The links between management's critical success factors and farm level economic performance on dairy farms in Sweden

Management's critical success factors (MCSFs) are used to indicate how farm profits develop, but their usefulness as profitability predictors has previously not been analyzed statistically. This paper explores the usefulness of some commonly used MCSFs in Swedish dairy farms, by investigating whether the MCSFs are significant predictors of economic efficiency. Further, the paper takes a comprehensive view of evaluating farm level efficiency, in that all major input and output efficiency scores are estimated. Previous literature has focused on only one score, or on only one perspective. Our results show that cost efficiency is the more problematic part of the profitability process. Especially the allocative part needs to be improved. Moreover, the results show that the MCSFs milk quality, herd fertility and involuntary culls ratio may not work as indicators of economic performance, whereas milk yield per cow and the mastitis ratio are significant indicators.     

Land use and management in PR China: problems and strategies

The conflict between population and land in China results from high population density, declining availability of arable land, decrease in cropland, overgrazing, inability to afford imported grain, and expansion of land use for urbanization. Unwise decisions have been made. These decisions have resulted in land degradation, soil erosion, deforestation, degradation of grasslands, waste of land for freight storage or waste disposal due to low grain prices, and nonagricultural constructions on croplands. Ineffective land management problems are identified as: 1) the lack of an economic means of guiding land use and land is not valued; the lack of any mechanism to ensure economic land use including public lands which are not accounted for with rent; 2) the lack of integration of departments into the decision making structure and too many departments making decisions about the same land; 3) the lack of choice in land use which results in higher government departments being unaware of local conditions, and the lack of appropriate investment which results in short-term exploitation; and 4) surveys are inadequate for decision making. The strategies suggested for improvement in land use management include low resources expenditure in production and appropriate goods consumption. The goal is to sustain subsistence with gradual improvement through development. Land resources must be conserved and the environment protected. The solutions to depend on food imports or reduce the nutritional level deny the equally plausible solution to generate a higher level of input. The profit motive and scientific agricultural practices could accomplish this end. Reclamation for cropland is possible for 8 million hectares of wasteland in wide areas in Sanjiang Plain and 3.4 million hectares in small pockets in Eastern Monsoon China. Traditional agriculture must be transformed and an optimum scale of land operation established. Land tenure reform is necessary. Regional conditions must prevail as the guiding principles. Several implementation strategies are suggested: controlling population growth and establishing a balance between expenditure and land productivity, expanding and conserving forest areas, increasing agricultural investment, reforming land tenure, adjusting land product prices, strengthening land administration, developing other industries, and reforming economic and political systems.     

Building knowledge systems for sustainable agriculture: supporting private advisors to adequately address sustainable farm management in regular service contacts

Advisory service provisioning on sustainability issues such as environmental care and food safety is considered suboptimal in privatized extension systems, which comprise a diverse set of private advisors. Apart from funding dedicated ‘public good’ projects, government also relies on these advisors to address sustainability issues in their regular service contacts with farmers. Policy measures have hence been proposed to stimulate farmer demand for such sustainable farm management (SFM) advice (pull measures) and to build capacity among advisors (push measures). This paper assesses two interventions, in nutrient management and mastitis prevention, that integrate pull measures (awareness building and economic incentives) and push measures (promoting facilitative advisory styles and optimizing knowledge system linkages) to stimulate advisory service provisioning on SFM. Results indicate that effectiveness appears to depend on an adequate mix of, and balance between, push and pull measures. Awareness building is a prerequisite to creating demand for such services and appears more important than economic incentives. However, awareness is not built by the interventions alone; indeed, a lack of awareness may not be the main problem: the broader institutional context may not be conducive to a proactive approach to addressing SFM if regulatory frameworks are unclear and inconsistent. The main conclusion is that, despite interventions having an impact, it is uncertain whether the demand for, and supply of, SFM advice will be sustained after interventions are withdrawn.     

Land tenure and farm management efficiency: the case of paddy and cinnamon production in customary land areas of Sumatra

This study attempts to identify the impacts of land tenure institutions on the efficiency of farm management based on a case study of lowland paddy (rice) and upland cinnamon production in customary land areas of Sumatra. While the traditional joint-family ownership system is found to exist in paddy land, more individualised ownership systems are widely observed in upland areas. Yet, we found no statistical evidence that residual profit per unit of land is affected by land tenure institutions in either the lowlands or uplands, indicating that the prevailing land tenure institutions are equally conducive to efficient farm management.     

Crop genetic diversity, farm productivity and the management of environmental risk in rainfed agriculture

This paper presents an assessment of the linkages between cropgenetic diversity, farm productivity and risk management. Aflexible moment-based approach is used to analyse the impactof crop genetic diversity on the mean, variance and skewnessof yield. Using farm-level data from Sicily (Italy), econometricevidence shows how crop genetic diversity can increase farmproductivity and reduce risk exposure. The empirical resultsindicate that crop genetic diversity can reduce variance, butonly if pesticide use is low. Furthermore, high diversity levelscan reduce downside risk exposure (e.g. the risk of crop failure).This provides useful insights on the linkages between resilienceand crop genetic diversity.     

Recreational demand for farm commonage in Ireland: A contingent valuation assessment

This paper measures willingness to pay (WTP) for public access and trail improvements on commonage farmland for recreational walking in upland and lowland areas of Connemara region in the West of Ireland using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Common to both upland and lowland commonage sites was the much higher ranking for infrastructural features by those WTP for scenario implementation compared to those preferring the status quo. Results for those expressing a positive WTP reveal a median willingness to pay (MWTP) for formal access with improved trail infrastructure of €12.22 for the lowlands compared with €9.08 for the uplands.     

Consumer preferences for domestic and organically labelled vegetables in Sweden

The aim of our research is to examine Swedish consumers' perception and preferences of domestic vegetables compared to on the one hand imported and on the other hand organically grown vegetables. The paper draws from two consumer studies. The first study is a text analysis of consumers' associations to the four concepts Swedish, imported, organic and conventional vegetables as well as a conjoint analysis of the relative importance of the same four characteristics in the case of carrots. The second study is a taste experiment on tomatoes from the same Swedish grower labelled in three different ways, as Swedish, Dutch or organic. The conjoint analysis indicates that Swedish origin is considered more important than organic production methods. The text analysis shows that Swedish is associated with positive values, for instance, high quality, while imports have a more negative image. Organic is associated with characteristics such as being non-toxic, good quality and expensive while conventional is associated with poison, being good enough and traditional. The preference for Swedish vegetables is supported by the taste study. Tomatoes that were labelled as Swedish or organic were perceived as tastier than tomatoes labelled as Dutch. Thus, the experience of taste seems to be affected by the labelling. The conclusion is that to many Swedish consumers “Swedish is good enough” as a quality criterion. However, the research situation differs from a real shopping environment, where consumers make choices between bundles of different attributes, not only provenance and production method. Moreover, in a real shopping situation supermarkets promote their own private brands, regardless of origin, thus make origin less accentuated.     

Interlinked credit and farm intensification: evidence from Kenya

This paper addresses the potential for interlinked credit/input/output marketing arrangements for particular cash crops to promote food crop intensification. Using panel survey data from Kenya, we estimate a household fixed-effects model of fertiliser use per hectare of food crops, using an instrumental variables approach for addressing the endogeneity of participation in interlinked credit arrangements. Results indicate that households engaging in interlinked marketing programs for selected cash crops applied considerably greater fertiliser on other crops (primarily cereals) not directly purchased by the cash crop trading firm. These findings suggest that, in addition to the direct stimulus that interlinked cash crop marketing arrangements can have on small farmer incomes, these institutional arrangements may provide spill-over benefits for the productivity of farmers' other activities such as food cropping.     

企业财务管理中存在的问题分析及建议

现代企业是产权清晰、权责明确、政企分开、管理科学的相对独立的法人实体和市场主体。该文主要结合多年工作的实际对当前企业财务管理中存在的主要问题进行了分析,并对进一步强化企业财务管理和提高企业经济效益提出了具体的对策及建议。     

Landscape properties as drivers for farm diversification: A Dutch case study

Farm diversification is stimulated by the societal demand to transform production countryside into consumption countryside. In most empirical studies on farmers’ decision making for diversification, geographical information is either omitted or reduced to a variable that links the farm to an administrative unit. Therefore, the influence of the exact farm location on farmers’ decision making is often lacking. The paper addresses the role of location, in terms of site specific natural conditions as well as neighboring dynamics, in influencing farmers’ decision making to diversify. Moreover, it investigates to what extend low returns from primary production stimulate farmers to find new survival strategies, and therefore explains diversification. The Gelderse Vallei area, a region in the center of the Netherlands, is used as a case study. For this area an extensive farm survey data could be combined with topographic data and soil maps (GIS). Both the number of activities as well as the kind of activities that are taken up are analyzed. Landscape attractiveness turns out to be a driver of diversification. Daily recreation most frequently occurs close to national parks, green services are more likely to occur on relatively wet soils. Activities resulting from diversification might produce positive externalities: new activities have the tendency to emerge next to already existing ones, therewith explaining the formation of “hotspots” in the landscape. Finally, diversification was found to be sensitive to returns from primary agriculture production.     

Roundup Ready soybeans in Argentina: farm level and aggregate welfare effects

Although adoption rates of genetically modified crops have been staggering in some countries, there is still comparatively little evidence about biotechnology impacts under diverse agroecological and institutional conditions. These knowledge gaps lead to an overly precautious attitude among policy makers and the public. This article analyzes the effects of Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans in Argentina, the country with the second biggest transgenic area worldwide. Based on recent survey data, it is shown that the technology increases total factor productivity by 10% on average, with cost savings being somewhat more pronounced for smaller than for larger farms. The reduction in use of toxic herbicides and of tillage operations entails positive environmental repercussions. Aggregate welfare effects are computed over the 1996–2001 period with a three-region, partial equilibrium model, comprising Argentina, the United States, and the rest of the world. In 2001, RR soybeans created more than US$1.2 billion of economic surplus at the global level. The largest share went to consumers (53%), followed by seed and biotechnology firms (34%), and agricultural producers (13%). Due to comparatively weak intellectual property protection, and thus only small technology mark-ups in seed prices and widespread adoption, Argentine soybean growers receive 90% of the benefits in that country. This demonstrates that farmers in developing countries can gain considerably when they obtain access to suitable foreign innovations through technology spill-overs.     

Impact of the European Water Framework Directive on local-level water management: Case study Oxunda Catchment, Sweden

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) of the European Union provides a common framework for water policy that focuses on holistic and integrated water management in river basins. In many member states, implementation of the WFD has shifted the main responsibility for local water issues from the municipal level to the regional or supra-regional levels. In this study, we investigated how the implementation of the WFD has influenced local-level water management including the interpretation of the new environmental quality standards. Specifically, we considered Sweden, which has traditionally had relatively strong governance at the municipal level. Because a sufficient amount of time has now passed for evaluation of WFD-related effects on operational water handling, we interviewed individuals directly involved in water planning and land use planning at the municipal level in one sub catchment in the Northern Baltic Sea River Basin District of Sweden, as well as representatives for superior levels and associations. Despite divergent views regarding the priority of water issues in physical planning among the local-level planners interviewed, they had all participated in successful inter-municipal pre-WFD collaboration projects. Although such collaborations could help increase the understanding and acceptance of WFD-related goals and costs, as well as facilitate conflict solving, as shown in the Oxunda Catchment, they have not gained much attention in the WFD implementation process. Additionally, physical planners have generally been reluctant to accept new environmental quality standards resulting from WFD implementation, in part because they lack precise definitions, but also because they could challenge the municipal routine of weighing various objectives against each other. Furthermore, despite WFD-related increases in ambition levels, lack of resource improvements at the municipal level were identified as potential problems by local environmental planners.     

岱山县无居民海岛开发现状、问题及管理对策

无居民海岛开发对拓展沿海地区发展空间,将海岛优势转化为经济优势,推动海洋经济发展具有重要作用,势在必行。本文介绍了岱山县无居民海岛的地理要素分布特征情况及其开发利用现状,剖析了目前无居民海岛开发中存在的问题与不足,结合社会和经济发展需要,对无居民海岛开发的途径进行了探讨,阐析了岱山县海岛开发的重点,提出了保护与利用无居民海岛的开发管理对策。     

Environmental farm planning in Ontario: exploring participation and the endurance of change

The Ontario Environmental Farm Plan Programme (EFP) represents a significant departure from previous agri-environmental initiatives in Canada. In this programme, the focus is not on the promotion and adoption of any particular farming innovation, but rather on the completion of a farm-level environmental appraisal and the development of a farm-specific environmental action plan. As with more traditional schemes, there is interest in understanding how the programme is performing and in documenting outcomes. Evidence suggests that a significant proportion of farmers who enter the programme complete only part of the process or apply the evaluation to only certain aspects of their operation. In effect, there is variation in the way participants participate. This paper examines the nature of, and reasons for, differing levels of engagement among participants in the EFP Programme. Results from a survey of past participants suggests that farm-specific environmental conditions, farmers’ motivations concerning the environment, and positive perceptions of the programme itself are associated with more complete levels of participation. Underlying some of the revealed variations in participation are abiding concerns for the confidentiality of the process and more general concerns relating to the intervention of the state in agricultural land use.     

Urban land management in China: A study of the present system and an investigation of current issues and problems

Summary

The paper commences by describing the statutory basis for land tenure and management. It examines the constitutional basis for land ownership and occupation rights, as amended by land administration law. The legal system and procedures at both central and local government level are introduced, with particular mention made of the special measures for land requisition. This is followed by a study of the organizational structure for land management in China at state and local government levels. The roles and responsibilities of the major agencies of government at both levels are explained, and related to the organization of urban planning. A separate section is then devoted to those areas such as Special Economic Zones and Open Coastal Cities which have been selected for preferential treatment, particularly in respect of the transfer of land use rights.

The paper concludes with a study of the main issues and problems that currently confront China in the field of urban land management. And some suggestions are made where further reform is required and additional research of potential benefit.