Trade and Biotechnology in Latin America: Democratization, Contestation and the Politics of Mobilization

This research explores the role of agrarian and environmental movements in contesting the development and promotion of agricultural biotechnology through trade liberalization in Latin America. Organized around themes of mobilization, participation and representation, it raises key questions about who mobilizes and how, and about the strategic dilemmas that arise when movements with different histories, membership bases and cultures of protest attempt to work together. Issues of accountability, representation and participation run through the analysis of strategies of organization and claim-making adopted by an eclectic range of groups seeking to contest the role of biotechnology in the structure of agricultural production, the institutions that manage that relationship and the discourses which sustain it. In particular, analysis centres on their responsiveness to the concerns and agendas of poorer groups in the front line of the 'gene revolution' as it plays out in the Latin American countryside, in particular in Argentina and Brazil, the key players in biotechnology in the region.     

Rural Poverty and Development Strategies in Latin America

Several approaches to the study of poverty are discussed, to learn from their strengths as well as their weaknesses. For this purpose the concepts of marginality, social exclusion, new rurality and rural livelihoods, as well as the ethnic and gender dimensions of poverty, are examined. The debate on the peasantization (capitalization) or proletarianization (pauperization) of the peasantry sets the scene for the analysis of the different strategies adopted by peasants and rural labourers to secure their survival and perhaps achieve some prosperity. In examining the success or failure of interventions by governments, civil society and international organizations in the reduction of poverty, it is claimed that the State has a key role to perform. Furthermore, it is argued that poverty is caused and reproduced by the unequal distribution of resources and power at the household, local, national and international levels. Therefore, the starting point for the eradication of poverty has to be the implementation of a development strategy that addresses such inequalities while at the same time achieving competitiveness within the global system.     

Lessons learned: an evaluation of land administration initiatives in Latin America over the past two decades

Latin America has a long and rich history of land administration projects stretching back to the 1980s and beyond. Unfortunately, this history has not been systematically analyzed nor recorded but is buried in a myriad of reports and other gray literature. Currently, almost every country in the region has a land administration project, incorporating cadastral reform, that is either in preparation or being implemented. It is therefore timely to consider what lessons have been learned from previous experience, in the region and elsewhere, and more specifically how this experience can inform current efforts. This paper starts with a summary of a recent World Bank/USAID initiative to compile lessons learned from land administration projects around the world and follows with the author's view of lessons learned in the context of project design, institutional reform and technical innovation.     

拉美失地农民问题对我国的启示

伴随着工业化和城镇化的高速发展,中国失地农民就业难已成为突出的社会问题。拉美一些国家由于不平等的土地分配制度与城市化的过度发展,也产生了大量的失地农民。失地农民蜂拥挤入大城市,在就业机会严重不足的情况下,引发了严峻的社会问题。拉美失地农民问题启示我们,中国应科学有序地发展城市化、妥善安排失地农民的就业、切实保障失地农民的利益。     

美国与近代中国高等农业教育

美国与近代中国高等农业教育的关系极为密切。为了争夺中国市场和资源,争取中国人的认同和亲善,也为了增进中美高等教育交流活动,美国倡导并参与了中国近代高等农业教育建设的几乎整个过程。通过传教士创办的教会大学农科院系、留美中国农科学生的培养等途径,对近代中国高等农业教育体系和模式产生了巨大影响,为中国训练了一批农业教育专家,也为美国势力进一步渗入中国打下了文化基础,并为中美高等农业院校交流与合作提供了借鉴。     

Agroindustrialization of the global agrifood economy: bridging development economics and agribusiness research

This paper examines the agroindustrialization process from two supposedly disparate views: development economics and agribusiness research. The evolution of conceptual and methodological approaches emanating from these fields is explored and general observations are made concerning farm economic interdependence, institutional and organizational change, differing scopes of interest, the causes of agroindustrialization, orientation, and the choice of microanalytic tools, terminology, and unit of analysis. Despite an impressive list of hurdles, disincentives, and disconnects, complementarities between the two fields are identified. The paper concludes by exploring the potential of bridging development economics and agribusiness research to inform the future agroindustrialization research agenda.     

Taking context into account in urban agriculture governance: Case studies of Warsaw (Poland) and Ghent (Belgium)

This article explores the role of local particularism in relation to the global interest in urban agriculture (UA). A growing movement is advocating UA, but future prospects are limited by variability, unclear expectations, vague responsibilities and leadership in the UA movement. We wonder whether the poor understanding of UA governance is associated with a public discourse and academic literature that too easily adopt the generic and universally claimed benefits. We argue here that uncritical enthusiasm results in an overly instrumental approach to governance of UA with a main focus on stimulating formal (e.g., policy making) and informal advocacy (e.g., civic engagement in UA). We do not deny the importance of formal and informal advocacy in UA development, but rather claim that the potential of UA needs a more nuanced analysis. Study of the interplay between UA advocacy and a city’s contextual characteristics is a worthy pursuit, as it may provide significant and more profound explanations for the divergence observed in UA developments. Case studies performed in Warsaw (Poland) and Ghent (Belgium) serve to illustrate the importance of context. The results suggest that neither case is likely to benefit from a governance strategy that only stimulates greater advocacy and institutional support. The inclusion of city-specific needs, opportunities and pitfalls of UA in the governance strategy can help to move UA toward its full potential. We suggest a policy-making strategy for UA that expands beyond the realm of food production alone. Ultimately, the aim is to steer away from assessing (and critiquing) UA solely against the backdrop of these generic success factors.     

芜湖市县域经济发展空间差异与对策研究

芜湖市县域经济发展的空间差异较为明显,采用量图分析法,选取人均财政收入、农民人均年纯收入等5项指标,将芜湖市7个县级行政区分为3种类型,其中,镜湖区等3个市辖区属发达类型,新芜区属中等类型,繁昌县等3县属欠发达类型;繁昌县、芜湖县和南陵县为重点扶持对象;提出发展县域经济的相应策略。     

水产品出口促进山东渔业经济增长的机制分析

论文利用出口依存度、贡献率和拉动度等统计方法,测算出近十年来山东水产品出口依存度超过30％,对渔业经济增长贡献率超过100％,年均拉动度近5％,结论表明水产品出口对山东渔业经济增长起着正向的拉动作用。根据研究结论并结合山东省渔业经济和水产品出口现状,这种拉动机制具体表现为,在渔业经济生产部门存在闲置资源的基础上,水产品出口通过需求扩大、规模经济和技术进步三条途径来实现对渔业经济的拉动。     

资源枯竭型城市：调整城市规划促进就业

资源枯竭型城市是目前我国就业形势最为严峻的地区,其就业问题具有一些不同于一般城市的特点。文章从调整城市规划的角度探讨如何促进资源枯竭型城市就业,提出了调整城市规划促进就业的4种模式,并结合资源枯竭型城市的实际案例对这4种模式进行了理论分析和实证分析,包括这4种模式的必要性、实施条件和实施过程中必须重视解决的问题等。     

论上海市渔业经济的发展方向

由于天然捕捞资源和养殖水域资源的有限性,近年来,上海市传统渔业的发展步伐放缓,部分指标出现下降态势。在今后的渔业结构调整中,上海市必须结合本市的经济特点,利用科技人才优势,实现传统渔业向现代都市渔业的转变。     

When collective action and tenure allocations collide: Outcomes from community forests in Quintana Roo,Mexico and Petén,Guatemala

Based on a comparative case study of four community forestry enterprises in Guatemala and Mexico, we examine the relationship between user group characteristics and state allocation of tenure bundles. Using Schlager and Ostrom's four levels of tenure bundles and collective action theory, we illustrate how tenure bundles and collective action costs interact to either promote or create disincentives for conservation and communal economic benefits. We suggest that in communities with high costs for collective action, a tenure bundle that includes management, withdrawal and exclusion rights yet omits alienation rights may be optimal for community forestry. We also demonstrate how unclear allocation of rights can result in local interpretations of land rights that do support collective action.     

城市地质资源调查的现状与展望

随着城市化的不断发展,城市的规模不断扩大,人口持续增长,环境问题日益突出,承载力接近饱和。过去以矿产资源为核心的地质调查工作已远不能满足城市发展的需要和社会公众的需求,开展以城市地质环境资源为主的新的国土资源大调查已经成为城市社会经济可持续发展的要求。就城市地质资源调查的意义、现状、存在的问题进行分析,阐述城市地质资源调查的内容及方法,并对今后发展提出了建议。     

东北地区老年煤炭城市经济系统脆弱性比较

选取东北地区4个主要的老年煤炭城市阜新、抚顺、鸡西和鹤岗作为研究对象.从敏感性、适应力和恢复力三方面选取13个指标构建脆弱性评价指标体系,采用层次分析法确定各指标权重,计算经济系统脆弱性的评价值,然后对经济系统脆弱性进行比较,结果为阜新＞鹤岗＞鸡西＞抚顺,最后分析了经济系统脆弱性差异的形成机制.     

Policy Regimes and Performance of the Agricultural Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean During the Last Three Decades

In a review of the policy regimes and agricultural output performance in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) during the past three decades, the linear sequence of pre-reform, crisis and reform, and post-reform recovery is qualified, focusing on a sample of nine LAC countries. The sector did quite well during the ISI policy regime, criticized for its price discrimination, and does not show the assumed characteristics of the 'lost decade' during most of the 1980s, as even agricultural exports (in constant terms) remained important, only to suffer from drops in international prices. Residually treated in the macro-oriented reforms, it has never regained the growth rates under the SAP policy regime, while it was expected that it would benefit more than others. These unorthodox conclusions are founded on a detailed investigation into agricultural output and export performance, correlating it with a reform index (on a country basis).     

The political economy of wine: How terroir and intra-sector dynamics affect land use in Spain

This paper provides a constructive critique of Corrine Cash's paper “Good governance and strong political will: Are they enough for transformation?”, published in volume 58 of Land Use Policy in 2016. By focusing on how intra-sector dynamics influence land use policies in conflicts revolving around urban sprawl, this paper aims to complement and, to some extent, widen the analytic lens deployed by Cash. The examination of the Spanish wine sector and its lack of zoning policies confirms Cash's argument about the need to go beyond discourses of ‘good governance’ and ‘strong political will’ to understand the dynamics underpinning real spatial processes. However, this exploration underscores the need to add layers of complexity to land use analyses, showing the relevance of intra-sector conflict and logics. In complicating any simplistic reduction of urban sprawl conflicts to rural–urban oppositions, the paper ultimately calls for a more dynamic and multiscalar planning theory to address complex governance issues.     

林业部门的民主分权：非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲的经验教训(续)

总结了约20个发展中国家林业部门分权管理的研究结果,并通过对在森林治理中起到主要作用的机构和参与者的分析,探讨了成功和失败的范例和主要的因素。研究表明,执行民主分权的案例并不多见,表现在:真正的决策权力、森林资源及其效益仍然是集权管理、选择处理的当地参与者往往不具有代表性或不负责任。现行政策有时伤害了当地的穷人。强调了全国性的对话和对公民社会特别是边缘群体的授权的重要性。研究结果证明,林业分权管理应当始于与当地民众一起工作,建立和完善他们已有的机制;具有代表性和负责任的地方政府将成为这一过程最适合的对话者。     

Land Reform, Rural Social Relations and the Peasantry

A new book, Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform , edited by Peter Rosset, Raj Patel and Michael Courville is considered. This book, via both general analytical treatment and a series of case studies set in Latin America, Asia and Africa, offers a powerful critique of the World Bank's market-led agrarian reform (MLAR) and provides an alternative model of agrarian reform, the 'food sovereignty movement', that has been articulated by La Via Campesina. Food sovereignty requires that priority be allocated to the domestic production of food and that a right to land be given to small farmers and their families. It is a vision of agrarian reform, with an emphasis on smallholder farming and the transformative power of rural social movements, that has truly emerged 'from below'. The critique of MLAR is compelling. It is argued in this essay, however, that two crucial questions are abstracted from. The first is that of the vastly differing sets of social relations that exist (compare, say, socialist Cuba and capitalist Brazil) and their implications. It is not clear that food sovereignty can, in effect, offer a coherent political economy of an alternative global agrarianism. The second relates to the implicit assumption, found throughout the book, that the peasantry is a homogeneous, undifferentiated social group. This is manifestly not so, and what the existence of socially differentiated peasantries implies requires careful examination.     

留美知识分子与20世纪30年代的中国乡村建设——以晏阳初在河北定县的实验为例

20世纪30年代,在河北定县的乡村建设中,以晏阳初为代表的留美知识分子,以其特有的知识结构和思维方式,为探寻中国乡村现代化的独特发展之路做出了重要贡献。这是一次将西方的科学知识同中国乡村实际相结合的实验,并在一定程度上促进了中美文化的交流。