Renters,landlords, and farmland stewardship

Are farmers better stewards of the land they own than the land they rent from others? We answer this question using a data set that identifies Ontario farmers’ conservation practices on their own land as well as the land they rent. Using a fixed‐effects regression approach, we find that the role of tenure varies for different types of conservation practices. Farmers were found to be just as likely to adopt a machinery‐related practice such as conservation tillage on their rented land as that land which they own. On the other hand, farmers were found to be less likely to adopt site‐specific conservation practices such as planting cover crops on rented land. However, this effect diminishes as the expected length of the rental relationship increases when the landlord has a farming background.     

日本政府新世纪的农业策略与启示

新世纪伊始，日本政府出台了一系列承前启后的农业策略，主要体现在农业保护、农业立法、粮食安全、比较优势、有机农业和饮食结构等方面，鉴于中日两囤三农领域较多的相似之处，这些策略对当前我国政府发展农业、改造农村、扶助农民等极富有启示意义，     

信息不对称在农业保险中的表现极其防范

信息不对称严重阻碍了农业保险的健康发展，建议通过建立克服农业保险中信息不对称的有效体系，以促进我国农业保险的健康发展。     

Optimal pest control in agriculture

Based on economic methodology we model an ecosystem with two species in predator–prey relationship: mice feed on grain and grain feeds on a resource. With optimizing behavior of individual organisms a short-run ecosystem equilibrium is defined and characterized that depends on the farmer's use of fertilizer and pesticide and on the mice population which, in turn, is affected by pesticides. In that way, a microfounded agricultural production function is derived. Linking a sequence of short-run ecosystem equilibria yields the growth function of the mice population which is thus derived rather than assumed. In each period the farmer harvests all grain in excess of some given amount of seed. If she maximizes her present-value profits, optimal farming is characterized by either using no pesticide or a moderate amount of pesticide or by applying a chattering control. Pest eradication is never optimal. On the other hand, if the farmer takes into account steady-state mice populations only, it may be optimal to eradicate mice or to use no or a moderate amount of pesticide depending on prices as well as on the shape of the grain production function which is determined by microparameters of grain reproduction.     

失衡与重构:新农村建设中的组织问题

农村的困境在于受土地生产力产出递减规律的支配,小农生产方式潜力的逐渐枯竭,而缺乏组织的参与又难于顺利使之转向到以价值为特征的社会化、集团化的大生产。新农村建设的提出,无疑为农村发展提供了一种全新的战略设想,要使这一设想能够有效解决农村发展和转型所面临的一系列的难题,需要我们对农村的组织问题进行必要的梳理。只有把农民组织起来,才能建设社会主义新农村,只有使农民摆脱无组织的个体状态,才能使农村走上自主性的发展之路。     

休闲观光农业经营管理方案研究

休闲观光农业是一种利用田园景观、自然环境、生态资源，结合农林渔牧业生产、农村文化及农家生活，在不耽误农业生产的基础上又为城市居民提供休闲体验活动的农业经营模式。休闲观光农业能够利用当地丰富的农业资源、旅游资源和劳动力资源实现当地农业可持续发展。但它的发，晨过程也可能带来很多负面影响。这就要求我们在设计休闲观光农业的经营方案时要根据农业与旅游这两个行业的特点。通过各自的经营管理要素对其分别进行比较分析，找到了两个行业的异同，并采用经营管理构建方法。逐步导出休闲观光农业的经营方案。     

农产品绿色技术壁垒形成的政治经济学原因探究

近年来，绿色技术壁垒问题正越来越引起人们的关注。一些发达国家以保护生态环境、保护人类、动植物生命和健康为由制定复杂苛刻的环境保护措施，对国际贸易造成了不必要的障碍。因为大部分农产品和食品的出口限制主要以保护环境和人类健康为由，如检测出进口农产品有毒成分残留超标，含有已禁用的农药和化学药品等，所以农产品贸易受绿色技术壁垒的影响更为严重。本文尝试从政治经济学的角度深刻分析农产品遭遇绿色技术壁垒的原因。     

Occupational diversification as an adaptation to rainfall variability in rural India

Occupational diversification among household members in rural India is investigated as an adaptation strategy against the risks arising from the variability of local rainfall. Nationally representative household‐level survey data are combined with the coefficient of variation of rainfall constructed based on historical rainfall data at the district level. The analysis finds that high rainfall variability has significant negative effects on the agricultural specialization of within‐household occupational choices. This result is reinforced by the finding that improved access to irrigation, education, credit, roads, and postal services, is associated with a lower occupational diversification within families and a greater specialization of household members in agricultural‐related employment.     

The public R&D and productivity growth in Australia's broadacre agriculture: is there a link?

This paper investigates the dynamic relationships between research and development (R&D) expenditure and productivity growth in Australian broadacre agriculture using aggregate time series data for the period 1953 to 2009. The results show a cointegrating relationship between R&D and productivity growth and a unidirectional causality from R&D to TFP (total factor productivity) growth in Australian broadacre agriculture. Using the dynamic properties of the model, data from beyond the sample period are analysed by employing the variance decomposition and the impulse response function. The findings reveal that R&D can be readily linked to the variation in productivity growth beyond the sample period. Furthermore, the forecasting results indicate that a significant out‐of‐sample relationship exists between public R&D and productivity in broadacre agriculture.