Trade and agroindustrialization in developing countries: trends and policy impacts

There have been important changes in the international trade of processed and high-value added food products from developing countries over the past several decades. One of them has been the emergence of oilseeds and fruits and vegetables, replacing traditional products such as sugar, coffee, and cocoa as the main exports from developing countries. Another trend has been the collapse of African agroindustrial exports and the increase of exports from Asia. The paper highlights key trends, and explores possible reasons for the trends, focusing on trade policies in less-developed countries (LDCs) and developed countries (DCs). The paper argues that national trade policies and other economic policies appear to have been relatively supportive of agroindustrial production and exports in Asia. In contrast, policies have had more mixed effects in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and seem to have been just one component in a larger array of forces inhibiting economic development in Africa. The performance of agroindustrial production and exports from LDCs may be now more dependent than ever on the completion of reforms in the agricultural trade policies of DCs. For Africa, however, a more supportive international environment and better macroeconomic and trade policies will not be enough to ensure a thriving agroindustrial sector within a broader process of economic development until military confrontations stop.     

Agroindustrialization, globalization, and international development: An overview of issues, patterns, and determinants

This paper offers an overview for a special issue on agroindustrialization, globalization, and international development. It sets out a conceptual framework for understanding the links among these three broad phenomena and then discusses emerging issues and evidence concerning the factors conditioning agroindustrialization in developing countries and the subsequent effects on employment, poverty, and the natural environment. We conclude with a research agenda.     

Sendero Luminoso in the New Millennium: Comrades,Cocaine and Counter‐Insurgency on the Peruvian Frontier

During the 1980s and until the mid‐1990s, Peru experienced one of the bloodiest conflicts in contemporary Latin America, initiated by the armed insurrection launched by the Partido Comunista del Perú – Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). Most guerrilla activity, armed confrontations and civilian fatalities occurred in Andean rural districts. The intensity of violence declined following the detention of PCP‐SL General Secretary Abimael Guzmán and other leading cadres in 1992–3, which resulted in the dismantling of a substantial component of the organization's military apparatus and support networks. This paper examines how surviving PCP‐SL militants attempted to regroup and respond strategically and tactically to such a devastating setback, focusing on its dealings with the civilian population, particularly coca‐producing smallholders. Counter‐insurgency measures pursued by the Peruvian state are also analysed. The paper concludes with an assessment of the current disposition of guerrilla – rural population – state relations in the main areas of conflict.     

Credit constraints and productivity in Peruvian agriculture

This article evaluates the performance of a rural credit market in Peru. We develop a model that shows that collateral requirements imposed by lenders in response to asymmetric information can lead not just to quantity rationing but also to transaction cost rationing and risk rationing. Just like quantity rationing, these two additional forms of nonprice rationing adversely affect farm resource allocation and productivity. We test the insights of the model using a panel data set from Northern Peru. We estimate the returns to productive endowments for constrained and unconstrained households using a switching regression model. We find that, consistent with the theory, productivity is independent of endowments for unconstrained households but is tightly linked to endowments for constrained households. We estimate that credit constraints lower the value of agricultural output in the study region by 26%.     

Agrarian reform and cooperation between settlers in the Midwest of Brazil: An institutional approach

Cooperation is an important factor in improving the efficiency of agrarian reform, but hardly occurs, which is a serious problem in Brazil. This research tries to explain why cooperation is so difficult in Brazilian settlements. It focuses on the Midwest of Brazil, a region with a high concentration of land, located in the main region for production of commodities. Research combines a New Institutional approach with aspects from the economic sociology. The model developed in the paper is original and highlights factors responsible for cooperation. Research differentiates institutional arrangements according to asset specificity and sunk costs. Beside associations for representation with public authorities, where cooperation is easier, cooperative arrangements need specific investments from the settlers, who require warranties before participating. Institutions serve as warranties for adopted governances. In the case of cooperation in Brazilian settlements, these warranties should come from informal institutions, which can be a problem in some communities. Leadership of a producer can also have an important role in hierarchical networks.     

Smallholders,institutional services,and commercial transformation in Ethiopia

This article examines the role of institutional services of credit, input supply, and extension in the overall commercial transformation process of smallholder agriculture in Ethiopia. Survey data collected in 2006 from 309 sample households in three districts of Ethiopia are used for the analyses. Tobit regression models are used to measure the effect of access to services on the intensity of inputs use for fertilizer and agrochemicals. A probit model is used to measure these effects on the adoption of improved seeds. Intensity of use of seeds is analyzed using an ordinary least squares model. Logarithmic Cobb–Douglass functions are estimated to analyze the effect of access to services on crop productivity. Heckman's two‐stage estimation is used to examine determinants of household market participation and the extents of participation. Results show that access to institutional support services plays a significant role in enhancing smallholder productivity and market orientation. Our results imply that expanding and strengthening the institutional services is critical for the intensification and market orientation of smallholder agriculture in Ethiopia. In particular, appropriate incentives and regulatory systems are urgently needed to encourage the involvement of the private sector in the provision of agricultural services.     

New institutional approach to collaborative forest planning on public land: Methods for analysis and lessons for policy

Collaborative planning has become an increasingly popular approach in environmental decision-making, particularly in situations where there are multiple actors with conflicting interests. In this paper, collaborative environmental planning is perceived as being embedded in an institutional environment that has an impact on the processes and outcomes of planning. Building on the theory of new institutionalism, the paper combines legal analysis of forest regulation with interviews and policy document data from two case studies on collaborative Natural Resource Planning in state-owned forests in Finland. These approaches will be used to analyse how formal regulations and informal norms are interpreted and implemented in the planning processes. The paper highlights the important role institutions can play in promoting or hindering successful collaborative planning, and makes recommendations for developing a forest governance system that is equipped to deal with the identified challenges.     

技术创新、制度创新对水利企业可持续发展的作用

简述科学技术创新对企业发展的作用，在此基础上介绍了南京水利科学研究院在创办南京瑞迪高新技术公司的过程中，依靠科学进步，开展技术创新、制度创新的做法，并进一步探讨了技术创新与制度创新的关系。     

Agroindustrialization through institutional innovation Transaction costs, cooperatives and milk-market development in the east-African highlands

Some small-holders are able to generate reliable and substantial income flows through small-scale dairy production for the local market; for others, a set of unique transaction costs hinders participation. Cooperative selling institutions are potential catalysts for mitigating these costs, stimulating entry into the market, and promoting growth in rural communities. Trends in cooperative organization in east-African dairy are evaluated. Empirical work focuses on alternative techniques for effecting participation among a representative sample of peri-urban milk producers in the Ethiopian highlands. The variables considered are a modern production practice (cross-bred cow use), a traditional production practice (indigenous-cow use), three intellectual-capital-forming variables (experience, education, and extension), and the provision of infrastructure (as measured by time to transport milk to market). A Tobit analysis of marketable surplus generates precise estimates of non-participants' 'distances' to market and their reservation levels of the covariates — measures of the inputs necessary to sustain and enhance the market. Policy implications focus on the availability of cross-bred stock and the level of market infrastructure, both of which have marked effects on participation, the velocity of transactions in the local community and, inevitably, the social returns to agroindustrialization.     

Understanding property market operations from a dual institutional perspective: The case of Lagos,Nigeria

This paper examines the Nigeria Land Use Act and considers how provisions of the Act inform and influence traditional landholding systems, the operation of the commercial real estate market, and the activities of the “omo-onile.” The research adopts a qualitative strategy and combines analysis of legal statute with in-depth, semi-structured interviews with market participants active in different capacities within the land and property markets of Lagos, Nigeria.The paper identifies a number of inconsistencies in the provisions of the Act and concludes that the recognition given to the traditional landholding system by the Act has not been effective in tackling informality and illegality in Lagos land and property markets.The paper provides insight into how informal institutions of norms, culture, and conventions of a real estate market characterize property ownership and affect transaction processes. This study shows how informal institutions may be used to circumvent formal institutions of a market when formal rights to property are poorly delineated and assigned. In these conditions market actors will incur higher transaction costs in the process of policing transactions and enforcing contractual agreements.     

The institutional drivers of sustainable landscapes: a case study of the ‘Mayan Zone’ in Quintana Roo, Mexico

Research on the dynamics of tropical forest land use and cover change (LUCC) has focused on the three scenarios: (1) deforestation/degradation; (2) settled, degraded areas in recovery, and (3) sparsely settled, expansive, intact forest. Through examination of a central Quintana Roo, Mexico case study we propose a fourth scenario of a ‘sustainable landscape’: an inhabited, productively used, forested landscape that nonetheless shows little change or net gains in forest cover over the last 25 years. We use Landsat images to demonstrate a low incidence of net deforestation, 0.01% for the 1984–2000 period, the lowest recorded deforestation rate for southeastern Mexico. Institutional innovations such as an agrarian reform process that established large common property forests for non-timber forest product extraction, and later innovations such as sustainable forest management institutions have driven the outcome of low net deforestation, added to multiple organizational processes that promote sustainable land use.     

Transaction costs in milk marketing: a comparison between Canada and Great Britain

This study measures the magnitude of transaction costs incurred by milk producers in their contractual relations with dairy processors in two different coordination mechanisms: centralized contracting through a marketing board and decentralized bilateral contracting. Interviews and surveys were conducted to estimate transaction costs faced by producers marketing through the Québec milk marketing board in Canada and bilateral contracts in England and Wales in the United Kingdom using the measurement methodology of the cost of exchange. Our results show that the relative magnitude of transaction costs incurred by producers across both settings is quite low, which indicates that both hybrid coordination mechanisms minimize transaction costs in the dairy sector. However, results from the bilateral contracting setting indicate a strong heterogeneity of transaction costs levels among farmers. In that respect, the milk marketing board and its institutional setting would act as a collective insurance, pooling transaction costs and sharing them among producers. Our analysis leads to recommendations on bilateral contracting.     

中国林业产业结构与就业结构的协调性分析

在文献研究基础上,选用比较劳动生产率、就业弹性、结构偏离度、相关系数四个指标进行分析。结果表明:两者发展协调性较差。林业第一产业与其就业协调度的相关性弱,表明第一产业发展中缺乏足够的动力,存在大量剩余劳动力未解决的现象;林业第二产业中岗位与人才不匹配,技术人才缺乏,吸纳就业能力有待增强;林业第三产业中就业人数较多且其产值增长迅速,吸纳劳动力潜力巨大。基于此,提出三方面的发展建议。     

The impact of the tomato agroindustry on the rural poor in Mexico

This article addresses the issue of whether the tomato agroindustry (TAI) has been an effective instrument in the reduction of rural poverty. The TAI is by far the most important agroindustry in Mexico in terms of exports and employment creation. Most of the laborers employed by the TAI in northwest Mexico are temporary migrants coming from poverty-stricken regions in southern Mexico. Conditions of poverty-induced migration are explained. The characteristics and strategies of large, modern tomato enterprises are analyzed. The main conclusion is that migrant income earned in the tomato fields and packing plants, is fundamental for the bare survival in villages in poverty-stricken regions. However, this does not provide a solution to poverty alleviation because migrant income is not sufficient to contribute to capital formation in the migrating communities, or the to create the conditions for endogenous local development.     

牧业制度变迁对草地退化的影响及其路径

草地是牧民基本的生计资产,也是中国北方的生态屏障。然而,严重的草地退化威胁着牧区可持续发展和生态安全。维持高度可变的、脆弱干旱环境中的自然资本是发展绿色经济的要求。本文梳理了20世纪80年代以来草原牧区的主要牧业制度变迁,分析其对草地退化的影响及其路径,以探讨在现行草地经营制度下如何在不减少草地自然资本的情况下发展畜牧业。研究揭示,牧业制度变迁通过"分畜到户-牲畜增加-公地悲剧"、"分草到户/草地确权-草地细碎化-围栏陷阱"以及"三权分置/草地租赁-不完善契约/产权不安全-草地过度利用"三条路径影响草地退化。"交互规模"理论解释了草地细碎化对草地退化的影响机制。本文利用面上调研资料、定点观测数据以及自然试验证据支持了以上假说。研究表明,采用适合地区特点的确权方式、规范草地租赁市场以及减轻草地细碎化从而提高"交互规模",可更好地平衡牧业生产中的"劳动力-草地-牲畜-生产性资产-水资源",促进牧业的可持续发展。     

小额贷款公司发展现状、问题及对策

小额贷款公司对于支持农村经济发展、缓解小微型企业融资难起了重要作用,当前小额贷款公司的发展遇到了身份定位不明确、资金来源受限制、经营风险相对较高、内部治理不规范等问题。通过明确小额贷款公司身份及监管主体、拓宽内外部后续资金来源渠道、强化内控机制建设、建立人才引进及培训机制、建立信息共享机制和平台、鼓励小额贷款公司转型等措施可以推动小额贷款公司可持续发展。     

The wellsprings of work: The USA and the UK

Summary

The results of research on the US economy are discussed. It is based on a file of 5.6 million business establishments which is used to study how each business evolves. Underlying relatively slow changes in the aggregate totals was a set of large flows, and substantial ‘churning’. Most regions in the USA lose about 8 % of their jobs each year, and the healthiest economies have the highest losses. Small firms were significant creators of new jobs. Studies in the UK found that the contribution of small firms to employment generation is small, that the rate of new firm formation depends upon whether a region is dominated by large firms, that subcontracting, cheap premises and a good general environment are important. Births and deaths of businesses balanced each other at around 8 % each per annum, but some regions were declining because they were not sharing in the growth side of the equation, as in the USA. One difference between the USA and the UK is in terms of micro‐ and macrostability. Microstability is that of the individual job and business, and macrostability that of the economy as a whole, and the two are in inherent conflict. The choice between these two forms of stability is a very painful one, and a price must be paid either way.     

Parental education,gender preferences and child nutritional status in Peru

This paper examines whether the distribution of bargaining power between parents affects nutritional indicators in the early stages of a child’s life, giving evidence that the allocation of household resources varies by the gender of the child and the parents. After accounting for the potential endogeneity of the indicator of power distribution within the household, related to assortative mating in the marriage market, this paper shows that maternal power is more positively associated with girls’ nutrition than boys’. Among households located in rural areas, resource allocation between girls and boys seems to differ. Similarly, some evidence of competition for household resources affecting girls’ nutrition is found.     

Institutional constraints on conservation auction: Organizational mandate,competencies and practices

Auctions appeal to analysts and policy designers because of their potential efficiency in recruiting new areas for nature conservation. The failure to develop genuine auctions and competitive tender processes is typically blamed on the design and the attractiveness of the instrument. However, the institutional constraints that a new competitive mechanism faces when placed in a real-world ecological-institutional setting are only partly anticipated by the theoretical and analytical approaches. This paper explores the theory-based principles of cost-effectiveness against a real-world auction instrument designed for forest biodiversity conservation in Finland. The instrument, called “Natural Values Trading”, specified that the tenders should be invited and compared on an annual basis but the competitive procedure was not operationalized. Instead, sites were evaluated on a first come – first serve basis, applying ecological criteria and pricing based on opportunity costs. The institutional constraints of the auction mechanism centred on the difficulty that public authorities geared toward implementing law and treating citizens equally faced with a competitive arrangement. The pressure to generate instant impact overrode experimenting with new mechanisms and exiting an administrative comfort zone. The findings conform to the institutional theories that identify challenges with matching organizational mandate, reallocating and developing organizational competencies as well as changing informal organizational and professional practices. The design of biodiversity conservation mechanisms will not go far by focusing solely on cost-effectiveness; instead, the institutional friction should be taken seriously and organizational mandates, competencies and practices should be addressed explicitly.