Should ‘Impartial’ Advice be a Priority of European Agricultural and Rural Policies?

Recent EU legislation will require Member States to ensure that farm advice which is supported by EU funding is impartial. In this article we present the findings of an online workshop which asked whether this should be a priority for European advisory supports within the Common Agricultural Policy. The answer was ‘no’. At the workshop, results of AgriLink were presented for discussion with international experts. These results highlighted major pitfalls for setting the boundaries of independent advice. Participants from Europe and North America agreed that ‘impartial’ advisors providing or selling only advice are rare in many contexts. Key organisations offering farm advice in many European countries, such as farmers’ cooperatives, often have established relationships with commercial suppliers. Being apparently independent from industry is also not sufficient for ensuring that advice addresses societal issues. Farmers’ choice for advice is more likely to reflect established trusted relationships than the ‘impartiality’ of the advisor. Workshop participants instead argued that policies should focus on increasing transparency (revealing vested interests); investing in ‘back office’ activities to ensure that advisors have access to reliable and relevant evidence; and ensuring that the full range of EU farmers have access to professional advice.     

Information about Climate Change Mitigation: What Do Farmers Think?

The adoption of new practices by farmers is one of the key strategies to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from food production. In this context, effective knowledge transfer systems are essential to inform farmers about climate change, and to convince them of the benefits of new technologies. In this article, farmers’ opinions about climate change, their own efforts to mitigate climate change, and their suggestions on how to improve agricultural advice were assessed. To this end, a survey with over 500 livestock farmers was conducted in Ireland. The findings reveal a high awareness of the urgency to address climate change in general, but many farmers also think agricultural GHG emissions are an overstated problem. In addition, half of the surveyed farmers believe that implementing GHG mitigation measures will lower their profits. These findings underline the need to provide effective knowledge transfer to facilitate the uptake of GHG mitigation measures. When asking farmers directly, by way of text analysis, it emerges that simple messages, group and practical advice that is tailored to individual farming situations is important to farmers. As such, this article provides important insights that are of relevance for designing advisory campaigns to promote climate change mitigation.     

植物品种权交易中的“囚徒困境”博弈分析

借助"囚徒困境"博弈模型分析植物品种权交易中普遍存在的道德风险问题。结果表明:在没有任何监督、惩罚措施的情况下,最终的博弈均衡只能是交易双方都选择不遵守策略,以实现各自利益的最大化;但通过对博弈模型进行适当的改进,就会发现只要监督和惩罚措施得当,提高其违约成本,交易双方就会为实现各自利益最大化而选择遵守策略,并据此得到实现植物品种权交易良性循环运作的有效条件,提高交易成功率。     

Innovation in Labour Organisation and Social Conditionality: Implications for Farm Advisory Services

There is growing concern about the evolution of working conditions for employees on European farms. In the new Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), financial support to farmers will soon be subject to a social conditionality clause. As a result of this change in CAP regulations, in this paper we ask if the need for specific advice can already be foreseen? Examining recent investigations that focused on new forms of labour organisations on farms can help to answer this question. Investigations were conducted across France, combining qualitative field studies with a comprehensive analysis of statistical and administrative data. The results show a growing complexity of farm labour organisation that generates needs for new types of advice. In particular, an increasing proportion of the people working on farms are employed by another organisation (foreign and domestic service providers, employers’ alliances, etc.). The administrative data provides strong evidence of the scale of this trend which has little visibility in the agricultural census data. We should therefore be cautious about oversimplified representations of labour patterns at farm level. They can distort policy design, implementation and assessment by overlooking a part of the worker population and needs for new types of advice, including those that will be required to meet social conditionality requirements.     

竹炭在竹子产业链中的重要性

竹炭生产在我国是新兴的行业,它利用竹子加工的剩余物经高温处理形成竹炭,用于燃料或净化空气与水,并经进一步加工形成再制品用于环保、保健、纺织品等等。近年来,家居装修材料对室内空气的影响,新汽车内部的空气质量以及水的质量问题日益引起人们关注,竹炭在这些方面都有很好的效用,市场前景广阔。竹炭生产在竹子产业链中居于精深加工的一环,同时也是实现竹子产业循环经济的一环。它的发展不但可以大大延伸竹子产业链,提高产品附加值,也可以充分利用竹材资源,促进竹业健康发展。针对我国竹炭业发展中遇到的问题,提出一些对策建议。     

西双版纳国家级自然保护区生态旅游SWOT分析与对策研究

运用SWOT分析法对西双版纳国家级自然保护区生态旅游的优势、劣势、机遇与挑战进行分析,认为西双版纳国家级自然保护区应该发扬自身独特多样的自然、人文资源及品牌优势,通过统筹全局,整体规划;加强区域合作,改善内部治理;遵循公平合理的原则;旅游产品开发与市场接轨;挖掘旅游潜力,开展多种生态旅游形式;加强人力资源开发和培养等措施弥补自身不足,并积极面对发展机遇、迎接挑战。     

区域土地利用结构变化及预测研究——以江苏省扬州市为例

以扬州市1996-2004年土地利用变更调查数据为基础,对其土地利用结构变化过程进行了描述,并选取相对变化率指标,分析了变化的区域差异.运用马尔柯夫链的理论与方法,构建1996-2004年间扬州市土地利用类型转移的概率矩阵,预测扬州市2010和2020年的土地利用结构,并分析了其变化特征.预测结果表明:扬州市未来的土地利用主要存在:耕地面积将持续减少、城镇建设用地规模仍将继续增大、未利用地面积减少较快等特征.最后根据预测结果提出了扬州市土地利用结构优化调整的政策建议.     

中国-东盟自贸区二周年的比较研究——基于出口相似度与显性比较优势的分析

文章通过对中国与东盟4国出口相似度指数与显性比较优势指数进行测算,实证分析了中国-东盟自贸区的贸易现状;据此指出,中国与东盟之间贸易竞争仍比较激烈,存在产生"合成谬误"的可能性,但长期趋势分析表明其可能性越来越小;最后,文章得出结论并给出政策建议。     

DETERMINANTS OF CHANGE IN THE NORTH AMERICAN FEEDER-CATTLE ECONOMY

Changing flow patterns characterize the North American cattle industry, which are having a significant impact on all aspects of Canadian agriculture. A brief review of important changes taking place in the feeder cattle industry is given together with an analysis of forces influencing the changing interregional economic relationships.
The results suggest an increasing rate of adjustment may be needed in the future as the economic variables and technological advances responsible for much of the change in the past continue to influence the Canadian cattle industry. The impact of change will not occur evenly across all areas and segments of the industry with the interregional trends that have developed particularly the expansion in flows from Western Canada to the Western United States showing no sign of slowing down. Eastern Canada may be under increasing pressure to expand either its imports of feeder cattle and dressed beef or develop its own feeder supply.     

加强林业统计工作的对策研究

林业统计是一项事关林业发展全局的基础性工作，也是涉及统计行业门类较多的一项统计工作，在新的形势下，研究林业统计工作的现状、存在的问题，提出完善和加强林业统计工作的对策。对提高林业统计整体效能将起到重要的推动作用。     

Building knowledge systems for sustainable agriculture: supporting private advisors to adequately address sustainable farm management in regular service contacts

Advisory service provisioning on sustainability issues such as environmental care and food safety is considered suboptimal in privatized extension systems, which comprise a diverse set of private advisors. Apart from funding dedicated ‘public good’ projects, government also relies on these advisors to address sustainability issues in their regular service contacts with farmers. Policy measures have hence been proposed to stimulate farmer demand for such sustainable farm management (SFM) advice (pull measures) and to build capacity among advisors (push measures). This paper assesses two interventions, in nutrient management and mastitis prevention, that integrate pull measures (awareness building and economic incentives) and push measures (promoting facilitative advisory styles and optimizing knowledge system linkages) to stimulate advisory service provisioning on SFM. Results indicate that effectiveness appears to depend on an adequate mix of, and balance between, push and pull measures. Awareness building is a prerequisite to creating demand for such services and appears more important than economic incentives. However, awareness is not built by the interventions alone; indeed, a lack of awareness may not be the main problem: the broader institutional context may not be conducive to a proactive approach to addressing SFM if regulatory frameworks are unclear and inconsistent. The main conclusion is that, despite interventions having an impact, it is uncertain whether the demand for, and supply of, SFM advice will be sustained after interventions are withdrawn.     

WHICH COUNTRY LOSES THE LEAST IN A TRADE WAR?

Trade actions, which can generally be claimed as trade wars, appear to be on the rise. This is particularly true in the case of agricultural commodities. It is a common perception that large countries will be the victors in such contests and this clearly affects the trade strategies of small countries, including Australia. The relationship between free-trade and trade-war pay-offs in the context of a prisoner's dilemma is explored in this paper. It is shown why neither a favourable terms of trade movement, a flatter import demand curve nor a larger population is, on its own, a sufficient condition for a relative victory in a trade war. The implications for small country trade strategies are then discussed.     

Food aid,food policy and the Uruguay round: implications for Bangladesh

The relationship between the effects of food aid and those of the completion of the Uruguay Round of the GATT are studied in this paper, focusing upon the food aid recipient countries, and taking Bangladesh as an illustrative example. It is argued that, among other factors, the magnitudes of these effects depend crucially on the policy environment within the food aid recipient country itself, particularly the government's policy with respect to commercial food imports. It is shown that when the quantity of Bangladesh's commercial food imports is controlled by the government, the benefits derived from food aid are smaller than when these imports are liberalised. Likewise, the negative effects that the Uruguay Round may be expected to have on Bangladesh will also he larger if commercial food imports are subject to quantitative controls than if they are liberalised. The effects the Uruguay Round will have on Bangladesh will also depend on the way food aid donors respond to the Round. If donors reduce the volumes of food aid, either because of reduced food surpluses resulting from lower agricultural subsidies, or in response to increased international food prices resulting from the Round, the losses incurred by Bangladesh will be magnified. But these effects will also depend heavily on whether Bangladesh itself participates in the liberalisations that are central to the Round itself. If it were to participate fully, the negative effects that the Uruguay Round would otherwise have on Bangladesh may be entirely offset by the gains Bangladesh would derive from its own liberalisation.     

COMMUNICATIONS IN AGRICULTURE: RESULTS OF A FARMER SURVEY

This paper discusses the results of a survey of farmers aimed at establishing a contemporary view of both the use of information and advice by farmers and their attitudes towards the various sources through which agricultural information and advice is channelled. The results of the survey suggest that farmers are generally satisfied with the provision of agricultural information and advice. The Agricultural Development and Advisory Services (ADAS), commercial representatives and the farming press continue to play an important role in communicating information and advice to farmers, but the wider uptake of on-farm information technology is yet to be achieved.     

发挥海洋优势做大海洋旅游--浙江省开发海洋旅游资源的思考

浙江是海洋大省,其海域面积为陆域面积的2．6倍,海岸线长度和海岛总数约占全国的1／5和2／5,而海洋和海岛旅游将成为21世纪旅游经济增长的驱动力。所以,浙江开发海洋旅游有广阔的空间、优越的环境及丰厚的文化。根据浙江海洋的实际情况,结合浙江海洋旅游的现状和存在的问题,提出开发浙江海洋旅游的对策和措施,为未来浙江海洋旅游资源的开发提供参谋。     

The present and future use of ‘land’ below ground

The world's subsurface space, including Britain's, is already used in a variety of ways, ranging from occupancy to disposal and the bulk storage of materials and fuels. In the future it is likely that it will be put to further use in response to trends in technology, resource supply and demand, socioeconomics and geopolitics. Here the present and future uses of underground space, and the potential planning and social issues affecting its development, are reviewed. Future uses are likely to be in the area of increasing occupancy (both commercial and residential), the secure storage of documents and data, the storage of carbon dioxide for carbon abatement, natural gas, compressed air stores of energy from traditional and renewable sources, the use of underground heat in buildings and the proposed deep geological disposal of radioactive waste. The article will also explore pressure points and challenges. These will include the regulation of multiple uses of subsurface storage space and, for projects of national importance including natural gas and radioactive waste storage, legislation to lessen the effect of local opposition relative to the ‘national need’. This article does not discuss future mining, hydrocarbon extraction, or water resources.     

南京市农村房屋拆迁补偿政策演变及改革研究

研究目的:分析南京市农村集体房屋拆迁补偿政策的演变历程,提出完善中国城郊结合部农村集体房屋拆迁补偿政策的建议.研究方法:文献资料法和比较分析法.研究结果:南京市农村集体房屋拆迁补偿政策在不同的时期,由于所处的背景不同,补偿形式、适用范围都有差别.研究结论:政府在农村集体房屋拆迁补偿政策方面进行了有益尝试,但农村集体房屋拆迁补偿是一个长期的系统工程,改革完善很难在短期内一蹴而就.     

闽北锥栗种质资源的开发利用

锥栗是一种重要的木本经济作物，具有多方面的利用价值。在介绍锥栗的生物学、生态学特性、种质资源现况和它的食用价值、工业利用价值和医用价值的基础上，提出对锥栗开发利用的几点建议。     

乌兰察布盟生态变化及对策研究

对乌兰察布的生态状况进行了分析,发现乌盟地区气温有逐渐升高的趋势。而降水则呈现下降趋势,由此导致了乌盟地区生态环境日趋干旱化,对乌盟的农业生产产生了很大的影响,试图摸清乌盟生态环境绵趋势及其牟农业生产的影响,为农业发展提供理论指南。     

我国与国际食品法典委员会关于水产品中食品添加剂使用规定的对比分析

水产品生产中,从保鲜、改善品质及风味的角度,会用到相应的食品添加剂,而对于食品添加剂的使用,在国内和国外都有着非常明确的规定,如果我国本身的规定无法达到国际相关规定的要求,则水产品出口贸易会受到很大影响。本文就我国与国际食品法典委员会关于水产品中食品添加剂的使用规定进行了对比分析,希望能够为解决当前我国在水产品食品添加剂中存在的问题提供参考。