‘If You Build It,They Will Come’: Governing property-led rural regeneration in Ireland

This article examines the governance of rural regeneration in the Republic of Ireland, through the case of the Rural Renewal Scheme (RRS), which provided fiscal incentives to subsidise the construction and renovation of housing and business premises in a declining rural region. It reveals that the RRS has been successful in achieving two of its key objectives – stemming population decline and increasing housing output. It has also contributed to significant employment generation, albeit mainly in construction, which is unlikely to be sustainable over the longer term. However, the RRS was incompatible with sustainable rural development of its target region because it has resulted in significant negative unintended impacts, most notably excess housing output, which in turn has contributed to high vacancy rates. These impacts are linked to over centralised programme design and implementation, a particular pro development ethos among rural local authorities and poor linkages between the RRS and wider rural and regional development policies. Thus, this case raises questions about the authenticity of multi-level rural governance which has been widely reported in rural development and planning academic discourse internationally and in Ireland, and about the appropriateness of property-led regeneration interventions to the rural context.     

Financial optimisation of forest-level harvest scheduling in Ireland – A case study

World-wide, forest managers have long recognised the benefits of using optimisation-based modelling techniques to improve decision-making. With no such systems in operation in Irish forestry, optimisation-based economic models were developed for harvest scheduling on a forest level within the context of a hierarchical approach. These new techniques were compared to those currently employed by Coillte Teoranta (the Irish Forestry Board). The development of the optimisation models involved the evaluation of: different management options strategies, optimisation techniques, model types and constraint strategies. Evaluation of the models was carried out in Clonbrock forest (294.8 ha), a typical Irish plantation forest, owned and managed by Coillte. The application of the selected model resulted in an increase in net present value (NPV) over the 5-year planning period of 14.2% compared to the NPV produced by Coillte's current process.     

Commonage land and farmer uptake of the rural environment protection scheme in Ireland

This paper looks at some of the factors which may influence REPS participation among commonage farmers in the west of The Republic of Ireland and on the impact REPS has had on participating farmers’ income and on their environmental practices and attitudes. Commonage is land held in common ownership on which two or more farmers have grazing rights. There are about 4500 commonages in Ireland and they are important to Irish agriculture, to conservation of the uplands, in managing the environment and in sustaining rural livelihoods. The study reveals that sheep farmers are less likely to join REPS than cattle farmers and that being in receipt of other sources of State income acted as a deterrent to participation. REPS appears to have had a positive impact on participants’ income and seems to have been successful in changing farmer practices in a more environmentally benign direction, when doing so imposed no additional costs on the farmer. Environmental awareness among all farmers appears to be poor although REPS farmers display more appreciation of the degraded state of commonage than do non-REPS farmers. Farmers preference for a continuation of the status quo with respect to commonage management and a lack of discontent with respect to the distribution of past commonage rights points to the potential of building on a more co-operative approach to environmental management.     

SEA making inroads in land-use planning in Brazil: The case of the Extreme South of Bahia with forestry and biofuels

In Brazil, incorporating the environmental dimension to the planning process is a challenging process. Planning has historically been carried without considering environmental protection concerns. The country's large development projects have engendered a discussion on the feasibility of these works given the conflicts with environmental policies. The strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is a tool that has the potential to integrate the sectoral, territorial and environmental perspectives to promote sustainable development, as shown by international experience. Its use has not yet been regulated in Brazil, only been voluntary initiatives, both public and private, have been implemented. This paper presents the structure and results of the SEA of the plans to expand silviculture of eucalyptus and biofuels in the Extreme South Region of Bahia state, in the Brazilian Northeast, in a context of sectoral planning dissociated from government guidelines for land use policy and environmental protection. It portrays a practical case of methodological proposal for the use of socio-environmental criteria to establish limits for land occupation by monocultures, for each of the municipalities of the study region, according to their specific climate, soil, relief and environmental preservation characteristics. Various alternatives were identified to ensure areas with greater productivity for small family farming and areas with potential for preservation. SEA helped to a better understanding of the effects of the expansion of the planting areas in each alternative, which was essential to help all stakeholders visualize the consequences of their strategies. Consequently, as results the SEA outlined a series of guidelines and restrictions for the various levels of government and the production sector. For instance, SEA suggested for Federal, State and Municipality governments that areas with better soil and climate conditions could be reserved for public policies to incentive the diversification of the uses of the territory, such as food production. SEA also suggests the adoption of incentive programs to establish multiple-use forests. The SEA recommended that the state government integrate its program for strengthening family agriculture with land-use planning criteria, based on cooperative systems The methodology employed has evidences to be replicable in other regions of Brazil and in developing countries.     

An engineering economics approach to the estimation of forest fuel supply in North-Trøndelag county, Norway

The article reports a study performed in North-Trøndelag county in Norway, aiming at identifying the economic supply curve for forest fuels. Using an engineering economics approach, the potential forest fuel production is described as a function of the existing traditional forestry. Based on a set of energy raw materials including (i) harvesting residues, (ii) low-quality trees, (iii) thinnings and (iv) hardwoods, necessary adjustments of the existing forestry technology are described and used as a basis for the calculations. Depending on fuel market prices, a total annual amount of forest fuels close to 0.5 TWh is available in the county.     

Trade-offs at a regional level in spatial planning: Two case studies as a source of inspiration

Societal and technological changes are influencing the spatial expression of human activity and governance. The focus on the regional level is stronger and there is greater cooperation at more levels between public and private stakeholders. Furthermore, there is a growing demand for a better quality of space and new concepts for funding spatial interventions. This whole intricate scenario is in need of new planning instruments that can be deployed at a regional level.     

Taking context into account in urban agriculture governance: Case studies of Warsaw (Poland) and Ghent (Belgium)

This article explores the role of local particularism in relation to the global interest in urban agriculture (UA). A growing movement is advocating UA, but future prospects are limited by variability, unclear expectations, vague responsibilities and leadership in the UA movement. We wonder whether the poor understanding of UA governance is associated with a public discourse and academic literature that too easily adopt the generic and universally claimed benefits. We argue here that uncritical enthusiasm results in an overly instrumental approach to governance of UA with a main focus on stimulating formal (e.g., policy making) and informal advocacy (e.g., civic engagement in UA). We do not deny the importance of formal and informal advocacy in UA development, but rather claim that the potential of UA needs a more nuanced analysis. Study of the interplay between UA advocacy and a city’s contextual characteristics is a worthy pursuit, as it may provide significant and more profound explanations for the divergence observed in UA developments. Case studies performed in Warsaw (Poland) and Ghent (Belgium) serve to illustrate the importance of context. The results suggest that neither case is likely to benefit from a governance strategy that only stimulates greater advocacy and institutional support. The inclusion of city-specific needs, opportunities and pitfalls of UA in the governance strategy can help to move UA toward its full potential. We suggest a policy-making strategy for UA that expands beyond the realm of food production alone. Ultimately, the aim is to steer away from assessing (and critiquing) UA solely against the backdrop of these generic success factors.     

Determinants of efficiency of vegetable production in smallholder farms: The case of Ethiopia

Improving production efficiency remains as a plausible means of increasing productivity when resource reallocation, and the creation and adoption of new technologies are limited. Technical, allocative and economic efficiencies are derived from a sample of smallholder vegetable farmers in Ethiopia using parametric and non-parametric methods. The results reveal that the two methods yield similar estimates and the existence of substantial inefficiencies in production as well as efficiency differentials among farmers. The analysis of the determinants of efficiency of vegetable production using regression models show that low asset ownership, illiteracy, large family size, inadequate extension contacts, small farm size, age, low off/non-farm income and high consumer spending are the major socio-economic factors causing inefficiency of vegetable production in the study areas. A comparison of the market-driven (vegetables) with the whole-farm (crops and livestock) production efficiency indicates that lower economic efficiency scores for the former might be related to the limited access to capital markets, high consumer spending, and large family size.