AGRICULTURAL AND RECREATIONAL LAND USE IN CANADA: POTENTIAL FOR CONFLICT OR BENEFIT?

The paper reviews the bases for potential conflict and benefit between agricultural and recreational land use. It discusses different types of conflict and benefit. Most of the research literature is American though some British studies exist. The vacation farm in particular is emphasised as a way to provide additional rural income while solving the demand for recreational space. The situation in Canada is reviewed. Little research is underway by Universities or Government. Ontario and Nova Scotia seem to be ahead of the other provinces in the variety and type of rural recreational enterprise existing and in the interest shown by Government and Farmers' Associations in their development. A number of constraints on recreational development by farmers are discussed. Studies of actual cases of vacation farms, shooting preserves, camping sites, etc. have to be made in Canada before Government or Farm Association programmes to promote rural recreational enterprises can be undertaken. Cet article examine le pour et le contre de la question de ?usage de terrains agricoles comme lieux de récréation. Les bases des conflits et des bénéfices y sont discuiées. La majeure partie de la recherche sur ce sujet est américaine quoi qu'il y ait quelques etudes anglaises. La ferme où on peul aller passer ses vacances est particulièrement soulignée car elle augmente le revenue rurale en méme temps quelle resoud le problème du besoin ?espace pour la récréation. La situation au Canada est décrile, Au moment, il y a peu de recherche qui se fail a ?Université et au niveau du government ou fédéral ou provincial. ?Ontario et la Nouvelle Écosse semblent avoir de ?avance sur les autres provinces car on y trouve une plus grande variété?entreprises visées à la récréation dans la campagne et plus ?intérét au sujet du développement de celles-ci de la part des gouvernements provinciaux et des Sociétés Agronomes. Le problème que pose ?opposition du fermier au développement de la récréation rurale est discuté. Il nous faul avoir des études basées sur des exemples actuels au Canada (1) de fermes où on peul passés ses vacances, (2) de terrains à camping, (3) de chasses gardées, etc. avant que le gouvernemenl el les Sociétés Agronomes puissent mettre en oeuvre des programmes pour développer les enlreprises rurales de récréation.     

Brexit: How Will UK Agriculture Fare?

There is little doubt that Brexit would have significant implications for UK agriculture, a sector with strong trade links to the EU and strong reliance on CAP income support. This article reports preliminary results from employing a Computable General Equilibrium Model, a Partial Equilibrium Model and Farm Level Models to explore selected trade and domestic policy scenarios post‐Brexit. These allow for the estimation of changes in producer prices, production and farm incomes against a baseline scenario of continued EU membership. Under a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, agricultural impacts are relatively modest. By contrast, unilateral removal of import tariffs has significant negative impacts on prices, production and incomes. Adoption of the EU's WTO tariff schedule for all imports favours net importers (e.g. dairy) and harms net exporters (e.g. sheep). Given the strong dependence of most UK farms on direct payments, their removal worsens negative impacts of new trade arrangements and offsets positive impacts. Impacts vary across different types and sizes of farm, but also regionally. However, the period of adjustment to new trade and domestic policy conditions may prove very challenging for a large number of farm businesses.     

The application of the Habitats Directive in the UK: Compliance or gold plating?

The implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives in the UK has caused considerable unease within some parts of industry. Ports in particular have voiced concerns and have argued that the UK Government's interpretation of the Directives is more comprehensive than strictly necessary, likening it to ‘gold plating’. They have argued that this has placed the UK at a disadvantage to other European competitors. This paper explores these contentions and examines case histories to establish the veracity of the arguments.     

External funding of major capital projects in the UK Higher Education sector: issues of demand,supply and market timing?

The aim of this paper is to consider the sources of finance used to support major capital expenditure in the UK Higher Education sector and to reflect on any differences between traditional corporate finance theory and practice in the UK university sector. Utilising both HESA data returns and published annual accounts, an in-depth analysis using a logit structure is carried out on data from the top 63 UK universities over the period 2014–2017, to establish the range of funding sources adopted for major capital projects, all set within the context of the UK macro environment and a period of low interest rates. The research also carries out a survey of funders to understand the decision criteria used by lenders active in the Higher Education sector and a survey of university finance directors to determine the use of the funds, the reasons behind past lending decisions and to ascertain likely future demand for finance to fund major capital projects.     

Can we avoid overdevelopment of river floodplains by economic policies?: A case study of the Ouse catchment (Yorkshire) in the UK

River floodplains are significant environmental resources in that they provide multiple ecosystem services. However, river floodplains are/tend to be overdeveloped because indirect-use values linked with ecosystem services are overlooked by private landowners. In a case study of the Ouse catchment, it turns out that river floodplains tend to be overdeveloped in upstream areas because of a unidirectional spatial externality. We set a simple model that considers both direct- and indirect-use values to analyse the social optimisation. The essential point is that we must consider two types of environmental externalities related to the ecosystem services of river floodplains to make decisions on floodplain development. First, the development of river floodplains has opportunity costs in terms of lost ecosystem services. Second, the development of floodplains increases flood risks to people downstream (imposes a unidirectional spatial external costs). Theoretically, we can easily deal with the problem by zonal economic policies: zonal taxes or subsidies (price policies) and zonal marketable permits or transferable development rights (quantity policies). On the practical side, however, there are so many problems. Then, such approaches are too complex to use. First of all, we have to specify real complicated economic and physical systems which show non-linearity, irreversibility, site-specific relationships, and inter-dependency between systems and sites. Secondly such policies should be ‘zonal’, which might impose substantial transaction costs. In order to apply them to real situations, we have to determine the appropriate number of zones, their sizes and geographical shapes, and then set appropriate rates or amounts of permits in each zone. Furthermore, the determination of zones is difficult because of the trade-off between the internalisation of externalities and implementation costs of policies, which are also related to political frictions and market failure.