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This paper empirically analyses the promotional effect of preferential fiscal and tax policies on the performance of agricultural enterprises in the straw power generation industry chain through the small- and medium-sized enterprises in the straw gasification cogeneration project industry chain. It has a positive effect. This paper discusses the implementation of agricultural enterprises straw power generation project industry chain, the situation of pollution reduction and efficiency improvement of agricultural enterprises, and the positive effects of fiscal and tax preferential policies on promoting agricultural enterprises straw power generation project industry chain. It points out that it is highly important to promote agricultural enterprises straw power generation project industry chain in China and implement fiscal and tax preferential policies for corresponding projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture has a hugely important role to play in meeting many of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Ensuring the economic resilience of farms and improving their capacity to respond to a wide range of challenges is key if agriculture is to contribute positively to achieving SDGs and sustainable growth. This paper aims to calculate the economic vulnerability and resilience of agriculture in England and Wales (UK), by analysing individual farm business data and using it to compute an aggregated agricultural resilience index at regional level across the two countries. The results of our analysis are visualised as maps, showing the geographical distribution of the input indicators and the final composite resilience index. We argue that this type of spatio-economic approach is useful for understanding the geography of agricultural resilience at sub-national levels, which could be valuable for helping to inform decisions and formulate strategies for promoting sustainable agriculture.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is based on a study that sought to understand the nature of the interaction between small-scale farmers and government in the Eastern Cape from a variety of different perspectives. The study involved a sample survey of farmers, and in-depth interviews with farmers, extension officers and other government staff, and leaders of farmer associations. This particular paper explores two themes that emerged in the course of the larger study: first, what is popularly known in South Africa and elsewhere as the "culture of dependency and entitlement", and second, the forms of support that government chooses to offer to small-scale farmers. The paper argues that government is stuck in a vicious cycle whereby it seeks to placate expectant small-scale farmers with material support, which it can most effectively do via problematic group projects; although generally ineffective, the practice has the effect of maintaining widespread demand for such support, even to the point that small-scale farmers form group projects for the sole purpose of attracting it. In seeking to compensate for the weaknesses of this approach, government has sought to introduce compensatory measures such as "strategic partnerships", sometimes with the ironic consequence that small-scale farmers no longer play a role in farming in "their" agricultural projects. The paper concludes that the government in the Eastern Cape needs to return to the basics of effective extension support aimed at supporting individual farmers; to the extent material support is still needed, it should no longer be given away for free. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 15 years the term 'restructuring' has been used by scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explain the economic and social changes experienced within Australia and other Western nations. While these analyses have been productive in accounting for restructuring in terms of the historical structural relations between fractions of capital and the state, this paper argues for an understanding of the more subtle ways through which programmes of economic reform are assembled at the state level. Using the Foucauldian-inspired literature on governmentality, the paper draws attention - through a historical analysis of the emergence in Australian political discourse of formal managerial skills - to the specific rationalities and technologies of governing that enable particular forms of 'restructuring' to be constituted and assembled into a programmatic form. The emergence of farm business management, as a means of improving agricultural productivity, is conceptualized as embedded within a series of problematizations of governing. These problematizations sought to constitute the national economy as in a state of crisis, and previous forms of governing as failing to enhance the capacities of farmers to compete internationally. On this basis, the managerial capacities of farmers emerged as the proper sites through which to pursue 'reform'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing recognition that regional growth outside major urban centres should not – indeed cannot – be marginalized or ignored. In Europe, especially, important work now considers the growing role and importance of small and medium-sized cities in terms of spatial flows and networks and alternative pathways to economic growth than the city-centric, mega-urban approach. However, despite their prominence in economy geography, there is little mention of global production networks in this debate; and there has been much less focus on national contexts that lie beyond the traditional Euro-American heartlands of neoliberal capitalism. In the paper we address this issue by analysing the province of Korat in the north-east Thailand, revealing how Korat was unprepared for an influx of new firms; however, we note the untapped potential of peripheral regions to contribute to ameliorating regional inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper emphasises the impact of the ongoing liberalisation of agricultural policies and trade in agricultural commodities on spatial price transmission in agricultural markets. Based on a literature review covering a broad range of topics, the article derives four main conclusions. First, more market-oriented agricultural policies and trade liberalization improve horizontal price transmission in global agricultural markets. Second, in the integrated agricultural markets, some regions tend to lead the price discovery process, which is determined mainly by their role in international trade. Third, with the growing integration of agricultural markets, the significance of local factors such as seasonality is diminishing. Fourth, as markets become more integrated, spontaneous public interventions aimed at the stabilisation of domestic prices are less effective. These findings may help market participants at all stages of the food supply chain to better understand how policy deregulation and trade liberalisation affect price setting in agricultural markets and, consequently, enable them to adjust to these changes more effectively. Furthermore, the paper provides policy implications, as it distinguishes the institutional factors determining the degree of price transmission in agricultural markets and emphasises the decreasing effectiveness of domestic agricultural and trade policies as globalisation in agricultural markets continues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop diversification is a predominantly important coping mechanism for income, production and marketing risks in agriculture. This paper examines the determinants of crop diversification and their gross margins. The study drew a sample of 72 smallholder farmers' through a multistage sampling technique. The primary data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive, gross margin, and logistic regression. Gross margin results revealed a significantly higher value of revenues for diversified cropping systems of farming (KES.54, 583.33) compared to non-diversified (KES.37, 250). The factors that influenced crop diversification were age, education of household head, type of crops, cropping system, amount of credit, and irrigation facilities. Based on our findings, the study suggests the need for the Government to promote the development of agricultural policy that supports the shift from non-diversification to crop diversification through developing guaranteed access to inputs and subsidies on farming input resources with priority given to smallholder farmers. Incorporation of both short and long duration crops. Strengthening of extension services with more training services focusing on cropping systems, viable crop enterprises, return from the different types of crops, needs and access to credit and irrigation facilities, and linking farmers to the market through farmers' group formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the purpose of mapping land capability by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) criteria, this paper presents a validated model to map land capability at a scale of 1:20,000 using a digital elevation model and the available soil information for Hermel District (525.6 km2) in Lebanon. The model was validated through fieldwork and it indicates a good overall accuracy of 89% and the significance of the model for mapping land capability at a district level. The study shows that 11.5 km2 (2.2%), 284.6 km2 (54.2%), 66.8 km2 (12.7%), 147.9 km2 (28.1%) and 14.9 km2 (2.8%) of the region were categorized in I, II, III, IV, and V land classes respectively. The comparison between the zoning map already produced for Hermel city and the land capability map demonstrates that the land use patterns need to be modified according to identified land capability classes to sustain the remaining productive lands for future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Diversification has been identified as a common response to the agricultural crisis of the 1980s and to the changing ethos of agricultural policy in the closing decade of the twentieth century. In particular, farmers operating large-scale farms have been prominent in adopting this approach, just as they were innovative across a range of farming practices in the expansion and modernisation of their agricultural production in earlier decades. Can we identify serial diversifiers within this sector of the farming community, who are disposed to react in an entrepreneurial fashion to the changing fortunes of agriculture? The paper draws on results from a survey of large-scale commercial farmers in South East England and, by examining the sequence in which various forms of diversification were adopted, identifies a temporal pattern as farmers responded to the fluctuating fortunes of the agricultural industry over the past thirty years. But has the potential for diversification been exhausted? The paper also considers future prospects for diversification within the large-scale, commercially oriented sector of the agricultural industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the state and agriculture at the subnational sphere; an area currently receiving little attention in the South African agricultural economics fraternity. It is argued that South Africa's Constitution bestows certain decision-making and legislative powers on its nine provinces and that public goods and redistributive policy options are available to the agricultural sector. As about two-thirds of South African agricultural expenditure (83% if conditional grants are included) takes place at provincial level, it was shown that provincial dynamics are relevant. While the characteristics of tribal populations in provinces are found to be important, a poor alignment between provincial agricultural expenditure and certain elements of consequence (employment, value addition, etc.) can be shown. The paper also deconstructs the commonly used terms “state” and “agriculture” at a provincial level and dwell on the concept of the rational civil servant. In the case of the state, the challenge of moving beyond institutionalised silos is discussed. It is shown that agriculture consists out a multitude of actors, that representation often overlap and that similarities with a “tragedy of the commons” can be observed in the way some of the actors maximise personal gains. To understand the system non-traditional schools of thought such as “social economic systems” and “bounded rationality” may provide answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing substitution of dry land pastoral and arable farming for water-intensive practices is placing pressure on water resources in Canterbury. Although there is a large body of scientific data documenting environmental change, there is a general lack of information on the economic values of agricultural impacts on rivers and streams. This paper applies an economic non-market valuation method to help address this issue. Three impacts are considered: health risks of pathogens from animal waste; ecological effects of excess nutrients; and low-flow impacts of irrigation. This study provides a valuation of outcomes for public agri-environmental policy implemented in Canterbury such as The Dairy and Clean Streams Accord, Living Streams and The Restorative Programme for Lowland Streams. Modelling results indicate that the 5-year economic value for improvements to rivers and streams in Canterbury provided by agri-environmental policy is estimated to be about $186 million. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a wide range of techniques that can be used for evaluating environmental impacts of agriculture, but they have not previously been used to identify the contribution individual farming activities make towards environmental outcomes or for prioritising activities to ensure maximum benefits. This paper reports a novel technique for identifying how different activities influence environmental outcomes. The methodology is based upon traditional EIA techniques. Knowledge is collated from documented evidence and structured within a database such that the causal processes by which different activities influence outcomes can be identified. Cause and effect chains are created and each link is weighted according to the strength of the relationship between the two components. The entire cause-effect chain assumes the weighting of the weakest link. This is used to identify the strengths and weakness of individual practices or groups of activities. This paper explains the process using examples from agricultural production and policy in the UK and Europe for illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the experience of market-led agrarian reform (mlar) implementation in Brazil. In doing so, it will also analyse the complexity of the Brazilian agrarian situation, the political struggles around the fight for land and the complexity of political forces involved in the contestation. The article examines the origins, implementation process and outcomes of mlar. The paper also examines the current impasse in resolving the agrarian question in the country especially those related to the strengthening of land property rights at the same time that there are increasing demands for land by social movements, putting into broader context the current political and operational difficulties being encountered by mlar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a survey of municipal commonage users, which was undertaken in Philippolis in the southern Free State, in May 2005. The survey showed that a significant number of commonage users are committed to their farming enterprises, as shown by five proxy indicators: Their readiness to plough their income into their farming enterprises; their sale of livestock; their desire for more land, and their willingness to pay rental to secure such land; their desire to farm on their own; and their desire to own their own land. The paper reflects on the significance of commonage in the context of the South African government's land reform policy, and argues that commonage can transcend survivalist or subsistence production, and can be used as a "stepping stone" for emergent farmers to access their own land parcels. Finally, the paper argues that, if commonage is to become a key part in a "step-up" strategy of land reform, then appropriately sized land parcels should be made available for commonage users, to enable them to "exit" from commonage use and invest in smallholdings or small farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was designed to quantitatively investigate the economy-wide impact of land reform policies in Zimbabwe. Land reforms came with the realm of independence in Zimbabwe. Four models were used to implement the reform policies. The paper uses the updated 1991 Social Accounting Matrix for Zimbabwe and the Central Statistics Office's household data on resettled families in Zimbabwe. The paper computes the sectoral SAM multipliers and then uses household data on resettled families to simulate the impact of specific land reform models on the economy. The simulated results show that land reform, if well planned and systematically and carefully implemented, could generate economy-wide benefits for Zimbabwe and could lead to income redistribution in favor of low-income household groups, while maintaining an increase in households' aggregate income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of modeling tools to simulate the effects of agricultural policy changes in new member states (NMSs) of the European Union and presents results of a modeling exercise. Partial equilibrium models simulate policy change scenarios, such as accession to the European Union, as well as other policy developments and external conditions, such as changes in exchange or economic growth rates. Results show the effects of policy change on the main agricultural product markets for a ten-year horizon. In particular, NMSs gain from higher prices and budgetary support. Projections for most sectors show real improvements on recent production levels, but less so when compared with the production of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Accession supports orientation toward crop production, for which Central and East European countries (CEECs) become important net exporters. Livestock production would also benefit from accession, with beef and pork most likely to exhibit appreciable growth, driven by higher, postaccession prices. Production growth in the dairy sector is more limited under the accession scenario than under the baseline, due to milk quota introduction. Scenario results indicate that, in the aggregate, CEEC agriculture has less favorable growth potential if it remains outside the European Union and retains the policy instruments in place before accession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how we measure work and labour in agriculture in rural sub-Saharan Africa. It has increasingly been recognised that many rural African women have heavy workloads; in some accounts, this is contrasted with apparently light work burdens for men. I argue that in making women's work visible, where once it was not, it is possible to slip into thinking of African rural men as not doing very much at all. There is a danger in some policy discussions of producing an image of rural men as standing idly by, while their wives and daughters are overburdened with work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of the cooperative agricultural settlement systems in Israel and the United Arab Republic of Egypt. It seeks to establish significant similarities and differences between the agricultural systems of the two states. Agrarian reform in Egypt provided the foundation for cooperative agriculture and its important developments. In Egypt According to the preliminary reports of the 1960 census, there were almost 400 cooperative settlements, with a combined population of almost 200,000 persons. In Israel, in 1960, there were 347 cooperative settlements and a combined population of close to 120,000 persons. In both countries the tendency has been toward an increase in the number of cooperative settlements and in the number of persons living in them. As more Egyptian land is redistributed, there is continuous formation of new settlements of the cooperative type. The new lands which will become available through irrigation schemes of the High Aswan Dam Project will obviously encourage further growth and development of the cooperative settlement system. Growth in the Israeli system has been greatly influenced by continuous immigration. The regional planning schemes call for the inclusion of new cooperative settlements, denoting an optimistic outlook with regard to cooperative settlements in Israel. Certain characteristics implied and discussed in this study distinguish the cooperative settlements from collective enterprises. The distinctions made by researchers M.S. Menon and Otto Schiller would support the use of the term cooperative in this study. In Israel there are two major forms of agricultural cooperatives, the kibbutz (communal settlement) and the moshav ovdim (cooperative small-holders' settlement). This paper compares only the latter with the Egyptian Agricultural Cooperatives of Land Reform (Al-'Gamiat Al'Taawoonia Lil Islah Al'Zirai).

This article seeks to find out if nonregulated carriers operate inferior vehicles and if the nonregulated truck transportation is plagued by excessive instability in California. This paper analyzes the data collected California's border plant quarantine inspection stations through interviews with a sample of truck drivers hauling produce from the state. No significant differences were found in the age of truck-tractors operated by nonregulated, private and regulated carriers. The evidence also is inconsistent with the alleged instability of the nonregulated for-hire truck transportation. The owner-driver firms account for a relatively small percentage of all nonregulated carriers. No significant changes in distribution of truck-tractor fleets occurred since 1960. The 1965 estimates of firms by years in business, based on an assumption that no firms left the industry since 1960, were found to be very close to actually observed distribution of carrier firms in 1965, suggesting a remarkable stability of the nonregulated sector. A significant percentage of nonregulated and private carriers shift among markets in response to changes in supply and demand conditions. The survey analyzed in this study provided the same kind of data about the characteristics of nonregulated for-hire trucking as that collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1960.

In 2013 the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) enabled groups of farmers to be applicants and final beneficiaries of Agri-environmental schemes (AES). The Dutch government went one step further, ruling that only groups of farmers (farmer collectives) could be beneficiaries of AES. The changing role of farmer groups or farmer collectives comes with a variety of challenges. Using the lens of professionalization, we investigated the professionalization of the Dutch farmer collectives after three years of coordinating AESs, with the aim of ascertaining how professional the collectives are and how any differences in professionalism can be explained. The experience of the Dutch collectives is relevant to other groups of farmers in Europe who are starting or are engaged in the process of self-organization and professionalization, as well as to the further development of the Dutch collectives. Our assessment revealed that there are different types of professional collectives, depending on the situation. Most of the collectives scored excellently on the organizational and occupational criteria with an internal focus. All the collectives have criteria that could be improved. There are differences in professionalization based on history, resources and scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on land reform issues in Korea. A report from George Barrett, "New York Times" correspondent in Pusan, Korea, notes that the U.S. Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) officials are making their efforts to get the South Korean government to enforce the law abolishing absentee landlordism. The landlords make their efforts to hold up the reform and they have been aided in their obstruction by the fact that many papers required in making transfers were burned by the North Koreans.

The early and automatic identification of crops declared by farmers is essential for streamlining European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payment processes. Currently, field inspections are partial, expensive and entail a considerable delay in the process. Chronological satellite images of cultivated plots can be used so that neural networks can form the model of the declared crop. Once the patterns of a crop are obtained, the correspondence of the declaration with the model of the neural network can be systematically predicted, and can be used for monitoring the CAP. In this article, we propose a learning model with neural networks, using as examples of training the pixels of the cultivated plots from the satellite images over a period of time. We also propose using several years in the training model to generalise the patterns without linking them to the climatic characteristics of a specific year. The article also describes the use of the model in learning the multi-year pattern of tobacco cultivation with very good results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paddy rice agriculture is practiced in both rain-fed and irrigated ecosystems in the Philippines. However, small farms are prevalent in the region, and current satellite-based mapping techniques do not distinguish between the two ecosystems at farm scales. This study developed an approach to rapidly map irrigated and rain-fed paddy rice in Iloilo, Philippines at 10 m resolutions using Google Earth Engine. This approach used an ensemble of classifiers based on time-series vegetation indices to produce dry and wet seasonal maps for the entire province. Results showed a predominance of rain-fed rice areas in both seasons, with irrigated rice making up only one-fourth of the total rice area. The overall accuracy was achieved at 68% for the dry season and 75% for the wet season based on ground-acquired points and very high-resolution imagery. The two types of paddies were classified at accuracies up to 87%. Furthermore, the land cover maps showed a strong agreement with the municipal statistics. The resultant maps complement current official statistics and demonstrate the prowess of phenology-based mapping to create paddy inventories in a timely manner to inform food security and agricultural policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the year 2000 the government of Zimbabwe launched the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) as part of its on-going land reform and resettlement programme. The main premise of the programme is to address the racially skewed land distribution pattern inherited at independence in 1980. While the programme has been accompanied by an overall reduction in agricultural production which has created widespread food insecurity throughout the country, empirical research on the impact of the programme on the agricultural productivity of its beneficiaries has been limited. This paper uses data on beneficiaries of the programme and a control group of communal farmers to (i) investigate the presence of agricultural productivity differences between beneficiaries and communal farmers, and (ii) examine differences in chemical fertiliser use as a possible source of these differences. The results suggest that FTLRP beneficiaries gain a productivity advantage not only from the fact that they use more fertiliser per hectare, but also from attaining a higher rate of return from its use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers epistemology in economics, looking at the ways in which theory, observation and measurement are combined. Agricultural economics is a policy science and so scientific research programmes operate simultaneously with political action programmes. Taking policy positions and advising government makes scientific detachment impossible. With this as background progress in production economics is considered, especially regarding technology, productivity and the returns to R&D. The position taken is that progress has been considerable and we can by now measure technological progress and show how it is generated by agricultural R&D. Almost all the studies show that this is an investment with a high rate of return. The main point of the study is that almost all the agricultural economics research that has made this possible was conducted in the USA, where the theory and data were in place when needed to convince the politicians that public funding should be maintained at adequate levels. The payoff is that agricultural productivity has grown monotonically in the USA. The UK case shows the costs of our profession failing to mount an effective political action programme in the area at time of Mrs Thatcher's cuts in the early 1980s. The result was about sixteen years of negative productivity growth. This should act as a warning for South Africa, which is pretty clearly cutting R&D and following the UK productivity path. These failures are so costly, it is odd that only USA seems to have the knowledge and funding required for steady productivity growth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While many studies have identified infrastructure as a constraints to production in agriculture in South Africa, few have attempted to investigate the extent to which emerging farmers are able to access and utilise infrastructure services. This paper uses data collected from 500 emerging farmers across the nine provinces of South Africa to determine the accessibility and use of infrastructure by emerging farmers. Factor Analysis was applied on fifteen indicators of infrastructure. The principal components extraction method extracted four factors, namely distance to services infrastructure, tarred road conditions to the services infrastructure, visitation to general services infrastructure and agricultural support services infrastructure. The results show that services infrastructure is generally more accessible to emerging farmers than before. The factors that determine the accessibility to infrastructure services include the distance of the nearest town from the villages, the state of the roads that farmers use and the frequency of visits to the nearest town. The distance to services infrastructure is segregated from condition and usage. The results indicate that all services are in a more or less similar location and in similar condition in terms of access. The implication of this study is that policy should address farmers' access to services, which are sometimes in bundles, and the role of locating services in centres is pertinent as it stimulates agricultural and rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the impact of agricultural trade reform in South Africa. Using UNCTAD's Agricultural Trade Policy Simulation Model (ATPSM), the study investigates two specific scenarios that capture the magnitude of (i) the economic impact of global agricultural trade reform in South Africa and (ii) the economic impact if the reform in South Africa is coupled with agricultural reforms in the European Union (EU). Trade reform focuses on substantial tariff reduction; although in the case of the EU, scenarios also include reduction in domestic support and export subsidies. The results show that a unilateral tariff reduction in a selected number of agricultural products amounts to welfare gains of US$21 million. These gains are three times higher when accompanied by extensive reforms in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, earnings from firming in many low-income countries have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduce national and global economic growth. They also add to inequality and poverty in developing countries, since most of the world's billion poorest people depend on farming far their livelihood. Over the past two decades numerous developing country governments have reduced their sectoral and trade policy distortions, while some high-income countries also have begun reforming their protectionist policies. Drawing on results from a new multi-country research project, this paper examines the extent of South Africa's reforms relative to those of other temperate-zone Southern Hemisphere countries, of Northern Hemisphere rich countries, and of other developing countries. It concludes by pointing to the scope and prospects for further pro-poor policy reform at home and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Africa's developmental efforts can be greatly enhanced by an improvement in its bargaining power and by a more genuine demonstration of generosity by its trading partners, in particular the developed countries. This generosity entails putting no conditions or restrictions on Africa's products, particularly agricultural exports, and eliminating farm subsidies in developed states. Unless this is done, concessions made to African countries will remain merely symbolic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the capacity of the slave plantation in southern U.S. to engage in judicious agricultural adaptation in the decades preceding the Civil War. In the discussion, the South is narrowed to the old Atlantic states, from Delaware to Georgia, where the problems of low yields, low land values and population loss were most intense and where, accordingly, the need for adjustment was most pronounced. Agricultural improvement becomes responsiveness to proposals formulated by the greatest reformer of the antebellum South, Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, these focusing on soil amelioration and product diversification. The plantation is reduced to its owner and coordinator, the planter; and his entrepreneurship, in turn, is analyzed in exclusively epistemological terms. Ruffin has been described as the father of soil chemistry in the U.S., and the most influential leader of Southern agriculture. He combined in his person the roles of scientist, journalist, farmer and Virginia patriarch. Reform of farming methods would, as he saw it, bring with it an increase of political power especially significant to the well-being and defense of the Southern States, and the preservation of their yet remaining rights, and always vital interests.

John R. Commons is one of the founders of the American institutional school. In recent years, two compiled manuscripts of his main book, Institutional Economics, were discovered in Japan and in the United States. One is a manuscript written in 1927 found at the Kyoto Prefectural Library, and the other is a manuscript dated 1928–29 found at The United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Library. Using these manuscripts, this article examines formation process of Commons' institutional theory of interest. In particular, the influence of R. G. Hawtrey on Commons' theory is explained. Commons depended heavily on Hawtrey's theory in order to overcome some limitations included in Wicksell's theory, in the section of Institutional Economics titled "A World Pay Community." This is clarified mainly by comparing it with a section of the manuscript with the same title, which did not refer to Hawtrey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major objective of this study is to assess the complementarities of the measures adopted by Nigeria vis-à-vis the Economic Community of West African States Agricultural Policy and the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (ECOWAP/CAADP). Within this context, the study examines the extent to which Nigeria has leveraged its agricultural sector to roll away food insecurity in terms of increased productivity and competitiveness. In 2003, African leaders initiated the CAADP to revitalize and leverage the agricultural sector to drive development on the continent. Consistent with the CAADP, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) developed its agricultural policy named ECOWAP in 2005. In the same vein, Nigeria developed a number of policy documents in line with the overarching thrusts of the ECOWAP/CAADP to boost the productivity and competitiveness of its agricultural sector. This study employs both primary and secondary data, which are analyzed through logical inductive method to evaluate the extent to which Nigeria has achieved the ECOWAP/CAADP commitments. It finds that despite the various programs evolved by the Nigerian government to leverage its enormous agricultural potentials, the country is neither on track to achieving food security nor becoming a major player in the global food market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Agricultural policies in Ethiopia to improve the commercial orientation of farmers require identification of challenges at farmer level and in-depth action to shift the sector. It needs more works to be done to transform the country's current subsistence oriented production system of smallholder farmers. Considering this fact, the current study aimed to identify the factors affecting the degree of agricultural commercialization of smallholder farm outputs in the Offa district of Ethiopia. Primary data was collected from 120 randomly selected households using a semi-structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics to describe the output market participation and difference. Furthermore, the Tobit econometric model was used to find determinants of the degree of agricultural commercialization of smallholder farms. A total of 11 explanatory variables were considered in the regression. Total cultivated land size, education, household head age, and access to transport were found significantly determining the intensity of farm output side commercialization. Concerning development authorities should focus on these variables in design, promotion, and implementation of policies and programs to increase rural household participation in commercialization and to secure its benefits in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examined the effect of the Government of Ghana's agricultural policy of Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) on rice farmers' productivity and welfare in Northern Ghana. The study used survey data collected from beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the programme who cultivated rice in 2018 production season. Respondents were randomly selected, and data analysed using empirical methods of Inverse Propensity Weighting Estimation and the Local Average Treatment Effect. The results indicate an insignificant increase in income levels from rice production, but a significant reduction in farm expenditure, an increase in per capita monthly spending and a decrease in income poverty of households. The findings reveal a positive impact of the agricultural technologies implemented under Planting for Food and Jobs programme on rice productivity and welfare of rice farmers in Northern Ghana. The research recommends the need for government to expand the beneficiaries using local media and the policy instrument of input subsidies to promote the use of fertiliser and improved rice varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precision Agriculture (PA) has been advocated as a promising technology and management philosophy that provides multidimensional benefits for producers and consumers while being environmentally friendly. In Europe, private stakeholders (farm advisors, farm equipment producers, decision support providers, farmers) and research institutions have been trying to develop, test and demonstrate adoption of precision agriculture solutions with governments financing big projects in these areas. Despite these efforts, adoption is still lagging behind expectations. Whether farmers adopt PA or not is likely to be influenced by several factors. This study intends to identify the main socio-economic determinants of adoption of precision agriculture in Denmark and Germany employing a binary logit model on a cross-section survey data. The results show that farm size, farmer age and demonstration and networking events like attending workshops and exhibitions significantly influence farmers’ adoption decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livestock contributes significantly to livelihoods in developing countries. Yet, most academic studies focus on dairy cattle and neglect that many smallholder farmers in mixed-cropping systems prefer goats, sheep, pigs or poultry over cattle. Using a unique dataset from a national representative agricultural survey in Burundi, we estimate the determinants of livestock keeping with a multivariate probit model. We find that wealthier households keep more livestock, but population density and access to markets are also key determinants. Moreover, even the wealthiest households switch from cattle to smaller animals in densely populated regions, where pressure on land is high and access to pastures limited. This has important policy implications since it questions the emphasis of most development programs by NGOs and governments in Sub-Saharan Africa which promote dairy cattle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies show that it may be risky for business associations to cooperate with the state. Trapped in a dilemma between a ‘logic of membership’ and a ‘logic of influence’, these associations may obtain political influence from cooperation but only at the risk of losing their associational autonomy, which often leads to dissatisfaction among members. This article presents an illustrative example of the loss of associational autonomy within the context of agricultural corporatism, namely the cooperation between the Buttermark Association (BA) and the Danish state on a law-supported branch trademark for all Danish butter intended to ensure high quality and hinder the fraudulent sale and adulteration of milk. This trademark is the famous lur brand required by Danish law from 1906 and still in use today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses food distribution policies in Cuba, with a focus on the role cooperatives played in Cuban agricultural practices, forms of land ownership, and models for sustainable agriculture. Topics include socialist states, President Raúl Castro, and how half of agricultural land remained fallow as a result of a dependence on inputs from the Soviet Union. Additional information is presented on Cuban food imports, colonialism and its removal of indigenous agriculture, and Marxist philosophy.

As a primary industry, agriculture is directly dependent on natural conditions and therefore potentially vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. In Norway and Northern Norway in particular, the future climatic changes are expected to be overall positive. Still, the consequences for agriculture are not straightforward, but dependent on the interaction between different weather and biological elements, as well as political, economic and social conditions. In this interdisciplinary study we have assessed biological and agronomic effects of climate change, and their interaction with political, economic and social factors, to identify farmers' vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change. The assessments are based on downscaled climate change scenarios and interviews with local farmers in the three northernmost counties in Northern Norway (latitude 65.5° to 70°). The study shows that the farmers to a degree are vulnerable to a changing climate, not mainly because of the direct effects of changing growing conditions, but because these changes are an added factor to an already tenuous situation created by Norwegian agricultural policy and socio-economic development in general. We have found that farmers are highly adaptive, to both changing growing conditions and changing agricultural policies. However, changes in policy are currently a greater challenge to farmers than climate change, and such changes are therefore a more salient driver of vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultivated in the Eastern Mediterranean region for millennia, the opium poppy ( Papaver somniferum) was profoundly significant in the economies, ecologies, cultures, and diets of the peoples of many towns and villages of rural Anatolia. When the United States compelled Turkey to eradicate cultivation of the plant in the early 1970s in order to diminish the flow of heroin into America, farmers were obliged to deal with not only changes in their incomes but also profound changes in their relationships with the land and the state. Although Turkish officials later allowed production to resume in a highly controlled manner for pharmaceutical purposes, significant socioeconomic and ecological dimensions of Turkey's poppy-growing communities were forever changed. Interviewing now-retired poppy farmers, I employ oral history as my primary source of historical evidence to reconstruct these past ecologies and associated social relationships and to give voice to the informants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005 the EU instigated the most substantial reform to the sugar sector since the UK acceded in 1973 and just two years later caused consternation among the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries by denouncing the 34-year long Sugar Protocol. In contrast to existing literature, which has taken a snapshot of the post-reform period and identified 'winners and losers' accordingly, this article examines the processes of capital accumulation in the industry and the legacies these have left. It argues that despite defeat in a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute case, concentration and diversification in the EU sugar industry has enabled its leading corporations to prosper after reform, while divestment in the ex-colonies has left producers in the ACP facing difficulties of adjustment far in excess of plain terms of trade losses. Further, it also reveals why EU reform was not solely a response to WTO legislation but rather, because of the relationship of sugar to wider economic fortunes, resulted from an assiduous attempt by the EU Trade Commission to press the sector into a WTO-compatible Common Agricultural Policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid changes to the climate are predicted over the next few years, and these present challenges for women's empowerment and gender equality on a completely new scale. There is little evidence or research to provide a reliable basis for gender-sensitive approaches to agricultural adaptation to climate change. This article explores the gender dimensions of climate change, in relation to participation in decision-making, divisions of labour, access to resources, and knowledge systems. It draws on insights from recent research on agricultural adaptation to climate change in Tanzania. The article then explains why future gender-sensitive climate-adaptation efforts should draw upon insights from 'resilience thinking', 'political ecology', and environmental anthropology - as a way of embedding analysis of power struggles and cultural norms in the context of the overall socio-ecological system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a deterministic farm-level model developed to link to an existing partial equilibrium sector-level model of the grain and livestock sectors of South Africa. The objective is to create a linked system of models consisting of a sector- and farm-level model with the capability to analyse the likely effects of changes in policies and markets at both the sector and representative farm level in South Africa. A representative farm in the Free State Province is used to validate the farm-level model. The farm-level model is used to simulate a baseline as well as two scenarios of the representative farm far the period 2003 to 2010. Results indicate that the farm-level model simulates the representative farm rather accurately compared to historical data. The baseline and scenario results indicate that the linked system of models can be useful for policy and business decision-makers to analyse the impact of change in policies and markets at both the sector- and farm level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the rise of its first democratically elected government in 1994, South Africa has sought to redress its highly inequitable land distribution through a series of land-reform programs. In this study we examine land-redistribution efforts in two of South Africa's provinces, the Western Cape and Limpopo. By analyzing a cross-section of projects in these two locales we develop a political ecology of stymied land-reform possibilities to explain the limited progress to date. Given South Africa's ambitious goal of redistributing 30 percent of its white-owned land by 2014 and the incremental and flawed nature of its redistribution program, we argue that the process is like trying to put out a fire with a broken teacup. Our results are based on interviews with policymakers, commercial farmers, and land-redistribution beneficiaries, as well as on an analysis of land-use change in Limpopo Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to its transformation from a state-centered to a neoliberal, free-market economy, in 1997 the Mozambican state passed a radical new land law that guarantees the rights of individuals and communities to occupy land and transfer land-use tides, a move seen as necessary for attracting private investment. By comparing how the land law has been applied to the Limpopo National Park and several adjacent villages, I show how it has led to geographically uneven land reform. More specifically, outside the park, the law has enabled the semiprivatization of community lands, in theory protecting community land rights. However, the application of the law within the park has resulted in the further nationalization of this space, which is leading to land dispossession for communities within the park's borders. I thus show how neoliberal land reform is giving rise to a seemingly contradictory type of "neoliberal state space." Keywords: Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, Limpopo National Park, Mozambique, neoliberal land reform, privatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its transition to democracy, South Africa has implemented a multifaceted programme of land reform to address problems of historical dispossession and rural poverty, relying heavily on the concept of 'willing buyer, willing seller'. This version of market-led agrarian reform has been influenced by the World Bank but enjoys support from landowners and elements within the ruling African National Congress committed to maintaining the structure of large-scale, capital-intensive farming. Central to the South African approach is the voluntary acquisition of land, but also important have been the methods of beneficiary selection, of farm planning and of post-settlement support, all of which have been influenced by the market-led approach and serve to discriminate against the very poor. The rate of land transfer remains far below official targets and the limited available evidence suggests that, where land has been transferred, it has made little positive impact on livelihoods or on the wider rural economy. Key to understanding the slow pace of reform is the lack of mobilisation and militancy among the rural poor and landless, who to date have had minimal influence over the design and implementation of the land reform programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses social class struggles over land ownership in Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe's timid approach to land reform has changed after massive worker protests from 1997 to 2000. More than a million workers in the urban areas upstaged a massive protest on December 9, 1997. Agricultural workers also became organized and raised their claim for a change in their living conditions. The government started to redistribute farms owned by whites.

The article focuses on the rural development policy of Egypt from 1940 to 2000. Before the 1952 revolution Egypt was in a period of economic stagnation. The stagnation resulted from the policies during the years of British occupation which have not been modified. The revolution of 1952 has brought many changes to the policy of the government.

This article argues that a mismatch exists between the political aspirations and popular expectations that surround ‘the land question’ in South Africa and the transformative potential of land reform itself. A disjuncture also exists between the national discourse around land reform, in which progress is measured in terms of the speed at which national targets are reached, and the requirements for effective implementation at project level. The article reviews the process whereby a moderate programme of land reform, which prioritised land restitution, emerged out of the constitutional negotiations in the early 1990s, and outlines the modest achievements of the programme to date. It also highlights the limits to land reform that derive not from policy or programme failures but rather from the intersection of significant demographic, ecological and social constraints. It concludes by proposing the need for a reconceptualisation of the land question at the start of the 21st century, given that South Africa is no longer the agrarian country it was when the Natives Land Act of 1913 was passed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines violence and social change in two East European villages. Impact of the re-introduction of private property in former communist countries on the new insights regarding the role of violence for social change; Restructuring that occurred immediately following the social and political changes in 1989, noting the need to distribute private property to a society that once practiced collectivization; How each country's history played a role in the post-communist society; Impact of collectivization on the rural communities; Comparison of collectivization in different countries; Discussion of the use of violence to enact social change, noting when it is appropriate.