Helping European Agriculture to Adjust — A Proactive Approach to Agricultural Policy

Helping European Agriculture to Adjust - A Proactive Approach to Agricultural Policy
In the European Union the next five to ten years are likely to witness continued pressures for agricultural policy reform. If cost-effective ways of dealing with adjustment issues can be identified, reform may be less difficult to achieve. This article looks at the economic, equity and political arguments for providing adjustment assistance to farmers. Compensation for changes in policy has a role to play, but if poorly designed can inhibit structural change. A review of how farmers have reacted to policy reform in a number of OECD countries concludes that their ability to adapt is often under-estimated, but that two characteristics are particularly important in facilitating change. The first is effectively functioning factor markets, particularly the market for land, and the second is the quality of human capital. These characteristics should be the primary focus of public policy to facilitate adjustment. The policies we propose would satisfy the Green Box requirements of the WTO that payments to farmers be minimally production and trade distorting. By establishing the conditions under which adapting to change is made easier, agricultural policy becomes sustainable, since adjustment is a process that is not limited to any single round of policy reform.     

刺参池塘养殖经济效益分析

论文对刺参池塘养殖的投入、产量、产值和效益进行了分析.结果显示：在投入方面,参苗投入占总投入的比例最大;塘租和人工方面的投入相近,并列排在第二位.通过对投入与产出的效益分析发现,投苗密度是影响产量和经济效益的重要因素.通过对不同调查池塘整体投入分析发现,养殖投入的增加可以在一定程度上提高刺参的产量,但是过高的投入会造成投入与产出不成正比,最终可能会导致经济效益较大幅度的下降.     

农业国际化对农业现代化的影响

农业现代化体现为农业技术的全面升级、农业结构的现代转型和农业制度的现代变迁。农业国际化对农业现代化具有积极的推动作用。这体现在三个方面：（1）农业国际化通过供给和需求两个方面推动农业技术进步；（2）农业国际化也有利于投入结构的优化、生产结构的升级和品质结构的改善；（3）农业国际化对农业的市场化和现代农业组织的建立具有积极的影响。     

The Amenity Value of Agricultural Landscape and Rural–Urban Land Allocation

We analyse rural–urban land allocation in the light of the increasing environmental role of agricultural landscapes. The landscape amenity value of farmland varies across crops and as a result affects the optimal crop mix in addition to its effect on rural–urban land allocation. Investigating the effects of population and income growth processes, we find that, contrary to market outcomes, the socially optimal allocation may call for more farmland preservation under both processes. In an empirical application to a region in Israel, we find that the extent of market under‐supply of farmland is substantial and that population growth calls for more farmland preservation at the expense of urban land.     

WTO农业谈判与中国农业政策实践

农业政策是多哈回合的核心谈判议题之一。农业谈判结果对于多边贸易体制的稳定、经济全球化的进程、贸易自由化等给各成员国带来的福利具有极其重要的意义。作为世界上最大的发展中国家,中国农业政策所受到的影响更是引人注目。     

The social construction of “shared growth”: Zambia Sugar and the uneven terrain of social benefit

Recent years have witnessed a growing trend in agricultural investment and large‐scale farmland acquisition in the Global South and a rapid expansion of scholarship and public debate over the nature, consequences, and desirability of these trends. The polarization of this debate into “win/lose” narratives raises the question of whether, and under what conditions, the logic of capital accumulation driving farmland acquisition and investment can engender broad‐based social benefits akin to “shared growth.” This paper sheds light on this question through a detailed look at the recent expansion of Zambia Sugar's Nakambala Estate in Mazabuka, Zambia. We explore outcomes linked to two of the most prominent pathways through which social benefits are said to accrue: smallholder incorporation and employment. Findings demonstrate the unevenness of outcomes linked to both pathways, with the concrete benefits both claimed and observed through some measures quickly eroding under the weight of alternative performance metrics. The unevenness produced by the intensification of capitalist relations is manifested not just between those differentially positioned with respect to the incoming investment (“outgrower,” “employee,” and “land loser”) but within each of those conditions. This ambiguity opens spaces for competing representations of the promises and pitfalls of these processes, while highlighting the shaky ground on which shared growth and inclusive business agendas stand.     

山区小水窖设计及效益分析

结合工程实例介绍小水窖设计思路、确定小水窖有关参数的方法，简要介绍小水窖发挥的效益，提出了发展具有容易实施、布置灵活，产权明晰、管理方便，投资少、见效快等优点的小水窖是解决农村用水困难的有效工程措施的观点。     

农业大国农产品贸易促进机制对我国的启示

我国农产品供给长期短缺,因此农产品贸易促进工作一直处于滞后状态。随着我国农业短缺经济的结束和加入世界贸易组织,农业发展进入新的阶段,我国农业国际化程度大幅度提高,农产品贸易面临着越来越激烈的国际竞争,农业贸易促进工作的重要性日显突出。     

The Challenge of Decoupling Agricultural Support

The Challenge of Decoupling Agricultural Support
Decoupling agricultural support has become a central feature of reforms in most OECD countries due to international and domestic constraints. There is evidence that this movement can reduce economic inefficiencies and contribute to improving policy design. Not all the characteristics, however, of recent new support programmes, reduce their impact on production. Moving from price support to area payments and granting more freedom in the use of the supported resources makes programmes more decoupled, but making payments counter-cyclical based on current production or market variables tends to exacerbate the production response of risk averse farmers. When all the effects are taken into consideration - relative prices, risk and dynamic effects - all agricultural support programmes have some impact on production and thus the degree of decoupling needs to be estimated empirically. Recent studies have expanded our scarce knowledge of these issues. They confirm the partial decoupling of area payments, like those in the EU after 1992, as well as the larger degree of decoupling that results from more production freedom, as in the Production Flexibility Contract payments in the US and the recent Single Farm Payment in the EU. But the total magnitude of the production effects depends on policy design and 'size', since high levels of partially decoupled support can have potentially significant effects on production.     

The Economic Impact of Marena’s Investments on Sustainable Agricultural Systems in Honduras

This study examines the economic impact of sustainable agricultural production systems in Central America. In particular, we investigate the impact of investments promoted by the MARENA Programme in Honduras on the total value of agricultural production (TVAP) of its beneficiaries. Propensity Score Matching techniques along with the Difference‐in‐Differences framework are used to mitigate biases stemming from differences in observed as well as unobserved (time‐invariant) characteristics between beneficiaries and a control group. The econometric estimates suggest that MARENA has had a positive and significant effect on the TVAP of beneficiaries. In addition, the analysis shows that, under alternative scenarios, MARENA yielded higher than expected internal rates of return. The results of this study shed light on the response of small‐scale hillside farmers to economic incentives and lend support to the role of natural resource management projects in Central America as a tool to increase household income while also promoting the conservation of natural resources.     

Underinvestment in Producer‐Funded Agricultural R&D: The Role of the Horizon Problem

Agricultural research and development (R&D) investment has become an increasingly important policy issue as food prices increased and food security problems emerged over the last decade. An important source of agricultural R&D funding is the producer check‐off, which is increasingly being used to fund applied agricultural research. Existing studies of producer‐funded agricultural R&D indicate there are high private rates of return to agricultural R&D investment by farmers, and thus farmers are underinvesting in R&D. Since a farmer's time horizon is typically less than the period of time over which the benefits of agricultural R&D take place, the horizon problem has been identified as a possible factor in this underinvestment. This paper shows that the horizon problem is unlikely to be the only cause of the underinvestment when the internal rate of return is large. Instead, shortened producer horizons only emerge as the main source of underinvestment when the internal rate of return is low. As a result, other factors, including behavioral determinants, need to be looked at as contributors to the underfunding of agricultural R&D. Les investissements en recherche et développement agricoles sont devenus un important enjeu politique étant donné l'augmentation des prix des aliments et les problèmes de sécurité alimentaire de la dernière décennie. Une importante source de financement pour la recherche et le développement dans le domaine agricole sont les programmes de contribution des producteurs, ces derniers étant de plus en plus sollicités pour financer la recherche agricole appliquée. Certaines études portant sur la recherche et le développement agricoles financés par les producteurs indiquent un haut taux de rendement privé des investissements en recherche et développement agricoles par les producteurs. Ces derniers y investissent donc moins. Puisque l'échéancier de l'agriculteur est typiquement moins long que celui pendant lequel les avantages liés à la recherche et au développement dans le domaine agricole s'échelonnent, le problème de l'horizon a été identifié comme facteur potentiel au sous‐investissement. Il est probable, selon cet article, que le problème de l'horizon ne soit pas la seule cause du sous‐investissement lorsque le taux interne de rendement s'avère grand. Plutôt, les échéanciers réduits des agriculteurs apparaissent seulement comme les sources principales de sous‐investissement lorsque le taux de rendement interne est bas. Il en résulte que d'autres facteurs, incluant les déterminants comportementaux, doivent être examinés à titre de contributeurs au sous‐investissement de la recherche et du développement en agriculture.     

Managerial ability — a review of its basis and potential improvement using psychological concepts

Achieving an appropriate resource allocation structure usually revolves around the farm manager. His or her ability is crucial to success. Yet, most farmers learn by experience and/or through various courses that concentrate on technical, production economic and related aspects. Putting more effort into understanding the components of managerial ability and how a managers’ ability to perform well in each component might be improved is well overdue. As psychology is the study of people and their actions it is the obvious discipline to turn to for assistance. This paper contains a review of the psychology of decision making from a farm management perspective, outlines what psychology offers for changing a person's attributes, and considers the structure of a research programme aimed at developing methods for improving individual's managerial ability.