‘Forest governmentality’: A genealogy of subject-making of forest-dependent ‘scheduled tribes’ in India

This paper analyses the historical trajectories of both British colonial rule and independent India to categorise scheduled tribes and to appropriate and legalise forests in tribal areas. It builds upon Foucault's notion of governmentality to argue that the history of the scheduled tribes’ subject-making and the related history of forest demarcation is indispensable for understanding the current politics of decentralised forest management in India. Three dimensions of ‘forest governmentality’ - the history of categorisation, the politics of social identity, and the technologies of forest governance - are discussed to show how recent efforts to politicise forest tenure rights have reinforced political control over the scheduled tribes through new forms of authority, inclusion and exclusion. However, to claim their individual and community right to forestland and resources, the scheduled tribes have internalised their ‘new’ ethnic identity, thereby creating countervailing power and room to manoeuvre within the current forest governance regime. This is supported by a case study of the Bhil, a predominantly forest-dependent scheduled tribe in the semi-arid region of western India.     

"The herald of prosperity": tracing the boll weevil myth in Alabama

As scholars and singers have pointed out in monographs and folk songs, the cotton boll weevil was a devastating force on southern farming and rural life. No symbol is more indicative of this destruction than Enterprise, Alabama's boll weevil monument. This essay examines not how the cotton pest destroyed the region's staple crop, but how women and men across race and class lines understood the beetle's threat and used it to their advantage. The statue, like the countless blues and folk songs about the pest, was a cultural statement that shaped the understanding of the bug itself and its supposed transformation of southern agriculture. By examining the local conditions that gave rise to dramatic, albeit short-lived, crop diversification, and in turn the monument's erection, this essay uncovers the ways in which the boll weevil myth was as important a force on southern life as the long-snouted beetle itself.     

Neo-Classical Neo-Populism 25 Years On: Déjà Vu and Déjà Passé. Towards a Critique

The Griffin, Khan and Ickowitz argument in favour of redistributive land reform, as a means of eradicating rural poverty, is an updated version of a case made by Griffin 30 years ago, and is here seen as a variant of neo-classical neo-populism. The essential logic presented by GKI is considered and it is argued that the approach is defective in its lack of historical perspective and its deployment of a static approach in a dynamic context: these defects manifested in its ignoring of the processes associated with capitalist transformation. It is further argued that its logical foundation is the neo-classical construct of perfect competition, which is without historical basis; its empirical justification is a postulated inverse relationship between land productivity and size of holding, supposedly true of all places and all times, but which is swept away by the development of capitalism in agriculture; and its social specification, in failing to capture the existence of differentiated peasantries, ignores the actual class structure of the countryside.     

CAP Reform: Prospects for crop markets in the Enlarged EU: Reform der GAP: Aussichten für die Märkten von Feldfrüchten in der erweiterten EU: La rëforme de la PAC: I'avenir des marchés agricoles dans I'Europe élargie

CAP Reform: Prospects for crop markets in the Enlarged EU Agricultural Policy Modelling in the EU has become more complicated due to the recent CAP reform and EU Enlargement. Under the AGMEMOD (Agricultural Member States Modelling) Partnership, teams of economists with specialist knowledge of agriculture in their own countries have come together to build the AGMEMOD model. The model can be used to analyse the impact of policy reform at a country level in EU member states and at an aggregate EU level. The model covers a wide variety of agricultural commodities, but this article focuses specifically on the impact of the policy reform on the cereals sector. Results are presented for the EU15 in aggregate, the New Member States (NMS), Bulgaria and Romania. The implication of EU Enlargement is also examined for the accession countries. For the EU15, results suggest that there would be a modest reduction in grain production and a slightly larger reduction in oilseeds production by 2010, as a response to the decoupling of cereal payments. Results for the NMS suggest that their accession will bring some modest growth in grains production by 2010, This result is not greatly different from that which might have been achieved had these countries remained outside the EU. The recent reforms limit the extent to which the CAP stimulates increased production in the NMS. La réforme de la PAC: l'avenir des marches agricoles dans l'Europe élargie Avec l'elargissement et la recente reforme de la PAC, modeliser la politique agricole europeenne devient de plus en plus difficile. C'est pour cela que plusieurs Cquipes d'kconomistes ‐ chacune selectionnee sur la base de ses connaissances accumulees sur l'agriculture de son propre pays ‐ se sont associees pour construire le modele AGMEMOD, dans le cadre du partenariat MAEM (Modelisation Agricole des Etats Membres). Ce modkle est utilisable pour analyser l'impact des reformes de la politique agricole, tant au niveau de l'Europe entiere qu'i celui de chacun des Etats membres. Il couvre une vaste variete de produits agricoles, mme si le present article met I'accent sur les cereales. k s resultats sont prksentes pour les agrigats ‘Europe a 15’, ‘NMS’ (nouveaux ktats membres), Bulgarie et Roumanie. On examine aussi, ici, les implications de I'elargissement de I'Union pour les nouveaux membres. Pour 1'Europe a 15, a la suite du dkcouplage des aides cerealieres, les resultats conduisent i envisager a I'horizon 2010 une modeste reduction de la production de cereales et une reduction un peu plus forte de la production dolkagineux. Dans le mCme temps, les NMS devraient connaitre un faible accroissement de leur production de cereales. Ceci n'est pas fondamentalement different de ce qui serait arrive si ces pays etaient restes en dehors de 1'Europe. Dans les NMS, les reformes recentes ont pour effet de brider les accroissements de production auxquels I'application de la PAC aurait permis de s'attendre. Reform der GAP: Aussichten für die Märkte von Feldfruchten in der erweiterten EU Die Modellierung von Agrarpolitiken in der EU gestaltet sich auf Grund der kurzlich durchgefiihrten Reform der GAP und der EU‐Erweiterung zunehmend schwieriger. Im Rahmen der AGMEMOD (Agricultural Member States Modelling, Agrarmodellierung von Mitgliedstaaten)‐Partnerschaft haben sich Okonomen zusammengefunden, die im Hinblick auf die Landwirtschaft in ihren Heimatlandern uber Fachkenntnisse verfiigen, um das AGMEMOD‐Modell zu erarbeiten. Mit Hilfe dieses Modells konnen die Auswirkungen der Politikreformen sowohl auf Ebene der EU‐Mitgliedstaaten als auch auf aggregierter EU‐Ebene analysiert werden. Das Modell deckt eine groRe Anzahl von landwirtschaftlichen Produkten ab; dieser Artikel behandelt jedoch insbesondere die Auswirkungen der Politikreformen auf dem Getreidesektor. Die Ergebnisse werden fiir die aggregierte EU‐15, die neuen Mitgliedstaaten (NMS) sowie fiir Bulgarien und Rumanien dargestellt. Die Auswirkungen der ELI‐Erweiterung werden ebenfalls ftir die Beitrittslander untersucht. Im Fall der EU‐15 zeigen die Ergebnisse einen geingen Ruckgang bei der Getreideproduktion und einen etwas hoheren Ruckgang bei der Olsaatenproduktion bis zum Jahr 2010 als Folge der Entkopplung der Getreidezahlungen. Die Ergebnisse fiir die NMS deuten darauf hin, dass sich ein geringes Wachstum der Getreideproduktion bis zum Jahr 2010 ergeben wird. Dieses Ergebnis unterscheidet sich nicht wesentlich von einem Szenarium, in welchem diese Lander der EU nicht beigetreten waren. Die kurzlich durchgefiihrten Reformen begrenzen die produktionssteigernde Wirkung der GAP in den NMS.     

Social landscape: Ten years of planning ‘valuable landscapes’ in Estonia

This paper gives an overview of theme planning on designating valuable landscapes in Estonia (1999–2003) and traces its impacts through the decade up to the present. We claim that in addition to the mapped list of valuable landscapes and their attributes as we have described them, this planning exercise called forth changes in society as well as in landscapes and their appreciation. As the project applied participatory planning tools unprecedented in post-communist Estonia, the Estonian word for landscape (maastik) is now being used more in everyday language, according to the way its meaning altered in the process.     

Consumers’ Appreciation of Regional Certification Labels: A Pan‐European Study

Successful regional products, such as Florida oranges, Idaho potatoes and Parma ham, often have to compete against products passing themselves off as the authentic product using the exact same name. This unfair competition misleads consumers, discourages small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) from marketing products based on their region of origin, and may end up hurting rural economies. To protect consumers, and support SMEs and rural economies, many countries around the world have introduced regulations enabling SMEs to legally protect the names of their regional products. The success of these regulations largely depends on consumers’ appreciation of regional certification labels that inform consumers that the name of the regional product is protected and that it denotes the authentic product. To gain an understanding about consumers’ appreciation of regional certification labels, this paper investigates consumers’ image of these labels and proposes a model that relates this image to consumers’ willingness to buy and pay for protected regional products. The model is tested based on Regulation No. 2081/92 that was introduced by the EEC allowing European SMEs to protect their regional products and market their products with a protected‐designation‐of‐origin (PDO) label. Structural equation modelling results suggest that consumers’ image of regional certification labels consists of a quality warranty dimension and an economic support dimension, which positively relate to consumers’ willingness to buy and pay for the protected regional product. Protecting regional products and marketing them with regional certification labels may be beneficial for SMEs producing and marketing regional products. Policy and managerial implications are discussed.     

Pricing‐To‐Market Analysis: The Case of EU Wheat Exports

The EU is a major player in the global wheat market. This paper examines the pricing behaviour of EU wheat exporters using a pricing‐to‐market (PTM) analysis. Wheat is an exemplary product for testing PTM theories as it is widely and frequently traded, and largely unbranded. We estimate the relationship between export unit values and exchange rates using quarterly panel data for 11 EU export destinations for 2000–2013. Results show that there is a meaningful long‐run relationship between export unit values and exchange rates, but there is little evidence of differential mark‐ups between EU export markets. Belarus and Iceland are exceptions where exporters from the EU appear to exercise local currency price stabilisation.     

Time‐varying Hedge Ratios: A Principal‐agent Approach

We use the classic agency model to derive a time‐varying optimal hedge ratio for low‐frequency time‐series data: the type of data used by crop farmers when deciding about production and about their hedging strategy. Rooted in the classic agency framework, the proposed hedge ratio reflects the context of both the crop farmer's decision and the crop farmer's contractual relationships in the marketing channel. An empirical illustration of the Dutch ware potato sector and its futures market in Amsterdam over the period 1971–2003 reveals that the time‐varying optimal hedge ratio decreased from 0.34 in 1971 to 0.24 in 2003. The hedging effectiveness, according to this ratio, is 39%. These estimates conform better with farmers’ interest in using futures contracts for hedging purposes than the much higher estimates obtained when price risk minimisation is the only objective considered.     

Australasian environmental economics: contributions,conflicts and ‘cop‐outs’*

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non‐market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much of the controversy has centred on the validity of valuations generated through the application of stated preference methods such as contingent valuation. Suggestions to overcome some shortcomings in the work of environmental economists include the commissioning of a sequence of non‐market valuation studies to fill existing gaps to improve the potential for benefit transfer.