Technology,market policies and institutional reform for sustainable land use in southern Mali

To identify appropriate interventions that support sustainable land use; a farm household modelling approach is applied to analyze micro-economic supply reactions to various policy measures. The modelling framework links agro-technical and economic data, and takes both production and consumption decisions into account, allowing land use and production technology adjustments in accordance with farm household objectives. Different types of farm households are distinguished on the basis of their resource endowments, savings coefficients and time discount rate. Actual and alternative (sustainable) cropping and livestock activities for different weather regimes are defined for southern Mali. The effects on sustainable land use and expected farm household welfare of adopting alternative technologies and modifying prices, transaction costs, access to credit and land taxes are demonstrated. Even with full information on sustainable technologies, strong policy interventions are required to halt soil degradation. Structural policies proved to be more effective than price policies to reduce soil degradation while maintaining positive income effects. When prices are determined endogenously, structural policy loses some effectiveness as an incentive for sustainable land use due to the effect of additional supply on local cereal and meat Prices.     

Policy directions for agricultural land use in Australia and other post-industrial economies

Farming has been the basis to work, culture and social forces for millennia. It still dominates the lives of most of the world's poorer people, but in post-industrial western countries agriculture's contribution to national economies is now minor. Nevertheless, most OECD countries’ agricultural policies are aimed at maintaining the size of this sector even where this conflicts with its economic significance or adversely affects the environment. Australia has a first world economy, but a third world export profile, with 20% of its export value derived from agriculture. Although it is efficient in agricultural man-power, this sector consumes 70% of the water and 60% of the land resources of the continent to produce food for an estimated 55 million people. Agricultural policies maintain the productivity of the sector, but are ineffective in stemming the associated environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and rural population decline. As in other post-industrial societies, Australia needs to re-define what its agriculture sector represents, environmentally and socially. This will require greater reappraisal of property rights, public and private benefits and legal structures supporting both. More effective alternative policies are needed for large tracts of unproductive farmland where environmental and social decline are endemic. This paper explores alternative options that offer more balanced prospects in the face of current paradoxes, including paying farmers directly for stewardship services, providing better incentives for retiring non-productive areas from agricultural land use, and retiring watersheds, streamlines and other areas of essential environmental function from agricultural production for better biodiversity conservation.     

Zionism and agricultural land: National narratives,environmental objectives,and land policy in Israel

The 1990s saw two different and even contradictory trends in Israel. On the one hand, there was a substantial increase in environmental awareness, on the part of both the general public and decision-makers, that led to a change in the land use planning policy at the national level. On the other hand, the Israel Lands Council (ILC), the body empowered by law to shape the national land policy, made a series of decisions that severely violated the principle of preserving agricultural land and led to massive conversion of agricultural land and open space for commercial, industrial, and residential development. Thus the national land policy became incompatible with the land use planning policy and the rise in environmental awareness it reflected.     

Dynamics and resource use efficiency of agricultural land sales and rental market in India

In a populous developing country such as India, developmental interventions are often woven around land, as this is the most critical resource in the livelihood support system of rural communities. In such a socio-economic environment, land has multiple uses. It is the most important source of income, a symbol of social status and prestige, and has very high collateral value for resource poor farm families. In these countries, the migration of rural workers to urban centers in search of employment, coupled with universal individual inheritance characteristics of land ownership, perpetuates the fragmentation of land holdings. In the majority of such cases, the point has been reached where land has become uneconomic and non-viable for cultivation. For farmers left with uneconomic land holdings there are only three options available; sell the land, rent it out, or lease land from others. In such scenarios land lease and land market policies assumes critical importance.     

A case study of land reform and coastal land transformation in southern Sonora, Mexico

This paper examines the coastal ejido (collectives of peasant landholders) sector's response to the 1992 amendment to Article 27 of Mexico's Constitution, which for the first time legalized the sale and rental of ejido lands. Our analysis is based on a case study of southern Sonora, Mexico. The results indicate a shift in land tenure from the ejido to the private sector and a corresponding conversion of coastal lands to shrimp aquaculture ponds. Our analysis suggests these land-tenure and land-use changes, and the implications of these changes for the coastal ejido sector, vary depending on the historical, geographic and socio-economic characteristics of the ejido communities.     

The effect of decoupling on marginal agricultural systems: Implications for farm incomes,land use and upland ecology

In many parts of Europe, decades of production subsidies led to the steady intensification of agriculture in marginal areas. The recent decoupling of subsidies from production decisions means that the future of farming in these areas is uncertain. For example, in the uplands of the United Kingdom, an area important both for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision, hill farmers steadily increased stocking densities in response to headage payments but must now reconfigure farm businesses to account for the shift to the Single Farm Payment scheme. We examined hill farming in the Peak District National Park as a case study into the future of marginal agriculture after decoupling. We surveyed 44 farm businesses and from this identified six representative farm types based on enterprise mix and land holdings. We developed linear programming models of production decisions for each farm type to examine the impacts of policy changes, comparing the effects of decoupling with and without agri-environment and hill farm support, and evaluating the effects of removal of the Single Farm Payment. The main effects of decoupling are to reduce stocking rates, and to change the mix of livestock activities. Agri-environmental schemes mediate the income losses from decoupling, and farmers are predicted to maximise take up of new Environmental Stewardship programmes, which have both positive and negative feedback effects on livestock numbers. Finally, removal of the Single Farm Payment leads to negative net farm incomes, and some land abandonment. These changes have important implications for ongoing debates about how ecological service flows can be maintained from upland areas, and how marginal upland farming communities can be sustained.     

我国城市用地扩展与土地集约利用

分析了我国城市用地增长弹性系数和城市用地扩展幂指数规律,发现土地利用效益偏低、扩张速度偏快是目前我国城市用地扩展的主要特征;分析了城市用地扩展的主要驱动力,发现固定资产投资和人口增长是城市扩展的主要动力,而第三产业发展有助于抑制城市用地扩张;认为城市扩展是我国现阶段经济发展的必然结果,但我国城市土地利用应变外廷扩展为外延扩展和内涵挖潜相结合的利用方式,提高土地利用的集约度与综合效益.     

浅谈开发区土地集约利用评价指标体系

开发区土地集约利用是一个动态变化发展的过程,不同的经济发展阶段,土地利用的集约程度也相应不同.在同一经济发展水平上,开发区的土地利用结构、土地开发率、地均投资强度以及开发区土地的发育程度和工业用地出让的市场化率,是影响开发区土地利用集约程度的重要因素.为显现开发区复杂的土地利用状况和经济现象,对开发区的现状进行科学评价,需设定多个土地集约利用评价指标,构建开发区土地集约利用评价指标体系.在完成了黑龙江省级开发区哈尔滨平房汽车零部件产业园区和哈尔滨松北经济开发区土地集约利用评价工作基础上,更好的与国家有关用地政策相衔接,充分体现评价指标的刚性标准,结合对其他开发区的实践研究,旨在进一步完善开发区评价指标体系.     

Cultivated land conversion and potential agricultural productivity in China

In China there is a growing debate on the role of cultivated land conversion on food security. This paper uses satellite images to examine the changes of the area of cultivated land and its potential agricultural productivity in China. We find that between 1986 and 2000 China recorded a net increase of cultivated land (+1.9%), which almost offset the decrease in average potential productivity, or bioproductivity (−2.2%). Therefore, we conclude that conversion of cultivated land has not hurt China's national food security. We also argue that more recent change in cultivated area likely has had little adverse effect on food security.     

Modelling the likely impact of healthy eating guidelines on agricultural production and land use in England and Wales

Quadratic programming techniques were applied to household food consumption data in England and Wales to estimate likely changes in diet under healthy eating guidelines, and the consequences this would have on agriculture and land use in England and Wales. The first step entailed imposing nutrient restrictions on food consumption following dietary recommendations suggested by the UK Department of Health. The resulting diet was used, in a second step as a proxy for demand in agricultural commodities, to test the impact of such a scenario on food production and land use in England and Wales and the impacts of this on agricultural landscapes. Results of the diet optimisation indicated a large drop in consumption of foods rich in saturated fats and sugar, essentially cheese and sugar-based products, along with lesser cuts of fat and meat products. Conversely, consumption of fruit and vegetables, cereals, and flour would increase to meet dietary fibre recommendations. Such a shift in demand would dramatically affect production patterns: the financial net margin of England and Wales agriculture would rise, due to increased production of high market value and high economic margin crops. Some regions would, however, be negatively affected, mostly those dependent on beef cattle and sheep production that could not benefit from an increased demand for cereals and horticultural crops. The effects of these changes would also be felt in upstream industries, such as animal feed suppliers. While arable dominated landscapes would be little affected, pastoral landscapes would suffer through loss of grazing management and, possibly, land abandonment, especially in upland areas.     

The agricultural,environmental and socio-political repercussions of Brazil's land governance system

Although many contemporary studies of agriculture associate larger properties with higher relative productivity, this assumption has limited relevancy for the analysis of situations in which property owners profit more from large-scale property accumulation itself rather than any superiority in exploitation opportunities offered by increased size. In Brazil, the efficiency-of-scale paradigm has been used to criticize peasant agriculture as unproductive and hide contradictions deriving from land concentration. As this paper argues, however, small-scale agriculture is actually responsible for most of Brazil's food production, rural employment and agricultural income. The paper utilizes a land governance perspective to analyze the implementation of structural reforms aimed at turning back the land monopolization tide as well as efforts to weaken long-standing legal principles that socially condition individual property “rights” in Brazil.     

Conditioning trends shaping the agricultural and rural landscape in Africa

African countries continue to face deepening food crises that have been accentuated by the global food, energy, and financial crises. This situation is part of a long‐term structural problem: decades of under‐investments in agricultural sector and poor policies of support for smallholder farmers who form the bulk of the farming population. The inability of these farmers to achieve a supply response when commodity prices were high and market access was less of a problem suggests that there are multiple sets of binding constraints that continue to limit the potential of agricultural growth to reduce food security and poverty on the continent. This article reviews some of the historical trends that have hampered the performance of the agriculture sector. In addition, it reviews the impacts of more positive trends that could stimulate agricultural growth in Africa that could change the African agricultural landscape. The article however warns that there are more recent global developments and some continental challenges that could prevent or slow agricultural growth. These include the global financial crisis, public sector investments, inequities in global agricultural development policies, rush for agricultural lands by foreign investors, domestic commercial financing markets, climate change, and emerging carbon markets. The article argues that while opportunities for accelerated growth exists for African agriculture, new sets of policy instruments will be needed to support smallholder farmers to access new agricultural technologies, finance, reduce impacts of climate change, and adopt sustainable land use practices that can allow them to benefit from emerging global carbon markets.     

Future play: tourism,recreation and land use

Recent changes in land use for tourism and recreation have been driven by socio-demographic shifts, increases in disposable time and incomes, technological changes, transport developments, and emerging systems of policy and governance. Combined with changes in consumption preferences, these have led to general but differentiated increases in tourism and recreation. Outbound tourism has grown more rapidly than inbound, which has led to some displacement of land use demands. In the case of recreation, there are shifts between at home and outdoor recreation, and changes in the content and location of each. The resulting land use trends can be understood in regional, intra-regional (urban versus rural versus coastal) and temporal terms. Future trends are considered in terms of how this broad set of drivers and the relationships between them are being and are likely to be transformed.     

大城市郊区土地资源持续利用的战略--以北京市通州区为例

统筹城乡关系是新时期土地合理利用的重要原则；以北京市通州区为例，从城乡关系出发，以郊区作为大城市的功能为基础，提出通州区土地利用的战略目标、重点、布局和战略措施。     

土地利用规划中土地利用空间结构和布局研究进展

土地利用空间结构和布局是土地利用规划工作中的关键所在,是决定土地利用规划是否科学合理的重要步骤;开展土地利用空间结构和布局优化研究有利于促进土地资源利用的集约高效,有利于新一轮的土地利用规划修编的编制和实施;综述了目前我国土地利用空间布局相关理论的研究进展,回顾了土地利用空间布局所采取的主要技术和手段,对我国土地利用空间结构和布局研究进行了展望;研究表明：我国土地利用空间布局理论研究有了长足进展,但还未形成严密的科学理论体系;在研究视角上,多注重耕地和基本农田保护,在“统筹兼顾”“以人为本”“理性发展”等方面应加强;在研究方法上,应加强现代数学模型与计算机空间模拟等方法在土地利用规划布局中的应用研究,加强参与式土地利用规划理论和方法研究,与传统的规划研究方法和手段相结合,形成客观、准确、科学的土地利用规划技术体系。     

Large-scale agricultural investments under poor land governance in Zambia

This paper looks at how large-scale land acquisitions made by foreign investors in Zambia are implemented. It scrutinizes both the steps that an investor has to go through in order to attain land within the Zambian land governance system as well as the actors shaping the acquisition process.As the most important formal change introduced to the Zambian land governance system, the Lands Act 1995 paved the way for foreign investments in land. The new actor “investor” on the other hand has emerged as a result of rising prices for food and non-food commodities. The study finds that the enforcement of formal rules in the process of acquiring land is currently weak and largely determined by a number of actors: while investors, local authorities and government officials have strong leverage, local land users are excluded from the process. If the process of transformations of customary land into state land continues, land administration will be inevitably shifted toward statutory jurisdiction. As a result, local chiefs will lose their discretionary power thereby further marginalizing local land users. As it stands, welfare implications are chiefly down to the individual actors. However, it is only the government that can issue a guarantee that local land users will also benefit from land acquisition.     

The effect of land tenure on agricultural extension work in some villages of the East Central State of Nigeria

Abstract

Survey data on expected and actual prices received by individual vegetable growers in Florida, Michigan, and Texas in 1990 are used to test the rational expectations hypothesis. The use of individual grower data overcomes many of the aggregation, risk premia and model specification issues that have limited previous tests of this hypothesis in agriculture. Overall, price expectations of vegetable growers are found to be inconsistent with the rational expectations hypothesis for the majority of vegetable/state combinations studied.     

县域土地资源利用分区研究——以乐山市沙湾区为例

土地利用分区是对土地利用的合理布局,也是实行土地分区用途管制制度的重要手段和法定依据;从生态环境效益和经济效益两方面出发,运用综合指数法空间分区模型进行分区,将研究区划分为3个功能类型区,并根据各功能区自然经济和土地利用发展背景,分别提出了土地可持续利用的方式与发展模式。