Together we stand,divided we fall? Smallholders' access to political power and their place in Poland's agricultural system

It has long been recognized that agrarian transformation can be seen as an outcome of struggles between politically influential interest groups. At the same time, numerous theoretical arguments suggest that small‐scale farmers are politically weak. Smallholders are commonly believed to comprise a particularly vulnerable group, which has only little influence on the pace and the direction of the ongoing restructuring. One may wonder, however, whether smallholders are able to affect the paths of agrarian development once they solve collective action problem and attain political office. In this paper, we try to improve our understanding in this respect by analysing smallholders in Poland. Our findings suggest that in municipalities in which smallholders had access to political offices, the rate of smallholders' exits from farming was significantly lower than elsewhere.     

Urban expansion in contemporary China: What can we learn from a small town?

Rapid physical expansion of urban land use is widely observed in Chinese cities. Although there is a consensus that economic liberalization and decentralization of administrative responsibilities explain the urban changes, it is not clear whether or not actual economic and population growth is the only cause of urban expansion. By using a small town as a case study, this paper shows that urban expansion is a combined outcome of actual needs, planning preparations, profit-seeking, and more importantly, the approach used by local government to achieve economic ambitions. Findings show that local economic and demographic changes do contribute to land-use expansion, but a local development approach that uses urban expansion to improve the competitive edge of the locality plays a critical role. A pro-growth coalition consisting of top local government officials, state work-unit leaders, and developers, whose interests align for short-term gain in economic and political terms, guarantee the mobilization of resources for carrying out the rapid urban expansion, and a vision of the local economic success. These findings add in a new dimension that is not yet seen in the study of China's urban expansion.     

Strategic public land use assessment and planning in Victoria,Australia: Four decades of trailblazing but where to from here?

While various attempts have been made to establish strategic environmental assessment (SEA) processes and institutions in various jurisdictions within Australia, the success of these often short lived attempts at institutional approaches for managing public land use conflict has been patchy. The experience in the State of Victoria has been somewhat different, with public land use assessment and planning having been informed by a series of independent statutory bodies since 1970 (the Land Conservation Council, Environment Conservation Council, and Victorian Environmental Assessment Council). These SEA bodies have played a major role in mediating environmental conflict over public land use, and have significantly contributed to the increased size and coverage of Victoria's protected area system. However, while there has always been a statutory body in operation, the roles and responsibilities of these bodies have been subject to significant legislative change, with existing bodies replaced by new bodies in 1997 and 2001. Justifications for these reforms included changing circumstances and new understandings about environmental management, as well as changing views about public administration. As a way of contributing to enhancing the design of institutions and processes for strategic environmental assessment, this paper provides an assessment of Victoria's approach and discusses possible future directions.     

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.     

Are we overestimating the negative impact of higher food prices? Evidence from Ghana

Most studies of the welfare impact of higher food prices adopt Deaton's approach, based on the first‐order effect of prices changes using income and expenditure survey data. This paper explores the impact of higher maize and food prices in Ghana and considers the sensitivity of results to changes in several assumptions. If second‐order effects are included, incorporating household response to price changes, the welfare impact of food price increases is more positive, but only modestly so. However, if we assume that marketing margins are constant in real terms rather than proportional to prices, the welfare impact is substantially more positive. These findings highlight the need for more research on the behavior of marketing margins under volatile prices.     

Property finance in the UK in the post‐war period

Summary

This paper is intended to introduce readers to the subject of property finance and to provide a review of post‐war trends in property finance and investment. In particular, it considers the growth and influence of institutional investment. The property ‘myth’ is examined in the light of recent analysis of the rental performance of commercial and industrial property, and the obsolescence of buildings.     

What Causes Spatial Variations in Economic Development in the United States?

This article examines the causes of spatial disparities in economic development in the United States. A theoretical model is developed to analyze the location decisions of firms and households. An empirical model is estimated to quantify the contribution of alternative factors to spatial variations in wage, employment density, housing price, and land development density. Results suggest that remoteness is a primary cause of spatial disparities in economic development, while natural amenities are a major determinant of housing prices. Despite the dominant role of geography, public investments in infrastructure and human capital development could contribute to economic development in remote areas.     

Is there a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth in South America?

This article estimates agricultural productivity growth in 10 South American countries in 1969–2009 with the objective of investigating if the slowdown being measured in other countries is present in the region. Results show that productivity growth accounts for half of the three‐fold increase in agricultural output during this period and that performance is sensitive to R&D investments in the sector. The slowdown found for the 1990s to 2000s in the U.S. and some European economies does not seem to be present yet in South America. The region's total factor productivity (TFP) growth rate increased steadily from 1.07% during the 1970s to 2.29% during the 2000s. Given lags in adoption and the adaptive nature of innovations in these economies, we have yet to see the potential effects in South American agriculture of decreases in R&D in advanced economies.     

Implementation of the forest expansion policy in the Netherlands in the period 1986–2007: Decline in success?

The current study explains why Dutch forest expansion policy is at risk of failure. To study the forest expansion implementation process we have chosen to further operationalize Matland's policy type implementation model to an extended and comprehensive typology of relevant implementation characteristics. In addition, a case study methodology with mixed-method design was used to collect and analyze the data. The Dutch forest expansion policy is currently an example of symbolic implementation. The symbolic implementation is a consequence of the absence of central guidance, the legislative complexity, the low policy stability, the lack of supporting conditions for policy innovation, the lack of regulatory responsiveness and the latent policy at state level and in many provinces. Nevertheless, the transferable development rights method of the province of Limburg is a promising innovation and forest expansion still happens, which is mainly the result of a good internal and external communication, an effective actor network of forest expansion advocates and the willingness to realize negotiated project aims that lead to a win–win situation for all actors involved. Nonetheless, it is expected that the forest expansion targets will be not reached, unless most of the above shortcomings are solved.     

Are returns to research quality lower in agricultural economics than in economics?

We compare effects of research quality and quantity on the salary of academics in agricultural economics and economics departments of the same universities. Agricultural economists get a significantly lower payoff to research quality, whether measured by quality‐weighted journal articles (based on nine different weighting schemes) or by citations. Instead, salary depends on the quantity of journal articles, while article counts have no independent effect on economist salaries. These differences in the reward structure for research are not due to either the extension focus of agricultural economists or to disciplinary differences in publishing with students and instead may reflect institutional factors that govern incentives within universities. One‐third of academics in the agricultural economics departments studied here have doctoral training in economics; the very different disciplinary reward structures may cause frustration for these faculty due to the muted returns to research quality that agricultural economics departments seem to offer.     

Consumers’ Response to Genetically Modified Ingredients in Processed Food in an Emerging Economy

Genetically modified (GM) foods are available in many countries including post–Soviet Union countries. However, empirical evidence on consumer acceptance for this region is scarce. In this study, we investigate consumers’ willingness to purchase a processed food containing GM ingredients. For this purpose, a consumer survey was conducted in 2015 in Tajikistan. In many aspects, our results confirm previous empirical findings showing that women are more skeptical toward GM food and a higher level of respondents’ education and the presence of minors in households are negatively correlated with their willingness to purchase a processed food containing GM ingredients. Moreover, a higher risk perception of GM food is negatively associated with the probability to purchase and consume such foods. However, our results indicate that risk perceptions of GM food seem to be relatively low in comparison to other studies with 41.5% of Tajik respondents connecting no risks with GM food. This result is surprising given the existing knowledge about post–Soviet Union consumers who are usually assumed to reject GM food due to their strong focus on naturalness.     

Cashing in or driving development? Cross-border traders and maize contract farming in northeast Laos

Contract farming is receiving renewed attention in research and policy in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia, as countries continue to undergo varied agrarian transitions and agri-food production has become increasingly regionalized. In northeast Laos, previously isolated upland communities have experienced rapid transformations resulting from contract production of hybrid maize, mainly for industrial feed processing and livestock in Vietnam. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork in the Lao-Vietnamese borderlands, this article explores the quasi-“developmental” functions assumed by cross-border traders, in the context of unfulfilled rural policy objectives, in which these “micro-investors” provide informal extension and infrastructure to enable agricultural commercialization. The article examines the extent to which this dynamic is adequately captured by notions of patronage, or whether subtle mutual dependencies are at work, as livelihoods are rebalanced between subsistence and commodity crops in remote border landscapes.     

Is a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth contributing to the rise in commodity prices?

A slowdown in the rate of agricultural productivity growth is thought by many observers to be contributing to the recent rise in agricultural prices. In this article I decompose sources of output growth in global agriculture into aggregate input and total factor productivity (TFP) components and examine whether productivity growth slowed substantially in the years leading up to the recent rise in commodity prices. Contrary to widely held perceptions, I find no evidence of a general slowdown in sector‐wide agricultural TFP, at least through 2006. If anything, the growth rate in agricultural TFP accelerated in recent decades. However, the results do show a slowdown in the growth of agricultural investment. Accelerating TFP growth largely offset decelerating input growth to keep the real output of global agriculture growing at about 2% per year since the 1960s. Regionally, however, agricultural productivity performance has been uneven. These findings have important implications for the appropriate supply‐side policy response to the current agricultural price crisis.     

What's driving innovation in small businesses in Australia? The case of the food industry

There is strong evidence that innovation is a primary driver of a nation's economic growth. As Australia continues to compete in the global economy, it is imperative that businesses should be innovative to improve their performance. In this paper, we evaluate the status and main drivers of innovation in small businesses in the food sector in Australia. Discrete choice modelling and bootstrapping procedures are applied to a panel of firm‐level data collected through the ABS Business Characteristics Survey (2006–2007 to 2010–2011 for the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Business Longitudinal Database Confidential Unit Record File) to investigate the factors affecting the likelihood of small food businesses to innovate. Results show that businesses are more likely to innovate if they collaborate, have higher information and communication technology intensity, and use science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills. We also found that small food businesses, even at the subsector level, do combine different types of innovation when innovating. The propensity to innovate also increases for small businesses that have flexible working arrangements, face moderate‐to‐strong market competition, operate overseas and seek finance through debt and equity. The relative importance of these factors was found to vary between agricultural and nonagricultural food subsectors.     

From researcher to farmer: partnerships in integrated aquaculture—agriculture systems in Malawi and Cameroon

The potential for integrating aquaculture with agriculture has been widely recognized as a means of improving the use of inputs, diversifying output and economic opportunity, and enabling smallholder producers to maintain and strengthen livelihoods. This paper describes the outcomes of this approach and explains the extent to which it has been taken up and has led to sustained and self-generated capacity. Based in particular on experience in Malawi, Ghana and Cameroon, it also considers implications more widely in the region. The overall picture is that this is a partial and still emerging success story, linked as much with the social and economic drivers surrounding smallholder farmers as with the development support approach adopted.     

The introduction of Entry Level Stewardship in England: Extension or dilution in agri-environment policy?

Agri-environment schemes were introduced in the mid-1980s. Their primary objectives have developed from initially aiming to hold back intensification towards stimulating environmental enhancement. The introduction of Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) in England represents a third stage in seeking to extend the coverage of schemes across the majority of agricultural land. This aims to influence land use along the whole of the intensive margin. The ELS offers a wide range of options for which farmers are awarded points. Selection of options equivalent to 30 points per ha in lowland areas entitles farmers to a payment of £30 per ha. By September 2007, 4.4 million ha had been entered into the scheme, equivalent to 47% of the agricultural area. From amongst the options on offer, 34% of points were for boundary options, 20% for intensive grass options, 16% for management plans and 13% for options taking arable land out of production. The choice of options varies across the country with a higher proportion of the agricultural area entered in the East. Entry into the scheme is associated with total agricultural area, cereals farming, larger farms, a lower proportion of area in Environmentally Sensitive Area and Countryside Stewardship schemes and grazing livestock numbers. While the ELS has introduced a large number of new entrants into agri-environment schemes, the extent of the environmental impact is uncertain. Given the large number of options available, it is likely that farmers will have chosen options that involve relatively little change and incur limited cost. At the same time, it would be surprising if the environmental gains were of the types most valued within local areas. The ELS approach implies that public goods provided from agricultural land should be paid for irrespective of what would have happened in the absence of the scheme. While this may be a fairer approach, it may also undermine the idea of land stewardship and imply that payments will continue to be required in the long term in order to sustain provision. The ELS does establish a framework within which incentives could be targeted to deliver specific benefits within particular contexts and suggestions are made as to how policy might be developed for this.     

Spatial–temporal changes in grain input–output and the driving mechanism in China since 1985

Based on Chinese county-level statistic data, this paper reveals spatial–temporal distribution and changing of grain production, by studying gravity centres of grain input–output regions in China from 1985 to 2009. According to the grain output, per-capita grain consumption, and population, the surplus grain of 2864 counties from 1985 to 2009 was calculated. And the counties with surplus grain value greater than zero and smaller than zero were respectively defined as grain input regions and grain output regions; they were respectively analysed by using the model of grain gravity centre. We found that there are four periods of spatial–temporal changing of gravity centres in grain input regions, and five periods in all output regions. According to the moving path of the gravity centres of input–output regions, 1990 was the turning point of completely entering into ‘grain supply from north to south period’. Spatial–temporal changing of grain-sown area and the arable land was the main driving mechanism for the shift in grain input–output gravity centres. The change of spatial pattern of grain production influenced sustainability of grain production from three impacts. And two policy suggestions are put forward to promote the sustainability of grain production.

HIGHLIGHTS

Use the method of gravity centres to research the spatial–temporal changing of surplus grain from 1985 to 2009 in China.

Analyse the spatial–temporal changing and the driving mechanism of gravity centres of grain input–output from 1985 to 2009 in China.

1990 was identified as the turning point of completely entering into ‘grain supply from north to south period’.

Summarize the impact of the changes of spatial pattern of grain production on the sustainability of grain production and put forward two proposals.     

Economic performance in Latin America in the 2000s: recession,recovery, and resilience?

This paper examines Latin America’s economic performance in the last three decades with the objective of assessing whether it entered a new phase of strong and persistent growth with stabilization in the 2000s. Our analysis pays special attention to the changing roles of exports and investment as drivers of growth and to the region’s performance in the fiscal area, the composition and dynamics of foreign trade, investment and labour productivity. Our results indicate that, in general, the region has achieved important progress in macroeconomic matters, but it has failed to overcome major structural, long-term constraints linked to its balance of payments and to a lesser extent its fiscal performance. Unless these challenges are resolved, the region’s long-term growth will hardly be favourable.     

Land-use change in the ‘edgelands’: Policies and pressures in London's rural–urban fringe

Green Belt policies have helped to create chaotic landscapes at the rural–urban interfaces of the United Kingdom's largest cities. Their prime functions, to control urban sprawl and preserve an encircling green girdle to separate the urban from the open countryside, have created ‘edgelands’ that have been remarkably dynamic despite relatively strong controls on certain types of development. A detailed case study of one part of London's Metropolitan Green Belt, drawing upon analysis of planning registers, reveals long-term trends in land-use change linked to the development controls operated within the context of the Green Belt and the adjacent built-up area. This paper also outlines the history of the Green Belt policy in the United Kingdom (UK) and discusses recently proposed policy changes that have provoked ongoing debate about this form of control on urban sprawl and its consequences for the land use of Green Belts and the edgelands.     

Tempest in the Andes? Part 2: Peasant Organization and Development Agencies in Cotopaxi (Ecuador)

This paper, published in two parts, is an analysis of the links between the ‘agrarian question’ in the Ecuadorian Andes and the creation of a network of indigenous‐peasant organizations that became the backbone of the national indigenous movement. I explore the relations between agrarian change and social change, drawing on a monographic study carried out in Cotopaxi Province, in the central sierra of Ecuador, from the 1960s to the beginning of the twenty‐first century. In the first part, I emphasized how the transformations unleashed by the crisis of the hacienda regime marked a rupture that consolidated the dense organizational scaffolding in the rural milieu. In this second part, I examine how development agencies, especially non‐governmental organizations (NGOs), played a fundamental role in strengthening those structures (1980s and 1990s). The history of the Union of Peasant Organizations of Northern Cotopaxi (UNOCANC) is one such example: born from the struggle for haciendas, inputs from the development apparatus enabled the rise of local elites who turned the organization into one of the most militant in the country. In this paper, I draw attention to aspects seldom mentioned in the specialized bibliography, namely a detailed study of how peasant differentiation, the origins of which lay in hacienda hierarchies, and which was upheld in turn by the agrarian distribution, was accelerated by the actions of NGOs, which continued to favour those indigenous peasants with more power and economic resources. Thus, divergences were consolidated and internal fissures opened up in organizations that are at the root of the crisis of representation experienced by ethnic platforms in the Ecuadorian Andes today.