The discrimination of adopters and non-adopters of conservation agricultural initiatives in northwest Iran: Attitudinal,soil testing,and topographical modules

Over the past decades, agro-ecological measures, such as conservation agricultural initiatives (CAIs) have been widely implemented in developing countries, in like manner with Tabriz city as would be a leading case situated in northwest Iran. In light of linear discriminant analysis (LDA), this cross-sectional research calls on a knowledge gap respecting the differentiation of farmers who become involved in CAIs (adopters) from those not involved (non-adopters), as three data modules, including attitudinal, soil testing, and topographical data, were used. The study takes advantage of a sample of 382 respondents, stratified as regards the geographical location of their farms. Using theory-triangulation, the theoretical foundation enfolds demographic theory, the theory of planned behavior, innovation diffusion model, and resource-based model. The results of hierarchical LDA provide evidence that the hypothesized model is entitled to be fitted with data and accordingly three variables including (1) observability, (2) farm revenue, and (3) compatibility ascertain adopter farmers from non-adopter ones. Furthermore, it was revealed that the soil dynamic quality features, such as electrical conductivity, EC, (dS m⁻¹) (Mann-Whitney U = 353, P < 0.05) and organic carbon content, OC (%), (Mann-Whitney U = 935.5, P < 0.05) were significantly different between the two groups of farms, while carbonate calcium equivalent, CCE (%) (Mann-Whitney U = 935.5, P > 0.05) showed no significant differences. Likewise, the topographical data analyzed in ArcGIS software make manifest that CAIs farms have more steady topographic features rather non-CAI farms and are also situated in the regions with a gradient of less than 5%. In conclusion, the paper delivers management implications for the agricultural extension and authorities of the agricultural research centers who tend to promote CAIs in on-site and off-site farmlands.     

The allocative efficiency and conservation potential of water laws encouraging investments in on-farm irrigation technology

Agricultural water conservation statutes are emerging in the West encouraging private irrigators to improve on‐farm irrigation efficiency as a basinwide conservation measure. We investigate whether private improvements promote the economic efficiency and conservation of water use basinwide under a wide variety of hydroeconomic circumstances. The standard of efficiency is how an irrigation district manager should optimally invest in improving the irrigation efficiencies of individual farms located along a stream while internalizing intrabasin allocative externalities of these investments. The results indicate that the popular Oregon legislative model may be the least effective in conserving water and promoting economically efficient water allocation.     

Irrigation technology adoption and its implication for water conservation in the Texas High Plains: a real options approach

Water shortage has been a significant issue for several decades in the Texas High Plains. Agriculture has been identified as the main activity contributing to this shortage. To address this issue, many efforts have been focused on the possible adoption of sophisticated irrigation systems with high levels of water application efficiency. In this study, the entry and exit thresholds for the low‐energy precision application (LEPA) system are analyzed simultaneously in cotton farming in the Texas High Plains using a real options approach. The results show that the LEPA system is profitable only when cotton price is set above $1.59/kg. The exit (entry) threshold is consistently low (high) over a range of values for parameter changes including investment cost, exit cost, variable cost, risk‐adjusted discount rate, and volatility rate, so it is unlikely that farmers with irrigation systems in place would leave them easily. This implies that to attain the goal of saving water, Lubbock County needs to focus on convincing current farmers to replace old irrigation systems with new ones.     

水流环境与吴淞江流域的田制(10～15世纪)

昊淞江流域10-15世纪的圩田系统基本上处于一种大圩系统下.这种系统的功能是狭水以提高塘浦的水位,以此注水吴淞江,以清压浑,防止浑潮淤淀.由于围垦和运河堤的兴建,宋中叶以后吴淞江逐步淤塞,单注吴淞江的出水格局到15世纪发生了质的变化.塘浦提高水位的功能不再重视,大圩不再利于新形成的众浦排水格局的功能发挥,小圩代替了大圩.水流环境的改变导致了圩田制度的变化.     

Trends in private land conservation: Increasing complexity,shifting conservation purposes and allowable private land uses

The terrain of private-land conservation dealmaking is shifting. As the area of private land protected for conservation increases, it is time to understand trends in private-land conservation agreements. We examined 269 conservation easements and conducted 73 interviews with land conservation organizations to investigate changes in private-land conservation in the United States. We hypothesized that since 2000, conservation easements have become more complex but less restrictive. Our analysis reveals shifts in what it means for private land to be “conserved.” We found that conservation easements have indeed become more complex, with more purposes and terms after 2000 compared to conservation easements recorded before 2000. However, changes in restrictiveness of conservation easements varied by land use. Mining and waste dumping were less likely to be allowed after 2000, but new residences and structures were twice as likely to be allowed. We found a shift toward allowing some bounded timber harvest and grazing and a decline in terms that entirely allow or prohibit these working land uses. Interviews revealed staff perceptions of reasons for these changes. Our analysis suggests that “used” landscapes are increasingly important for conservation but that conserving these properties stretches the limits of simple, perpetual policy tools and requires increasingly complex and contingent agreements.     

Improving rural livelihoods through the conservation and use of underutilized species: evidence from a community research project in Yemen

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of a set of interventions related to conservation and use of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) on people's livelihoods. Specifically, a simultaneous three-equation model of households' participation on underutilized crops conservation and income generation activities is applied to evaluate the outcome of a pilot research project implemented by Bioversity International in Yemen between 2002 and 2005. Results generated show a relation between project participation and the perceived yield increase demonstrating the importance for farmers to actively participate in the project's activities and subsequently apply agronomic practices learnt to improve their livelihood. The generated benefits incentivized farmers to continue to apply the interventions beyond the lifetime of the project ensuring thus a sustainable process in which exogenous interventions, once adopted by farmers become integrant part of farmer's agronomic practices.     

Knowing but not knowing: Systematic conservation planning and community conservation in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca,Mexico

Systematic conservation planning (SCP) seeks to propose new reserves through a scientifically rigorous process using databases and research selection algorithims. However, SCP exercises have been criticized for “knowing but not doing”, i.e. not implementing the proposed reserve. But there is an additional problem that can be called “knowing but not knowing”, knowing things from databases, but not knowing crucial contextual information about community-based social processes that have supported the high forest cover and biodiversity detected. Examined here is how a common property region of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico has maintained high forest cover in the absence of public protected areas, while multiple SCP exercises have advocated for the creation of public protected areas in communal tropical montane cloud forests and pine forests as strategies for biodiversity conservation and resilience to climate change. Methods included archival research, review of community documents, focus group interviews, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, land use transects, and GIS analysis and remote sensing. Conservation in the region originally occurred because of low population densities, steep slopes and a lack of agricultural subsidies, supported by locally adapted agricultural practices. In the 1990s, a transition from passive to active conservation took place with land use zoning plans, community conservation rules, community forestry enterprises and payments for environmental service programs that consolidated a trend towards high, unthreatened forest cover. Today, the study communities have an average of 88.3% forest cover, with 61% of that in informal conservation based on community land use zoning and rules and another 14% governed by forest management plans approved by the Mexican government. We argue that truly systematic conservation plans would seek to understand how communities in the region are already managing forests for conservation. It is pointless and uninformed to advocate for top-down conservation interventions of forests that are already robustly conserved and resilient to climate change due to community action.     

The politics of the forest frontier: Negotiating between conservation,development, and indigenous rights in Cross River State,Nigeria

Nigeria's once thriving plantation economy has suffered under decades of state neglect and political and civil turmoil. Since Nigeria's return to civilian rule in 1999, in a bid to modernize its ailing agricultural economy, most of its defunct plantations were privatized and large new areas of land were allocated to ‘high-capacity’ agricultural investors. This paper explores the local tensions associated with this policy shift in Cross River State, which, due to its favorable agro-ecological conditions and investment climate, has become one of Nigeria's premier agricultural investment destinations. It shows how the state's increasing reliance on the private sector as an impetus for rural transformation is, paradoxically, crowding out smallholder production systems and creating new avenues for rent capture by political and customary elites. Moreover, as Nigeria's most biodiverse and forested state, the rapid expansion of the agricultural frontier into forest buffer zones is threatening to undermine many of the state's conservation initiatives and valuable common pool resources. The paper goes on to explain why and how private sector interests in Cross River State are increasingly being prioritized over natural resource protection, indigenous rights over the commons, and smallholder production systems.     

Adjusting policy to institutional,cultural and biophysical context conditions: The case of conservation banking in California

This paper examines the political construction of a policy instrument for matching particular institutional, biophysical and cultural context conditions in a social–ecological system, using the case of conservation banking in California as an example. The guiding research question is: How is policy design negotiated between various actors on its way from early formulation of ideas and principles to an accepted policy solution on a state or national level? The underlying assumption is that in order for a policy instrument to be implemented, it has to be adjusted to various context conditions. That is, it has to become accepted by affected actors associated with the institutional framework, and it has to gain local validity for implementation by actors related to a particular ecological and cultural context. We assume that ideas about policy adjustments are not only functionalistic questions determined for example by the materiality of the resource it governs, but are constructed and politically negotiated because these ideas may differ among the mental models of the associated actors. These actors are stakeholders affiliated with the policy process, i.e. authorities, public and private organizations, interest groups, firms or think tanks dealing with, or being shaped by, the policy at different stages of its development.As a result certain context conditions and related concerns such as institutional interplay or match to ecological particularities become inscribed in policy design as an outcome of power struggles, values, and interests. These in turn may vary at different stages of policy development and implementation. Each time the instrument is transferred in a new setting it is likely that the incipient policy design may be opened-up and begin a mutual adjustment process among the newly concerned actors. Thus, such policy developments are not immutable but are dynamic. In this paper, the creation of fit for policies on conservation banking to the issue of species protection in the State of California and later to the U.S. environmental governance domain, are analyzed to understand the instrument's emergence and development toward an established policy solution. The focus is on the negotiation processes among the enrolled actors and their strategies for matching the instrument to certain institutional, cultural and ecological context conditions on different scales. Changes in policy design, its underlying influences, actors’ interests, conflicts and perceived effects are identified, respectively.     

Private irrigation investment in Colombia: effects of violence,macroeconomic policy,and environmental conditions

This paper identifies and estimates the effects of several determinant, on private investment in irrigation in Colombia. It attempts to quantify macroeconomic policy, environment, and violence variables that have been identified in previous studies as significantly affecting investment, in agriculture in genera., and in irrigation in particular. Variables such as violence, climate, and governmental price credit policies are used to explain changes in private investment in irrigation across regions and over time. Violence negatively affects private investment. Climate affects the investment such that in regions with favorable climate condition, investment in irrigation is less attractive, and appropriate government crop-price and credit policies promote investment in irrigation.     

Farm productivity in Rwanda: effects of farm size,erosion, and soil conservation investments

This paper examines the effects of farm size, soil erosion, and soil conservation investments on land and labor productivity and allocative efficiency in Rwanda. There were several key results. First, there is a strong inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity, and the opposite for labor productivity. For smaller farms, there is evidence of allocative inefficiency in use of land and labor, probably due to factor market access constraints. Second, farms with greater investment in soil conservation have much better land productivity than average. Those with very eroded soils do much worse than average. Smaller farms are not more eroded than larger farms, but have twice the soil conservation investments. Third, land productivity benefits substantially from perennial cash crops, and the gains to shifting to cash crops are highest for those with low erosion and high use of fertilizer and organic matter. Program and policy effort to encourage and enable farmers to make soil conservation investments, to use fertilizer and organic matter, and to participate in cash cropping of perennials will have big payoffs in productivity. Land markets that allow smaller farmers to buy land could also increase aggregate productivity.     

The positive impacts of irrigation schedules on rice yield and water consumption: synergies in Jilin Province,Northeast China

Food and water security in China are inextricably linked to the development of regional economy, especially for regions with temporary or sustained water shortage such as Jilin Province in northeast China. Water-saving irrigation practices are therefore urgently sought to maintain sustainable growth in grain production. To improve knowledge of the effect of irrigation water level on rice yield and water-use efficiency (WUE), we conducted a field experimental study over two growing seasons in central Jilin. The irrigation experiment included four schedules: (1) traditional irrigation (CK), (2) shallow wet irrigation (T1), (3) intermittent irrigation (T2), and (4) controlled irrigation (T3). Soil test pits were used to estimate evapotranspiration and seepage. The study showed that T3 had the highest WUE (1.64?kg/m³). However, the highest rice yield was found in T1 (9867?kg/ha¹) that achieved the second highest WUE (1.63?kg/m³). Compared with CK, T1 and T3 consumed 7.3% and 36.1% less water, respectively. If adopted at the operational scale, these two schedules could help reduce the pressure of local surface water supply and the production costs significantly. The results gained from this study could also have relevant implication in developing an effective irrigation management for other high-latitude regions.     

The impact of information on landowners’ participation in voluntary conservation programs - Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence from an agri-environment program in Saxony, Germany

The voluntary nature of programs that pay landowners for conservation measures raises the question of what factors favor participation in such programs. This article focuses on the controversial issue of the impact of information on the participation decision. We develop a straightforward model to analyze how information affects this decision, and empirically estimate the impact of information, as well as other factors, on participation in a conservation program in Saxony, Germany. We find in our theoretical analysis that information measures may affect program participation either in a positive or negative way, whereas our estimation results indicate that the influence of the diverse information measures that have been relevant in our empirical analysis is weak. We argue, however, that information measures may nonetheless be warranted, as they allow for better informed participation decisions, thus contributing to a more optimal selection of program participants.     

Land use conflicts and rain forest conservation in Malaysia and Australia: The Endau-Rompin and Gordon-Franklin controversies

Peninsular Malaysia and Tasmania possess wilderness rain forests of great value to mankind. In both regions, however, undisturbed forests are dwindling and competition for the resources of the remaining forest areas is increasing. One result has been land use conflicts, some of them intense and prolonged. Two recent controversies—one over the logging of tropical forests in the Endau-Rompin region of southern Peninsular Malaysia, the other concerning a dam project in the Gordon-Franklin wilderness in south-west Tasmania—are described, analysed and compared. The authors describe the significance and value of the two wilderness areas, discuss the two controversies as ‘environmental issues’, examine the tactics employed by environmental pressure groups and explain how the two disputes were influenced by federal-state relations and certain constitutional considerations.     

Harnessing sustainability,resilience and productivity through conservation agriculture: the case of likoti in Lesotho

Subsistence farmers in Lesotho have been able to boost agricultural yields and increase food production by adopting conservation agriculture. The practice, locally known as likoti, also contributes to combating soil erosion and to enhancing fertility. The socio-economic and environmental benefits help poor households to rehabilitate and strengthen their livelihood capital base and ultimately help rural communities to build system resilience in the face of widespread poverty and increasing vulnerability that affect the country. This paper discusses the major advantages associated with the spread of likoti. By drawing on primary data collected by FAO-Lesotho, it enquires into the determinants of adoption, thereby highlighting constraints and options for future up-scaling. The results show that attending appropriate training is a crucial prerequisite for the correct adoption of likoti. However, training is more effective when trainers pursue true participation and when social capital among farmers is stronger. Further important determinants of adoption are the level of education and the economic incentives provided to vulnerable households. Stronger policy and institutional support in all these areas would thus help address the cultural and resource constraints that limit the full potential of likoti to be harnessed and ultimately hinder its further spread throughout the country.     

中国粮食非关税贸易措施的实证研究:1996-2001年

为了能为政府制定粮食政策提供更加科学的依据，本文首先给出了适用于中国粮食非关税贸易措施的计算方法。在验证中国粮食供给曲线垂直和测算中国粮食需求价格弹性的基础上，并根据中国的实际情况对测算方法进行适当调整后，从定量的角度测算了1996—2001年中国粮食非关税贸易措施的经济福利影响，进而提出入世后中国粮食政策改革的重点。     

Violent visions of an ownership society: The land administration project in Petén, Guatemala

This article is a case study of phase one of the World Bank's land administration project in Petén, Guatemala. Although the project's stated aims are merely to formalize an existing set of individual landed property rights, this development intervention necessarily changes the property regime, thereby changing underlying relationships that land as property embodies. Impact evaluations conducted by development economists may fail to substantively address displacement and violence that occur as a short-term effect of the project and long-term disparate impacts of the project that may exacerbate existing inequalities. The case of Petén also highlights the possibility for violent enforcement of property boundaries, where conflict surges between the disenfranchised and those who gain power under the new property regime.     

The role of wildlife-associated recreation in private land use and conservation: Providing the missing baseline

Successfully integrating human activities with ecosystem conservation forms the foundation of sustainability and is key to maintaining biological diversity. This is especially important in privately-owned lands in the U.S., which harbor high levels of biodiversity yet are often vulnerable to habitat degradation and loss. This study analyzes recreation as a sustainable use on private property, focusing on wildlife-associated recreation, defined here as fishing, hunting and wildlife watching. Eighteen national surveys implemented by three U.S. government agencies spanning 1999–2013 were analyzed to provide baseline information and an assessment of the conservation impact of recreation. Results show that approximately 440.1 million acres of private land, ∼22% of the contiguous land area of the U.S., are either leased or owned for wildlife-associated recreation. Land utilized for hunting accounts for 81% of that total. Approximately 33% of private forestland, 18% of private grazing land and 4% of private cropland is used to earn revenue from recreational activities. Annual spending for wildlife-associated recreation on private land is estimated at $814 million in day-use fees, $1.48 billion for long-term leases, and $14.8 billion to own land primarily for recreation (2011 dollars). Hunters own or lease properties of larger size classes than anglers or wildlife-watchers, indicating that hunting may provide a greater economic incentive for maintaining large unfragmented properties that provide a variety of conservation benefits. On grazing and cropland, landowners who earn income from recreation are significantly more likely to participate in government conservation programs (p < 0.001) and to pay for private conservation practices (p = 0.08). This provides support that recreation incentivizes conservation at higher rates than agricultural activities alone. Three policy measures that could further enhance conservation benefits of recreation are discussed.