Dispossession by neglect: Agricultural land sales in Southern India

Active land markets in the periphery of Chennai have resulted in large tracts of agricultural land being bought by non‐agricultural actors seeking returns primarily from speculation. We argue in this paper that the financialization of land and consequent spurt of agricultural land sales are central to what scholars have termed land grab. Recent literature on land grabs has focused primarily on processes of accumulation by dispossession and the coercive role of the state. Our contention is that land grabs more commonly occur due to the state underinvesting in agriculture, resulting in “dispossession by neglect” of especially marginal and small farmers. Dispossession by neglect better captures the fluid boundary between the coercive and voluntary in contemporary land grabs.     

供给侧生产端变化对中国粮食安全的影响研究

在“谷物基本自给、口粮绝对安全”的粮食安全战略背景下,粮食供给侧生产端对于保障中国粮食安全起到关键性作用。近年来,随着城镇化和农业现代化的推进,新型农业经营主体和土地规模化经营快速发展,粮食生产在质量效益和专业化水平不断提高的同时,其土地生产效率的提高和市场风险的防范面临挑战;粮食生产成本的攀升和比较收益的下降,使农业支持家庭生计的功能不断弱化,导致农户种粮意愿普遍降低;居民食物消费结构升级引致种植结构调整,使保障口粮绝对安全的政策成本上升。粮食生产主体结构与行为、生产成本与比较收益、供需匹配关系等生产端的重要变化,对粮食供给能力进而对国家粮食安全产生重要影响。为此,需要优化粮食安全目标,合理协调“保产量”与“优结构”的关系;完善价格激励机制,以需求升级为导向优化生产结构;优化收储调控机制,增强粮食安全风险应对能力;多举措提高农户种粮和地方政府发展粮食的积极性的同时充分利用国外资源和国际市场。     

中国耕地“非粮化”的时空格局演变及其影响因素

研究目的:探究中国耕地“非粮化”时空演化特征及影响因素,以期为中国耕地资源保护和粮食安全保障提供参考。研究方法:GIS空间分析、空间计量模型。研究结果:(1)2004—2018年,中国整体的“非粮化”水平呈波动变化,2016年后“非粮化”最为显著;“非粮化”类型逐渐由蔬菜、油料、棉花等多类型向蔬菜瓜果转变。(2)“非粮化”在空间上大致表现出由东北向西南逐步严重的态势,类型多为蔬菜和油料作物,又以蔬菜为主导。(3)各影响因素中,人工成本和种粮比较收益在后期对非粮种植有显著负向影响;劳动力非农就业促进“非粮化”现象发生;机械动力水平在前期对“非粮化”具有显著负向影响,后期表现为正面作用;良好的政策环境对“非粮化”具有抑制作用。研究结论:为应对耕地“非粮化”现象,应继续保障粮食种植收益、完善农业生产设施与服务市场、健全法律政策与制度,以稳定粮食生产。     

Impact and implications of price policy and land degradation on agricultural growth in developing countries

In many developing countries, a high proportion of the population resides and works in rural areas. Agriculture is the dominant sector in rural areas and has the greatest concentration of poverty: landless workers, small tenant farmers, and small farm owners. Thus, any development strategy that is directed towards increasing employment and alleviating a country's hunger must concentrate on sustainable agricultural growth. Historically, economic development in most countries has been based on exploitation of natural resources, particularly land resources. Soil erosion and land degradation have been serious worldwide. Due to reasons such as high population pressure on land and limited fossil energy supplies, land degradation is generally more serious in the developing world. Empirical studies show that soil erosion and degradation of agricultural land not only decrease the land productivity but they can also result in major downstream or off-site damage which may be several times that of on-site damage. In promoting industrialization, governments of many developing countries adopt a package of price and other policies that reduce agricultural production incentives and encourage a flow of resources out of agriculture. Increasing evidence shows that these policies cause a substantial efficiency or social welfare loss, and a great loss in foreign exchange earnings. In addition, a World Bank study on the effect of price distortions on economic growth rates concluded that neither rich resource endowments, nor a high stage of economic development, nor privatization are able to make up the adverse effects caused by high price distortions. This analysis is primarily concerned with identifying the factors that determine the agricultural production growth rate and in testing the effects these factors have on agricultural growth in developing countries. Specifically, this study involves statistical estimation of an aggregate agricultural growth function based on cross-country data for 28 developing countries. Special attention is devoted to land degradation and agricultural pricing policy, and to the policy implications resulting from the effects these variables have on agricultural and food production growth. The overall results of this study show that price distortions in the economy and land degradation had statistically significant negative impacts while the change in arable and permanent land was positively related to the growth of agricultural production and food production in 28 developing countries from 1971 to 1980. These results emphasize the importance of ‘getting prices right’ and implementation of sustainable land and water management practices if future growth in food and agricultural output is to be realized and sustained in developing countries.     

Agriculture in transition economies: from common heritage to divergence

The 23 former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) started the transition in 1989–1990 from a common institutional and organizational heritage, represented by the Soviet agricultural model. Despite the common heritage in agriculture, the reform policies in CEE and CIS diverged from the start, as significant differences emerged between the two groups of countries in legal attitudes to private land ownership, transferability of land, the extent of agricultural privatization and individualization, and restructuring of farms. This divergence in the implementation of agricultural reform has led to divergence in standard development measures: the CEE countries are outperforming the CIS countries by growth in GDP and agricultural product since 1992; the productivity of agricultural labor in CEE is generally increasing, and in CIS it is decreasing. While the CIS countries at best can be characterized as reluctant reformers, the CEE countries have achieved significantly higher levels of economic and institutional reform. Better performance in CEE is associated with greater readiness of the governments in these countries to implement a comprehensive package of economic and social reform policies, including more radical land reform and deeper individualization and restructuring of agriculture.     

Patterns and drivers of recent agricultural land-use change in Southern Germany

Traditionally, agricultural land-use change (LUC) analyses focus on the conversion of natural land to agriculture especially in developing countries. Studies considering recent agricultural LUC (e.g., to built-up land) for the last two decades in more stable agricultural systems in Western Europe are mostly missing for the regional scale. Major LUC pathways, their drivers and potential counteracting factors such as subsidies or an increasing demand for regional agricultural products should be analyzed.Using the Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg in Germany, we quantified (i) major pathways of agricultural LUC with a transition matrix, and (ii) spatial patterns of agricultural LUC with optimized hot-spot analyses. (iii) We used boosted regression trees (BRT) to identify factors which foster agricultural LUC towards settlement and forest as well as semi-natural open land. Results for the last 15 years showed a considerable decline of agricultural land due to afforestation (3.1%) and due to settlement and infrastructure development (2.7%), which were the main LUC pathways. Both settlement development and afforestation concentrated at existing hotspots of urban development and in forest-dominated areas. Settlement-driven agricultural LUC was largely dependent on population density and development and independent from agricultural or biophysical parameters. Forest-driven LUC was mostly explained by agricultural parameters (i.e., low land rents and biophysical factors such as high slopes). Governance instruments such as regional planning and payments for maintaining agriculture on marginal land did not seem to maintain a balanced spatial distribution of agricultural land. If not improved, settlement development will considerably outcompete agriculture in prosperous sub-regions. Economic constraints will force farmers to abandon agriculture for forest on marginal locations at the cost of an intact cultural landscape.     

Production functions in Agriculture

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the quadratic production functions used by D. Gale Johnson [4] in his investigation of sharecropping and by H. Scott Gordon [3] in his classic analysis of a common property resource. Both Johnson and Gordon use linear average and marginal production functions in the geometric exposition of their respective theories, but neither author has explored the unusual properties of the quadratic production function which yields a linear marginal product and average product for one factor. The first part of this paper will investigate the quadratic production function used by Johnson in his sharecropping study, and the second part of this paper will explore the similar quadratic production function employed by Gordon in a subsequent paper on the economic theory of fisheries. In his seminal study of sharecropping, Johnson finds that when one maximizes with respect to labor, the tenant will rent additional land until the marginal physical product of land is zero. He demonstrates this remarkable result in two ways. First he does so with calculus by using a neoclassical production function, and second he does so with geometry in Figure 1 of this classic paper. [4]. Although the calculus is correct, his geometric example raises interesting questions. He says linear functions are shown in Figure 1 of this paper for simplicity, but the example can be generalized for any type of average product function. However, he does not explain what type of production function can generate linear marginal and average product functions, and it is the intention of this paper to do so. In particular, one can ask whether such a production function is neoclassical, or one can ask what is the nature of the marginal and average product functions for the second factor of production? Also, one can ask whether such a production function is linear homogeneous? The properties of a neoclassical production function can be found in Burmeister and Dobell [1]. They list six properties of a neoclassical production function, Y = F(K,L):     

FACTOR SUBSTITUTION IN AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURE

Studies of the ease of substitution between inputs in production have generally been carried out within a production framework of an explicit functional form. In this study, a somewhat different approach is followed. A model of derived demand for primary factors of production, land, labour and capital is formulated to enable inferences to be made about the characteristics of the unspecified production function. The model is used to obtain estimates of the pairwise Allen-Uzawa substitution elasticities which are secondary parameters of the underlying production function. The reported FIML estimates from aggregate time series data for the period 1920/21 to 1969/70 indicate very low and marginally different substitution elasticities between different pairs of factors, suggesting that both the Cobb-Douglas and CES production function specifications for the Australian agricultural sector are inappropriate.     

Long run agricultural land expansion,booms and busts

Agricultural land expansion is a prominent feature in today’s developing countries. It is associated with a structural pattern of land use in many remote land-abundant regions where large-scale commercial primary product activities coexist with increased concentration of smallholders in more marginal areas. The result may be boom-bust cycles of development. If these phenomena are widespread across developing countries, then long-run expansion of agricultural land could be associated with lower levels of real income per capita, which may also fluctuate with prolonged expansion. A panel analysis conducted over 1961–2015 for 98 developing economies fails to reject this hypothesis. Policies should aim to decouple socio-economic gains through agricultural development from continued land expansion, and greater investments are needed to support smallholder agriculture, land distribution and livelihoods in these areas.     

Marginal periurban agricultural areas: A support method for landscape planning

The significant proportion of often abandoned marginal/enclosed agricultural land in city peripheries has given rise to the need for studying the delicate relationship between built-up areas and rural land. These issues are exacerbated where metropolitan settlement has no bounds and begins to invade the rural space juxtaposed between cities and urban areas.This marginal land, in particular where a minimum of agricultural activity persists, could provide support to urban activities for recreation, farm services and local production of goods, reducing energy consumption, greenhouse-gas emissions, global warming and packaging, conserving biodiversity. These actions will allow the composting and the reuse of treated waste waters for irrigation.In particular, urban agriculture can play an educational role by contributing to reducing crime and improving community/ethnic relations, encouraging time spent in the open air and ensuring food safety.This study describes a methodology related to the analysis, to the identification, of the residual agricultural areas, differentiating them in accordance with the various levels of rurality to indicate the models of use, which allow to enhance the local landscape situations (preservation of the agricultural function or insertion of integrated activities) obtaining the pertinent valorisation. This methodology has been applied to the metropolitan area in the North zone of Catania.The method has three distinct phases: (1) land analysis and GIS construction consists of acquiring and georeferencing cartographic data, field studies to check and update the maps, and carry out a questionnaire on farm data; (2) data processing with GIS to create some thematic maps; (3) proposal of suitable land-use models.     

“保险+期货”服务地方优势特色农产品价格风险管理——运行机制、突出问题与政策融合空间

本文在对"保险+期货"服务地方特色农产品价格风险管理的运行机制进行理论论证的基础上,总结了现阶段影响"保险+期货"模式的六大突出问题——产品标准化、倒向型定价、对冲磨损、资金来源、基差风险和规模效应。进一步地,以白糖(糖料蔗)价格指数保险试点为案例,剖析了"保险+期货"与政策性农险相融合的发展空间,阐释了"保险+期货"项目在提升边际报酬和资金利用效率方面的改进方式和途径。基于此,本文总结并提出以"强化微观主体基础、扩大财政空间增量、健全配套期货工具、营造宏观制度环境和完善效应评价体系"为重点的"保险+期货"发展方向和建议。     

“保险+期货”服务地方优势特色农产品价格风险管理——运行机制、突出问题与政策融合空间

本文在对"保险+期货"服务地方特色农产品价格风险管理的运行机制进行理论论证的基础上,总结了现阶段影响"保险+期货"模式的六大突出问题——产品标准化、倒向型定价、对冲磨损、资金来源、基差风险和规模效应。进一步地,以白糖(糖料蔗)价格指数保险试点为案例,剖析了"保险+期货"与政策性农险相融合的发展空间,阐释了"保险+期货"项目在提升边际报酬和资金利用效率方面的改进方式和途径。基于此,本文总结并提出以"强化微观主体基础、扩大财政空间增量、健全配套期货工具、营造宏观制度环境和完善效应评价体系"为重点的"保险+期货"发展方向和建议。     

农村集体经济组织成员的资格要件——基于公有制下生产、生活资料公平分配的视角

目前学界对农村集体经济组织成员资格要件的界定,忽视了我国宪法区分生产资料和生活资料的目的 .计划经济时代下的城乡二元结构体制,将"户籍"作为成员资格要件具有合理性,但在实行城乡一体化和乡村振兴的大背景下,依然以"户籍"作为成员资格要件已不合时宜.为平衡进城农民和留在农村的农民之间的利益冲突,应当将"户籍"从资格要件中剥...     

Measuring public agricultural research and extension and estimating their impacts on agricultural productivity: new insights from U.S. evidence

This article provides new estimates of the marginal product of public agricultural research and extension on state agricultural productivity for the U.S., using updated data and definitions, and forecasts of future agricultural productivity growth by state. The underlying rationale for a number of important decisions that underlie the data used in cost‐return estimates for public agricultural research and extension are presented. The parameters of the state productivity model are estimated from a panel of contiguous U.S. 48 states from 1970 to 2004. Public research and extension are shown to be substitutes rather than complements. The econometric model of state agricultural TFP predicts growth rates of TFP for two‐thirds of states that is less than the past trend rate. The results and data indicate a real social rate of return to public investments in agricultural research of 67% and to agricultural extension of 100+%. The article concludes with guidance for TFP analyses in other countries.     

Derivation of an aggregate supply curve for U.K. beet production

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between real agricultural land prices and real rents for farmland using annual data. Taking account of inflation as a third variable there is evidence to suggest that rents and land prices are cointegrated; that is, changes in rents are mirrored in the long run by changes in land prices. It is also found that the implied real rate of return in the land market is around 3%.     

耕地细碎化促进了耕地“非粮化”吗 ——基于福建丘陵山区农户的微观调查

研究目的:基于福建省丘陵山区的农户调研数据,探讨耕地细碎化对耕地“非粮化”的影响。研究方法:有序Probit模型和Tobit模型。研究结果:(1)耕地细碎化促进了耕地“非粮化”的种植意愿和种植规模;(2)由于粮食的生活保障作用,当耕地细碎化程度增加时,农户同时种植粮食作物和经济作物的概率要高于仅种植经济作物的概率;(3)户主年龄、土壤肥力、承包地梯田占比、耕地分散程度、机械化程度、村庄到县城的距离也是影响耕地“非粮化”种植意愿和规模的重要因素。研究结论:耕地细碎化促进了耕地“非粮化”,应该在严格把控耕地“非粮化”底线的基础上,明确耕地利用优先序,通过缓解耕地细碎化,优化细碎化耕种方式的手段促进粮食生产,从而达到稳固粮食安全的目的。     

Measurement errors in agricultural data and their implications on marginal returns to modern agricultural inputs

The low uptake of modern agricultural technologies in sub-Saharan African countries has encouraged researchers to revisit the returns to (or profitability of) these agricultural inputs. A related strand of literature is exploring the allocative efficiency of these factors of production in African agriculture. However, all these studies rely on self-reported agricultural data, which are prone to nonclassical measurement errors, the errors in these data are correlated with the true values of variables of interest. In this article we investigate the implication of measurement errors in self-reported agricultural input and production data on marginal returns to these modern agricultural inputs. We consider a generic two-sided measurement error problem where both production and inputs can be measured with error, and these errors can be correlated. We employ both self-reported and objective measures of production and plot size to compute output elasticities under these alternative measurement scenarios. We find that using self-reported production and plot size overestimates output elasticities and hence marginal returns to modern agricultural inputs (including chemical fertilizer and improved seed). These results are noteworthy in terms of informing conventional technology diffusion strategies as well as in view of revisiting existing presumptions about the profitability of modern agricultural inputs.     

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA

One of the problems of economic policy concerns the best use of the resources available to the nation, whether they are distributed in the best way between the sectors of production and whether they are used in an optimal way within each sector. Clearly this is a “productivity” problem. It is said that neither the distribution of resources between sectors, nor the use that is made of them within each sector is optimal either in Europe or North America. One of the most important examples is in agriculture, to which too much labour is allocated and sub-optimal use is made of the resources available. Thus agricultural productivity is low, and there are regional and international differences. To answer questions about the level of agricultural productivity it is necessary to have a method of measurement and on this there has been a lot of discussion. The object of this note is to define the optimal yardstick and to use it to estimate the differences in agricultural productivity between the countries in Eastern and Western Europe and North America.     

农地确权、土地细碎化与农户生产要素投入决策——来自广东粤北山区农户的调查分析

文章基于中国农地确权制度改革的政策背景,以及备受关注的土地细碎化的资源特征,构建“产权权利界定、产权资源特性与农户生产要素投入”的理论分析框架,借助广东粤北山区阳山县农户的调查数据,采用条件混合处理模型的计量结果表明:农地确权未能有效激励农户的生产要素投入行为,但土地细碎化显著抑制了农户雇佣劳动力和机械服务购买行为,还显著促进了化肥施用。进一步纳入农地确权和土地细碎化的交互项的模型结果表明,农地确权与土地细碎化两者之间不存在互补或替代的交互效应。采用中介机制、子样本分析等模型验证了上述结论的稳健性。由此认为,农地确权政策的影响具有情境依赖性,不可教条式地过度吹捧农地确权政策的生产投入影响效应;对于丘陵山区地带而言,农业政策应从聚焦于地权制度改革调整到缓解农地细碎化问题上。这不仅对激励农业生产要素的投入具有必要性与紧迫性,而且也有利于农地“减肥”,缓解中国日益紧迫的农业资源环境问题。     

“The enchantment of property”: Arthur Young,enclosure, and the cottage economy in England, 1770–1840

English agricultural practice changed dramatically in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as enclosure, the dominance of commercial short‐term leases for tenant farmers, and the proletarianization of the agricultural labour force completed what has been called an agricultural revolution. A less often noted aspect of this change was what was called “a war on cottages” and cottage gardens. The Board of Agriculture and Arthur Young were important cheerleaders for this process. Yet many of the most prominent members of the Board of Agriculture made impassioned appeals for the provision of land for English cottagers as a way to reduce poverty and stressed that cottagers produced remarkable returns from their small farms. Arthur Young became the most vocal proponent of land for cottagers. This article suggests that their appeals for land for cottagers were limited by both farmers' desire for easily controlled labour and misplaced concerns about the supposed inevitability of the poverty inherent in very small farms.