Simple Model of Resource Degradation and Agricultural Productivity in a Subsistence Economy

Resource degradation poses problems in many developing countries. In the model presented in the paper, current agricultural production lowers future land productivity. Since agents must produce to meet current subsistence needs, this can lead to a poverty trap in which land quality is continuously degraded over time. However, the model shows that not all subsistence farmers fall into this trap, although it might be difficult in practice to distinguish among those belonging to each case. The model also demonstrates why government programs such as income transfers, loans, and price controls might have differing effects upon economic outcomes depending upon the specific circumstances of farmers.     

State-conditioned soil investment in rural Uganda

While poor soils limit agricultural production across rural, sub-Saharan Africa, most smallholder farmers fail to invest in their soils in the way that soil scientists and policy makers prescribe. A small but growing literature examines biophysical constraints on soil investment, and in particular state-conditioned soil investment – the manner in which current soil fertility drives investment in soils in poor, agricultural contexts. While some research finds that farmers invest more in low fertility soils, other authors find the opposite. We model two types of state-conditioned soil investment, and show that while organic amendments in the form of manure or compost are optimally applied on low fertility plots, structural investments to halt soil degradation may not be optimal on any plots, or may be optimal only on high value, high fertility plots. Using plot-level panel data from Uganda, we find that soil fertility measures from 2003 do predict subsequent soil management practices a decade later. Farmers are more likely to apply organic amendments to low fertility plots, as predicted by our analytical model. Laborious conservation practices and structural investments in plots are quite rare, indicating that these measure may not be effective enough to be profitable in Uganda. Even so, certain conservation practices are predicted by 2003 soil fertility conditions. These associations, and the associations regarding organic amendment, are highly stable in the face of many controls – it appears that soils starting conditions do matter for subsequent soil investment decisions and soil fertility trajectories. Together, the model and empirical investigation bring nuance to the previous discussion on state-conditioned soil investment, and help to resolve seemingly inconsistent empirical findings in the literature.     

农业产业化:现实选择与理论依据

我国目前采用的均分地权的承包制,是基于公平的基础上兼顾效率的原则。实行农业规模经营的土地资源应首先保证土地的基本生存保障功能,然后才是投资功能。因此,农业产业化过程需要在现行制度框架下,以产业经济学和制度经济学为理论基础,探索农业规模化经营之路,采用各种变通的方式,探讨土地使用权的多种实现形式,并以此来建立具有中国特色的农业产业化经营模式。     

Contribution of wetland agriculture to farmers' livelihood in Rwanda

This study analyzes factors that contribute to the livelihood of smallholder farmers living in the vicinity of the Cyabayaga and Rugeramigozi wetlands. Three tools were used: 1) focus group discussion 2) formal surveys and 3) Monitoring for Quality Improvement (MONQI). Farming systems in wetlands and on hillsides differ. Level of education, resource availability, land ownership and location have an important impact on the location and type of farming systems practiced by households. The dependency of households on wetlands varies between sites. Field size, status of soil fertility and input use are also key factors determining the level of contribution that wetland agriculture makes to farmers' livelihood. In Cyabayaga, the per household per year contribution of wetland cultivation to gross margin (GM) was 74% ($1901) compared to 24% ($84) in Rugeramigozi. The rice in Cyabayaga was the largest contributor to household income providing on average $1045 per household per season. Vegetables cultivated in the dry season in Rugeramigozi have high potential as cash crops. Poor maintenance of drainage and irrigation channels as well as inappropriate cropping systems in wetlands can undermine sustainability and have repercussions for the livelihoods of farmers dependent on agricultural wetlands.     

Analyses of technical efficiency using SDF and DEA models: evidence from Nepalese agriculture

Alleviation of poverty is a central issue in Nepal. Given the limited stock of land and the infant/unorganized manufacturing sector, increased demand for food has to be satisfied by improving production efficiency. This article examines how this could be achieved. Stochastic distance function and data envelopment analysis models identify the existence of a high degree of technical inefficiency in Nepalese agriculture, suggesting that there is a substantial prospect of increasing agricultural productivity using the existing level of inputs and resources more efficiently. Among the three farm sizes in the data set, medium size farmers achieve a higher technical efficiency than large and small farm sizes, suggesting that productive efficiency can be increased with the encouragement of creating medium size holdings. The observed decreasing returns to scale also implies that productivity gains could be achieved by breaking up of large farms into small family farms. The technical inefficiency model suggests the potential for shifting the production frontier upwards by providing ownership of land, increasing farmers’ education and knowledge, and increasing land quality, including irrigation facilities.     

Ecosystem services, agriculture, and rural poverty in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon: Interrelationships and policy prescriptions

Policymakers seeking to modify financial incentives to increase the flows of ecosystem services in and around tropical moist forests must consider where to focus their attention and what collection of incentives can effectively achieve policy objectives. In most cases, policymakers focus on extensively forested areas where the flows of ecosystem services between agriculture and the environment is generally characterized by massive flows of carbon and soil nutrients from forests to agriculture. In these forest margin areas the stock of primary forest is eventually exhausted and the cheap ingredients provided by nature to agriculture become increasingly scarce. At this point, policy interest generally wanes, and agriculture and the environment begin slow declines in ecosystem service exchange, often with negative consequences for rural poverty. How does one promote increased flows of ecosystem services from agricultural lands without increasing poverty when forests and soils have been depleted? Can the standard instruments, e.g., payments for ecosystem services, be effective in such situations, and if so, do the costs to society of securing these services increase? Here we focus on the flows of ecosystem services at the end of the cycle of converting primary forest to agriculture. Primary data from the Bragantina area in the southeastern Brazilian Amazon, an area cleared of primary forest decades ago, are used to characterize smallholder production systems, to describe the flows of ecosystem services into and from these systems, and to develop a bioeconomic model of smallholder agriculture capable of predicting the effects of several types of policy action on ecosystem services provided by and to agriculture, and on-farm household incomes and food self-reliance. Of particular interest is the Proambiente Pilot Program in Brazil, which uses smallholder payment schemes to induce farmers to manage land and forest resources in ways that generate more ecosystem services. Baseline results suggest that smallholder agriculture leads to a gradual loss of ecosystem services (mainly above-ground and root carbon) provided by secondary forest fallows, and that reduction in fallow age leads to reductions in plant diversity. Intensifying agricultural activities accelerates this process, but considerably increases smallholder incomes. Paying farmers for ecosystem services linked to the retention of secondary forests and the Proambiente program both increase area in forest fallow, but the latter substantially reduces farm income because of input use restrictions. In general, programs aiming to promote the production of ecosystem services should not limit farmers' choices of ways to provide them. Employment and food self-reliance issues associated with policy options for increasing on-farm stocks of carbon and plant biodiversity are also explored.     

坚持农地集体所有的思考

本文在系统梳理中国农村改革历程的基础上,指出改革初期,为了满足农民的温饱诉求,党和政府逐渐认同了农民推出的“大包干”做法;温饱问题解决之后,为了满足农民外出从事非农就业的诉求,党和政府赋予农民自主流转其承包土地经营权的权利;现在,为了满足农民享有土地财产权益的诉求,党和政府应赋予农民土地股份的权利,将农村集体土地产权按份共有的改革目标落到实处。股权是集体经济的基础。改革初期以含义模糊的承包权替代含义清晰的土地股权,是为了达成改革共识;现在以含义清晰的土地股权替代含义模糊的土地承包权,是改革深化和认识与时俱进的结果。     

Integrating environmental and economic performance to assess modern silvoarable agroforestry in Europe

The environmental and economic performance of silvoarable agroforestry in Europe is highly variable. Multi-criteria analysis, using the PROMETHEE outranking approach, was used to evaluate the integrated performance of silvoarable agroforestry on hypothetical farms in nineteen landscape test sites in Spain, France, and The Netherlands. The silvoarable scenarios allocated a proportion of the hypothetical farms (10 or 50%) to silvoarable agroforestry at two different tree densities (50 or 113 trees ha^− 1) on two different qualities of land (best or worst quality land). The status quo (conventional arable farming) was also assessed for comparison. The criteria used in the evaluation (soil erosion, nitrogen leaching, carbon sequestration, landscape biodiversity, and infinite net present value) were assessed at each landscape test site; infinite net present value was assessed under six levels of government support. In France, the analysis showed, assuming equal weighting between environmental and economic performance, that silvoarable agroforestry was preferable to conventional arable farming. The best results were observed when agroforestry was implemented on 50% of the highest quality land on the farm; the effect of tree density (50-113 trees ha^− 1) was small. By contrast, in Spain and The Netherlands, the consistently greater profitability of conventional arable agriculture relative to the agroforestry alternatives made overall performance of agroforestry systems dependent on the proportion of the farm planted, and the tree density and land quality used.     

Land conservation and tenure security in Kenya: Boserup's hypothesis revisited

Land conservation technologies used by farmers are known to play an important role in improving farm incomes and household welfare in the long run. For this reason substantial investments have been made in research to improve agricultural technologies in various parts of the world, from the development of new crop varieties to new practices of land management. This paper explores the impact of land rights among other factors on adoption of soil and water conservation practices. The study further tests for Boserup's hypothesis (correlation between population density, land conservation and property rights) using panel survey data collected from farming households. The key findings of the paper are that property right regimes and population density affect both the decision to conserve land as well as the type of conservation practices used by farmers. The results further suggest a positive correlation between land tenure security and population density, thus supporting Boserup's hypothesis. The findings call for pursuit of both short-term and long-term policy measures that offer incentives for land conservation through government initiatives and participation of local communities.     

Carbon sequestration and farm income in West Africa: Identifying best management practices for smallholder agricultural systems in northern Ghana

The interest in agricultural soils as global storage of carbon has increased in recent years, along with the prospect of farmers' participation in payment schemes under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto protocol. Thus, a better understanding of agricultural practices that can increase soil carbon and enhance the livelihoods of farmers is necessary, particularly in smallholder farming systems of West Africa. This study evaluates different crop management strategies both by their capacity to sequester carbon in agricultural soils and by their contribution to household income. A case study in Wa, Upper West Region of Ghana is used to test 48 different cropping strategies by means of a crop simulation model and a household-level multiple-criteria optimisation model. Each cropping strategy is evaluated after a 20-year simulation period by its capacity to accrue carbon in the soil, by its economic performance at the plot-level, and by its contribution to the farm income with and without carbon payments. A set of best management practices that concomitantly increase soil carbon and farm income are identified and classified by their cost of investment.     

Bio-economic modelling of soil erosion externalities and policy options: a Tunisian case study

Soil erosion is one of the most important of today’s environmental externalities and a major threat to sustainability of agricultural system. It constitutes the most widespread forms of land degradation throughout the world. The aim of this paper is to estimate the amount of soil erosion generated by the current cropping systems in Tunisia and to assess the economic and ecological impacts of policy instruments designed to handle this problem. The analysed policy options are based on soil conservation practices and direct incentive farming anti-erosive measures. The selected measures are the reduction of tillage, the avoidance of bare fallow and the use of legume-based crop rotation. A bio-economic modelling framework coupling the biophysical model EPIC to a non-linear dynamic programming farm model was used for this impact analysis. It was performed in a set of representative farms belonging to a region in North-Eastern Tunisia (Zaghouan) strongly affected by this phenomenon. The main finding of this research is the non-convexity of the crop yield—soil erosion space. That is, the use of more intensive techniques to increase productivity (i.e. crop yield) may be accompanied by rough changes in soil erosion (damage) curves, manifested either by non-monotony or non-convexity. In term of policy options and because of giving up convexity assumptions, incentive anti-erosive measures appear more efficient than conventional environmental policies such as Pigouvian taxes or quota systems. The implementation of soil conservation practices would leads to a net decrease in soil erosion and an increase in farm income. However, with the current interest rate of 7% the possible rise in income is not enough to stimulate farmers to invest on these practices. A maximum rate of 4% would be necessary to make this policy option more effective.     

Integrating public demands into model-based design for multifunctional agriculture: An application to intensive Dutch dairy landscapes

The contribution of agriculture to the welfare of society is determined by its economic, social and environmental performance. Although theoretical discussions can be found in the literature, few reports exist that integrate the social demand for multifunctional agriculture in the evaluation of the sustainability and the global welfare of society. This paper presents a methodology that combines economic valuation, integrated modelling, stakeholder analysis, and multi-criteria evaluation. It consists of three steps to determine: (1) social demands for multifunctional agriculture; (2) feasible technical alternatives available from the supply part of the market; (3) the net utility of alternatives for society measured as the change in social net benefit, i.e. the sum of changes compared to the current situation expressed in utility of market and non-market net benefits. Market net benefits are represented by their monetary value. Quality Function Deployment combined with Analytic Network Process (QFD/ANP) were used to estimate the non-market net benefits. The methodology is applied to the case study of a dairy-farming based agricultural landscape in the Northern Friesian Woodlands, The Netherlands. Social net benefit depended on land use, i.e. pasture management regimes on each of the agricultural fields and on presence or absence of hedgerows around the fields. Changes in market net utility were expressed in terms of changes for farmers, consumers and government. Changes in non-market net utility were expressed in terms of changes in landscape quality, nature value and environmental health for Dutch society as a whole, as estimated from European public surveys (Eurobarometer). The complete solution space defined by the market and non-market net benefits of landscapes with alternative patterns of land use was estimated to offer insight in the trade-off between market and non-market performance and enable selection of ‘icon’ landscapes to target or avoid. Improvement of the current landscape towards the social optimum would involve changes in pasture management resulting in higher gross margin for farmers, slightly relaxing current environmental restrictions, which could be reached at lower levels of subsidies in agri-environmental programs. In addition to such overall optimum the results demonstrate the trade-off between market and non-market benefits and the characteristics of current, utopian and dystopian landscapes. The approach provides an alternative to current economic valuation methods which focus on assessment of economic value as an input to analysis. Here, economic value emerges as the trade-off between market and non-market functions which is an output of the analysis.     

农户生态耕种采纳行为影响因素实证研究——基于江西省1488份农户的调查数据

基于江西省11市47县(区)1488份农户调查问卷数据,运用多元有序Logistic模型,分析并探究农户生态耕种采纳行为的影响因素。结果表明:家庭总人口具有显著的负向影响;兼业程度、农业收入占比、家中是否有村干部、是否参加新农保、是否有农业补贴、是否为家庭农场、是否加入合作社、近年耕地质量变化、相关信息获取难度等9个变量具有显著的正向影响。农户对生态耕种行为采纳的均值只有4.74项,总体偏低,生态耕种行为有待推广与应用。论文探究了农户生态耕种采纳行为的影响因素,为生态耕种的推广、实现耕地资源的可持续发展、激励农户生态耕种政策的制定提供了参考。     

古巴1990年以后的经济改革与新农民化

20世纪90年代早期，经济改革推动了古巴的社会变革，古巴进入了社会变革的新时期。社会变革的一些方面与传统的结构调整相似，而其他方面则与之有所不同。农业方面，国营农场被改造成为各种合作社，进一步细分了合作社的生产力，解放了农产品市场，以及把土地分割给小佃农。通过采访决策者和合作社的领导，并对古巴西部和东部进行调查，可以发现，20世纪90年代的古巴有两个重要特点：一是出现了“新农民化”现象；二是这两个地区的收入差距即使没有扩大，也依旧存在。然而，即使是在最贫穷的地区，小农户的收入还是比雇佣工人的平均收入要高一些，而在其他地区，则是高出许多。总的来说，古巴的经济危机迫使古巴的农业政策朝着巩固小农户地位的方向调整。     

天津发展都市农业有待破解的瓶颈性难题

通过对津京沪农业的横向比较与自身农业的纵向比较，天津农业经济结构、农民文化程度、农民收入及农村基础建设等方面，存在诸多问题。为了缩小城乡差距，提高农民收入，建设社会主义新农村，应通过实行惠农政策，改善农村基础公共设施，支持农村教育，提高农村医疗水平，坚持科技富农，推进乡镇企业产业化．最终实现科技化、产业化和生态化的都市农业。     

中国现代农业的出路

在工业化、信息化、全球化的今天,加快农业现代化,实现从传统农业向现化农业的转变,是我国农业的唯一出路．而要实现这一目标须学习西方发达国家的经验,着力提高农民文化素质,重视农业科技的研究和推广,改革现有土地制度,逐步实现农业的专业化、规模化、现代化经营。     

Impact of farmer group participation on the adoption of sustainable farming practices—spatial analysis of New Zealand dairy farmers

This paper analyzes the impact of participation in farmer groups on dairy farmers’ adoption of sustainable farming practices in New Zealand. A spatial propensity score matching method is used to consider the spatial dependence and social connections between farmers in the decision-making of farmer group participation and adoption of sustainable farming practices. The results show that farmers’ decisions of farmer group participation are affected by their neighbors’ choices, and participation in farmer groups has a positive effect on farmers’ adoption of sustainable farming practices. The findings indicate the important role of social interactions in farmers’ voluntary uptake of sustainable agricultural practices. Overall, the positive effect of farmer group participation on the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices highlights learning and knowledge spillover among farmers, which emerges as important to the formulation of sustainable farming policy.     

Building smallholder farmers' capacity to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices in flood prone areas: Lessons from Bangladesh

Currently, there is an increased interest in promoting climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) around the globe, however, application of these practices may vary for different climate risk hotspots. Although, climate field schools (CFS) are conducted with the aim of empowering farmers with knowledge on the various agricultural practices, little attention has been devoted to building the capacity of smallholder farmers to facilitate adoption of appropriate CSAPs. Given the effects of climate change on agriculture, it is fundamental for agricultural sustainability to answer the question that has hardly benefited from empirical analysis in previous land use studies, which is: Do CFS build farmers' capacity to adopt CSA in flood prone areas? Cross-sectional data from 600 rural farm households in south Bangladesh is used and the recursive bivariate probit (RBP) is applied to address this knowledge gap. The results reveal that participation in CFS increases the probability of a farmer's soil salinity consciousness by 25% and eventually improves the probability to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices by 20%. We also analyzed the spillover effects of CFS participation on CSA adoption and found that there is a strong spillover effect which has important implications on the cost effectiveness and sustainability of the program. Overall, the study provides empirical evidence demonstrating that participatory approaches stimulate adoption of appropriate CSAPs by building farmers' capacity in recognizing the existing climate risk hotspots.     

Medical emergencies and farm productivity in Côte d'Ivoire

The lack of health insurance for smallholder farmers in most sub-Saharan African countries hurts the families and can also negatively affect agriculture production, exports, and tax revenues. This paper analyzes the linkage between medical emergencies and agriculture exports and the corresponding tax revenues for smallholder farmers in Côte d'Ivoire. It uses two complementary datasets: the 2016 Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) smallholder survey and the 2015 Côte d'Ivoire living standard survey. The paper finds that a medical emergency is negatively and significantly associated with a decrease in the likelihood that a smallholder farmer cultivates cocoa of 3.9 percentage points, driving them into poverty and reducing productivity at the lower quantiles. The paper then estimates that medical emergencies can be correlated with the decline in cocoa exports of $853 million and in tax revenues of $125 million, representing 0.2% of the Ivorian gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017.     

失地农民教育培训的政策保障系统初探

在城市化快速发展进程中,大量农村土地被征收转用,农民失去了可维持生计的保障。失地农民受教育程度不高,相关职业技能水平低下,而且社会保障制度不健全,使他们处于劳动力市场上竞争的弱势地位。根据国际经验,促使失地农民摆脱弱势地位的有效措施是对其进行教育培训,这不仅能直接提高其市场竞争能力,而且能间接引导其走向未来发展之路。文章从教育政策、税收金融政策、财政与土地政策等方面分别探讨了失地农民教育培训的政策保障系统。通过这些政策的组合与创新,充分发挥正效应,减少征地冲突和障碍,从而达到提高失地农民培训效果,提升其自身发展的动力和能力,改善生活质量,适应城市生活以及满足再就业教育的需求,进而保障失地农民的可持续生计。