Addressing gender in agricultural research for development in the face of a changing climate: where are we and where should we be going?

Agricultural development efforts that do not address persistent gender gaps miss opportunities for greater impact. This synthesis reflects on key findings from integrated quantitative and qualitative analyses at the nexus of gender, agricultural development, and climate change. Linked farm household-, intrahousehold-, community-, and institutional-level data highlight significant and nuanced gender differences in adaptive capacity of individuals and communities to respond to climate change. The gender gap is also substantial in exposure to climate change and its impacts, and uptake of new practices that lower vulnerability. Women in agriculture will remain largely neglected by information and service providers unless their differing needs, access to, and control over resources are considered at policy and project design stage. Yet clear guidelines for addressing the needs of both men and women in different environments and agricultural systems are still lacking. Participatory ‘action research’ approaches with a focus on co-learning, and using innovative cell phone or social media-based approaches offer exciting new opportunities. Agricultural development decision-makers and project designers need to ‘design with gender in mind’. Equipping them with tools and knowledge of innovative gender-transformative practices and intervention options and creating accountability for serving women and men will be key.     

Optimizing or maximizing growth? A challenge for sustainable tourism

Virtually all destinations seek to increase tourist numbers, pursuing economic maximization strategies. Considerably less attention is paid to optimizing existing tourist systems to create more profitable, stable, resilient and potentially more sustainable entities. While aspects of tourist expenditure, average length of stay and seasonality as three key destination management variables have received considerable attention in the literature, focus has usually been on the identification of “profitable” tourism markets by considering observed patterns of spending, length of stay and vacation timing. Building on such earlier studies, this paper focuses on flexibilities in these parameters: could tourists have spent more, stayed longer or visited during a different season? Perceptions of destination expensiveness as a potential deterrent to visitation were also addressed. Based on a sample (n = 1914) of domestic and international tourists in the Swedish cities of Kalmar and Stockholm, data were collected in face-to-face interviews using questionnaires. Results indicate considerable potential to optimize the Swedish tourism system with regard to all variables studied, while also providing new insights for destination management in the context of economic resilience. Results also indicate the need for researchers everywhere to have detailed market knowledge if they are to persuade the industry to change its sustainability behavior.     

Advancing a new index for measuring household vulnerability to food insecurity

This paper develops a Vulnerability to Food Insecurity Index (VFII). Currently, there is no standard indicator of vulnerability analysis in food security research, and this paper responds to this challenge. The primary objective in this paper is to demonstrate how to develop a potential indicator and establish its validity through comparison with other traditional food security indicators, such as per capita calorie consumption (PCC), food consumption score (FCS) and the coping strategy index (CPI). Structurally, Vulnerability to Food Insecurity Index is a multidimensional index of the probability of covariate shock occurring (exposure), the accumulative experience of food insecurity (sensitivity) and coping ability of households (adaptive capacity). The paper applies the index to households in southern Nigeria, using the World Bank’s generalised household panel dataset. The results show 61% of households in the study to be highly vulnerable to food insecurity, 12% mildly vulnerable and 27% not vulnerable. Traditional and single indicators, such as FCS and PCC are not good indicators of vulnerability to food insecurity whereas CPI is a better indicator of vulnerability to food insecurity compared to FCS and PCC. The VFII developed in this paper includes components of FCS, PCC, and CPI and regarding ranking, the VFII was found to be reliable. Most importantly, the analysis using the VFII reveals how dietary diversity or calorie consumption indicators can exclude some households who are vulnerable to food insecurity. The paper concluded that accurately target long-term support to vulnerable households, policymakers who seek to address the underlying causes of food insecurity cannot rely on single indicators, and for this type of goal, the VFII makes a useful contribution.     

Tourism in the Middle East: Conflicts,Crises and Economic Diversification,Some Critical Issues

This paper briefly examines tourism activity over a 60‐year period in the UNWTO Middle East region together with Israel and Iran. The region has been subject to political turmoil over that period, and its tourist arrivals have not fully capitalized on the potential that the region holds. The region has a wealth of heritage, a climate conducive to tourism and a range of leisure resources that should provide a comparative and competitive advantage to its tourism industry. This paper examines the vulnerability of tourism in the region as countries try to diversify their economies away from energy dependence. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

岷山地区生态保护与社区经济协调发展机制初探

通过对岷山地区3个具有代表性的村子案例分析,探讨了实施有关环境保护政策后农民生计的变化。认为目前这一地区的农民生计存在一定的脆弱性,突出表现在粮食安全、收入来源和能源利用方面。提出应正确看待保护与发展既矛盾又依赖的关系,在帮助农民摆脱贫困、寻找出路的同时,实现保护与发展的双赢。     

多维视阈下土地流转的减贫效应及其异质性研究——基于CFPS2018微观数据分析

目的 土地流转是深化农村土地制度改革的重要探索,是解决农村贫困问题的重要路径,以土地流转为抓手对进一步实施乡村振兴战略具有重要意义。方法 文章基于2018年4 445份中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）数据,从收入和贫困脆弱性两个维度入手,构建可行广义最小二乘法（FGLS）模型并运用倾向得分匹配（PSM）法分析土地流转的减贫效应及其异质性。结果 （1）在收入维度下,土地流转户的家庭收入水平相比未流转户高12.07%,其中受教育程度、家庭规模和工资水平的差异是影响农户家庭收入增加的关键因素;（2）在贫困脆弱性维度下,土地流转户的贫困脆弱性比未流转户低5.13%,西部地区贫困脆弱性水平为0.419远高于中部和东部地区;（3）从土地流转方式来看,土地转出户的贫困脆弱性比土地转入户显著低0.018,通过PSM解决内生性问题后结果依然稳健。结论 加快健全土地经营权流转机制,根据不同地区、不同农户的土地流转特征出台针对性的相关政策,强化新型农业经营主体的带动作用,完善农村社会化服务体系。     

少数民族连片特困地区农户贫困脆弱性及其影响因素研究——以新疆南疆三地州为例

[目的]研究少数民族连片特困地区农户贫困脆弱性程度及影响因素,以期为现阶段巩固脱贫攻坚成果、防止返贫提供借鉴参考。[方法]文章基于新疆南疆三地州1 258户农户的问卷调查数据,运用VEP方法对少数民族连片特困地区农户贫困脆弱性进行测度,并使用Tobit回归模型实证分析其影响因素。[结果]南疆三地州农户贫困脆弱性均值为0.331,贫困脆弱发生率为16.93%,且贫困脆弱性呈现出地区差异,由高到低依次为和田地区、喀什地区、克州地区。家庭能熟练说普通话人口占比、劳动力职业技能培训、参加农业保险情况、社会资本、是否收入多样化、所在村庄地形、是否通公交车对农户贫困脆弱性具有显著的负向影响,而家庭规模、家庭负担比、健康冲击、自然灾害对农户贫困脆弱性具有显著的正向影响。[结论]据此提出加强国家通用语言和职业技能教育培训、促进农户积极投保农业保险、提高农村公共交通服务覆盖范围、重视农户健康贫困脆弱性等建议。     

中国老年家庭的经济脆弱性与贫困

利用中国健康与营养调查(CHNS)2006和2009年的面板数据测度了老年家庭的经济脆弱性,检验各因素对经济脆弱性和贫困的相对影响力。老年家庭的经济脆弱性高于贫困;户主特征和家庭变量不同程度地影响到了经济脆弱性及贫困,代际间向上流动的私人转移支付对老年家庭的经济脆弱性和贫困没有作用;超过24%的非贫困家庭是经济脆弱性家庭;期望效用的脆弱性(VEU)方法表明,不平等虽然减少了脆弱性,但其影响经济脆弱性的力量最小,不可解释的风险是最重要的因素,异质性风险和协同性风险的力量居中。