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This paper explores how the elimination of malaria could provide an escape from poverty with reference to the timing of the decline in malaria and its implications in terms of the labour force, the implications for the agricultural sector and the growth of the tourist industry in Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy in the first half of the twentieth century. The paper finds that whilst the control of malaria did have an economic effect, the escape from poverty was encouraged but not explained by malaria elimination. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis 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 Sociologia Ruralis 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 Sociologia Ruralis 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 examines the impact that different olive cultivation practices have on the nature of the ground flora of olive groves in the region of the Psiloritis massif and Messara Plain in central and southern Crete, Greece. In lower, flatter areas there are areas of both traditional and intensive forms of olive cultivation. In more marginal, upland areas there are traditional terraced olive groves, some of which are being abandoned. The relationship between the vegetation composition of the ground flora and environmental variables was established, by means of TWINSPAN® and ordination analysis, using survey data from nineteen sites across the region. Four vegetation communities are identified: olive with herbaceous taxa; olive with sclerophyllous shrub taxa; and two forms of sclerophyllous shrub communities. Ordination results indicate that environmental variables, such as soil characteristics, slope aspect and slope angle, explain about 60 per cent of the species-environment relationships. The remaining variation in species composition is interpreted to be the result of different cultivation practices. The implications for land degradation are examined, in particular the changes in vegetation diversity of both intensive and semi-abandoned olive groves, the potential for increased soil erosion, and the risk of fire as a result of increased fuel loading as flammable shrubs invade abandoned terraces. Intensification of olive cultivation in Crete, and across the Mediterranean, has been encouraged by subsidies from the European Union leading to rapid landscape change. Thus there is a need to monitor changes in olive cultivation practices both at the local scale, by means of ground-based fieldwork, and at landscape and regional scales, by means of remote sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term landscape is more and more used as an "umbrella" concept, covering a series of cultural, productive and ecological processes. In order to uncover mechanisms, monitor transformations and predict changes, a complicated set of interacting factors has to be taken into account. This paper presents a model for estimating social and policy impacts on agricultural landscapes, based on the assumption that agricultural landscapes are shaped at "macro" (landscape) level by "micro" interventions at farm level. The model consists of three parts: an "ecological processes" part, which deals with processes that shape the ecological and aesthetic value of a landscape, a "population dynamics" part, which examines farmer population dynamics and a "policy impact" part, which deals with direct or indirect impacts on farming systems and farmer dynamics and refers to CAP Rural Development Measures. The model is applied for the olive and graze land agricultural landscapes of Lesvos (Greece). Results, apart from revealing landscape change patterns; help to illustrate some mechanisms behind this change and indicate that Rural Development Measures are inherent with minor but important malfunctions that cannot lead to sustainable landscape management and rural development in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial stress and general crisis in European agriculture recently have generated a widespread interest in alternative paths of farm business development and structural adjustment. One of the options suggested by policy makers and adopted by farmers was the development of alternative farm enterprises (AFEs), in which farmers recombine resources on the farm and produce a new mix of products and services in order to supplement their incomes. In the present paper we examine the factors influencing the development of AFEs. According to empirical evidence from Etolia-Akarnania, a prefecture in western Greece that merits "less favored area" status, AFE adoption is influenced by the amount of family labor, the ratio of hired to family labor, the presence of tobacco as a main enterprise, the proximity of the farm to grade A roads, and the farmers' age. Education, management experience demonstrated by the farm manager, physical size of the farm, enterprise specialization, the use of grants, and farm location are the main factors responsible for the farmers' integration into the agro-food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis 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.)

Women farmers' experiences are not necessarily homogeneous between contexts, and overall different social structures might have different spillover effects into agriculture. Despite the so‐called 'feminisation' of Greek agriculture—manifested as an increase in the proportion of officially registered farm heads being female and recognition of female contribution to farming—the question remains of how fast these changes do transform the role of women in Greek agriculture and how far they reach in terms of changing contested gender identities in a still male‐dominant sector. This article, inspired by the recent work on Feminist Agri‐Food Systems Theory (FAST), tries to shed light on these transformations by collecting official data, working with local experts–informants and conducting in‐depth qualitative interviews with 71 women farmers in Greece. We advocate for indicators of transformation by using women's life stories and the FAST as a theoretical lens. According to our results, the increasing visibility of women in agriculture did not activate any dynamic renegotiation of the hierarchical and pre‐defined gender roles within the family and local society. Overall, multiple roles and tasks remain still challenging in the daily routine of women farmers. However, in contrast to the past, there are different pathways to enter agriculture, and despite all barriers, women's self‐perception as farmers is quite empowered in the study area. They are younger than the national average, their farm size is larger than average, they prefer value‐added production and they seek tailored agricultural extension services and peer‐to‐peer knowledge through informal networks. For the further theoretical development of the FAST model, and advancing the state of the art, we reflect on some additional axes and indicators resulting from its application in the Greek context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing concern for the unsustainability of food systems, the international research community has turned its attention to small farms as key actors to potentially face the global food crisis. This study aims to support a policy design that values the diversity of small farms business models vis‐à‐vis environmental, economic, social and institutional challenges affecting European farming systems. Building on the existing classification of five small farm types in the EU, our analysis targets the business model dynamics of small farms in four Euro‐Mediterranean countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. For this analysis, we applied resilience thinking to the Business Model Canvas framework. This innovative conceptual framework allows us to depict the architecture of small farms business models and their role in farming systems. The diversity of small farms business models and their continuous adaptation to changing conditions allows for the identification of a strongly heterogeneous assemblage of farms that contribute to the resilience of food systems at local, regional and multiple other scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multifunctional agriculture is favoured by EU rural policy and considered as a tool for integrated and sustainable rural development. Recent approaches to define the multifunctional practices of rural farm households (different from those of 'conventional' agriculture) according to the use of their resources result in three dimensions: deepening, broadening and regrounding. In this paper, the multifunctional practices of farm households in six rural areas of Greece with different characteristics of agricultural production are examined. Data were obtained from interviews with farmers about the practices of their households. The findings indicate that regrounding practices are encountered more often in all areas and are not associated with the degree of the 'professionalisation' of agriculture in each area. Broadening and deepening practices are less common for two reasons: some of these practices take place at a level independent from most Greek farmers, and demand appears to shape some of these practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the competition between traditional and modern farms in peri-urban areas, focusing on the pen-urban region of Athens, by means of a sample survey carried out in that region. On the basis of geographical, social and cultural factors, seven zones have been delimited, allowing a typology of peri-urban farms to be established. The three types of farms are specified: 1) The purely traditional farm which adopts extensive production systems and is in long-term decline. 2) The farm adapted to the peri-urban area. 3) The intensive farm, corresponding to a productionist system of production (mainly green-house cultivation). Despite the fact that urban sprawl and high demand for land for non-agricultural uses have caused traditional farms to gradually disappear, in some particular peri-urban areas, such farms have been able to survive intense competition due to certain cultural and social factors. Moreover, the specific geomorphological features of the region explain, to a great extent, why most peri-urban farms in Attica operate in a clearly different way from their northern and western European counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the empirical dimension of multiple job-holding agriculture in Greece. The importance of multiple job-holding in relation to agricultural policies designed to supplement farm incomes, regional development programmes attempting to reverse the degeneration of rural life and the social and economic characteristics of multiple job-holding farmers, has been recognized by several observers and analysts of the Greek agricultural sector. However, all references to multiple job-holding are necessarily tangential since the phenomenon as such has not been studied to any substantial extent. The article falls into four parts. The first briefly summarizes the major post-war developments in Greek agriculture which relate, directly or indirectly, to multiple job-holding. In the second part national statistical evidence is presented on the extent and nature of the employment situation of multiple job-holding farmers, using official time-series data. In part three, empirical findings on the income composition of farm households are discussed. Finally a classification of multiple job-holding households is attempted, supported by surveys in three different types of farming community.

ABSTRACT We develop a classification of traditional versus restructured cooperative organizational attributes based on an inductive approach. Using this classification and integrating concepts from the business literature (i.e., market and brand orientation), we hypothesize three types of relationships: (a) the influence of organizational attributes, i.e., ownership, control and cost/benefit allocation, on organizational performance; (b) the influence of strategic, i.e., market and brand orientation, attributes on organizational performance, and (c) the influence of organizational attributes on market orientation. We examine these relationships empirically in two studies. In study 1, using data from 114 agribusiness cooperatives, we demonstrate that strategic attributes have a greater influence on organizational performance than organizational attributes. In study 2, we replicate the design from study 1, i.e., tracking attribute scores over time, with a subsample of 25 cooperatives 4 years later. This second study generally confirms the findings of study 1. Taken together, the results suggest that greater emphasis should be placed on strategic attributes both in the literature and in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural best management practices ( BMPs) are gaining ground as a means of mitigating diffuse nutrient pollution of surface waters in agricultural catchments; however, their cost-effectiveness depends on the location-specific characteristics of the land on which they are applied. To identify acceptable catchment management solutions with respect to environmental and economic objectives, a decision support tool ( DST) is used in this study. The DST integrates the river basin soil and water assessment tool ( SWAT) model that serves as the nonpoint source pollution estimator into an optimization framework consisting of a multi-objective genetic algorithm that searches for optimal selection and location of BMPs in the landscape. A three-objective optimization problem has been previously solved for the Arachtos catchment in western Greece including the implementation costs of several types of BMPs such as nutrient application, crop, soil and livestock management and total annual diffuse losses of total phosphorus ( TP) and nitrate-nitrogen ( NO3- N) from land to surface waters. In the present study, a solution of negligible total cost for the whole catchment was selected from optimal two-dimensional trade-off curves of cost- TP and cost- NO3- N, aiming to complement previously analysed management options and further enhance decision-making in this catchment. The zero cost solution led to 30 and 20% reductions in TP and NO3- N river concentrations, respectively, corresponding to contour cultivation without tillage in corn, fertilizer management in alfalfa as well as livestock and manure management along with the establishment of filter strips at the edge of some corn and pastureland fields. The proposed methodology enabled the identification of a low cost, and possibly more favourable, compared to previous findings, combination of BMPs that ensures good quality of river water. It helps to provide the basis for sustainable land-use planning and management in large agricultural landscapes, thus aiding decision-making and cost-effective implementation of Environmental Directives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a theoretical framework to analyze the conditions under which a farmer facing production uncertainty (due to a possible water shortage) and incomplete information will adopt a more efficient irrigation technology. A reduced form of this model is empirically estimated using a sample of 265 farms located in Crete, Greece. The empirical results suggest that farmers choose to adopt the new technology in order to hedge against production risk. In addition, we show that the farmer's human capital also plays a significant role in the decision to adopt modern, more efficient irrigation equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis 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 Sociologia Ruralis 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.)