, relative to their rural population, achieved faster growth in per capita industrial output of commune enterprises. Our results are consistent with various historical accounts. In addition, our tentative evidence shows that the pairing policy had a prolonged effect on rural economic development, lasting into the 1980s. Overall, our findings reveal the importance of some pre‐reform institutions in shaping China's unique paths towards industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agrotourism in Vietnam has been identified as one of the strategies used to achieve green growth and countryside modernisation, and it is often included as part of the national and local agenda. In this paper, we examine agrotourism in a village in the periphery of Hội An city (an international tourism hub in central Vietnam) to question tourism's interaction with ongoing development processes. More specifically, we aim to understand the impact of fast peri‐urbanisation on agrotourism and the impacts of agrotourism on people's daily lives, specifically when it comes to physical changes in their living environment, tensions in their social life and their concerns about the future. Our analysis is supported with data generated from interviews with farmers, local officials, tourism workers and tourists. We find that agrotourism products lacked authenticity and farming was not of great interest for tourists, yet the state's investment in the village tended to favour spaces and infrastructure that could attract more tourists and generate profit, to the detriment of cultural infrastructure. Land speculation and an unequal distribution of income were the main tensions in the village along with farmers' concerns about their rural heritage, income diversification and environmental quality. As such, agrotourism in the village has been driven by rapid urbanisation and mass tourism, creating a competition between a consumption activity and a productive activity. Those are important parameters that future policymakers need to take into consideration in order to sustain the city's food production and tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the relationship between city size and rural intergenerational mobility using prefecture‐level data in China. We find that intergenerational mobility in rural areas is positively related to urban population of the affiliated cities. This correlation is partially driven by better coverage of secondary and university education for the rural young who reside close to large cities. Moreover, our further investigation shows that the return to high school education is less dependent on parent incomes around larger cities for rural young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban expansion and the demand for sustainable regional economic development make rural land a resource base for spatial regeneration, transformation, and upgrading. From the perspective of land development rights, this paper analyzes the rural spatial transformation mechanism and rural governance logic in Fenghe village, Guangzhou. The results show that: (1) Fenghe village has experienced three stages of rural forming development, "hollowing" and space transformation. The subject of land development rights has shifted from rural collectives and villagers to external capital enterprises. Rural development pathways and land‐use patterns have changed from single to diversified. The space presents trends of community, commercialization and modernization. (2) Changes in the subjects of land development rights have caused the diversification and transformation of rural space. Homesteads, idle agricultural land, industrial formats, and infrastructure have gradually become standardized, market‐oriented, diversified, agglomerated, and systemized. With the diversification, complexity and consumerization of rural living groups, social relations, subject connections and rural spaces tend to be modern development models. (3) The reconstruction of rural space contains the logic of capital games and negotiated governance. Urban capital reaches a benefit balance between rural collective and villagers, obtains the right to rural land development, and forms multi‐subject collaborative governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]