Labour on the Family Farm: a Theory under Uncertainty

This paper develops a theory of the family farm in conditions of uncertainty where attention is focussed on the labour-input decisions. Specifically, the farm family is faced with two labour decisions, namely with respect to hired labour and to family labour. The framework for analysis is expected utility maximisation. The analysis has implications for agricultural policy since policy pronouncements of economists are typically based on models which assume perfect certainty. These pronouncements do not survive the incorporation of uncertainty.     

Using an analytic hierarchy process approach to prioritize public policies addressing family farming in Brazil

In Brazil, some see intensive, large-scale production of sugarcane-based ethanol, based on a model of capital and land concentration, as a threat to the survival of family farming. Family farmers are increasingly under pressure to sell or rent land to mills where sugarcane monoculture is expanding. In this context, the government is working to formulate or change public policies in order to support farmer livelihoods in sugarcane growing regions. The present study is based on research conducted in the municipality of Ipiranga de Goiás, Goiás State, Brazil. It employs the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, with participation of stakeholders at federal, state and municipal levels, to support public policy decision-making addressing family farming. The stakeholders prioritize environmental and economic benefits as the most important criteria requiring the attention of policy makers. Also, stakeholders agree that diversification of production is the most appropriate alternative for strengthening family farming. The AHP approach can be the starting point in the formulation of public policies. The approach helps ensure transparency, and it purposefully includes family farmer points of view. Policies derived from this process, therefore, may have a higher likelihood of being supported and accepted by farmers.     

The estimation of agricultural policy effects on soil erosion—An application for the bio-economic model MODAM

As agricultural policies affect land use, they have effects on the amount of soil erosion in agricultural regions through changes of the economic conditions of agricultural production. Prices of inputs and outputs, regulations and incentives can change, forcing or encouraging farmers to adopt new crop rotations. This paper shows how a bio-economic model can be used to describe and estimate the effects of policies on agricultural production and the risk of soil erosion at the example of a region in North-Eastern Germany. The model uses both an assessment tool that is based on a fuzzy-logic approach for the estimation of soil erosion risk of cropping practices, and a linear programming model, that simulates farmers’ economic behaviour under the assumption of gross margin maximisation being the main goal of farmers’ actions.The analysed policy options were both a targeted and an untargeted incentive programme for reduced tillage, and a restriction option where high erosive crops are not allowed on high erodible field types. The results show that policy changes can have an impact on soil erosion. Furthermore, soil conservation policies are shown to have different levels of efficiency in terms of reduced soil erosion related to the costs of the policy. In the case of this study, a restriction option was more efficient than the incentive options. The results of such simulations can serve as a decision support for the development of soil conservation policies and help to foresee the effects of general changes of agricultural policies.     

The Normative Analysis of Agricultural Policy: A General Framework and Review

The paper provides a general framework of normative agricultural policy analysis within which it is possible to unify forty years of literature. It is shown that the literature has gone from examining a very small set of simple policies to a much broader set of policies that combine policy instruments simultaneously. In ranking alternative policies agricultural economists have tried to consider distributive equity. While at a glance it may seem that many different methods have been used to consider distributive equity, we show that in general all these methods can be traced back to three alternative methods based on welfarism and Pareto efficiency.     

Evaluating renewable energy policies

The merits of renewable energy, of targeted renewable energy policies, and appropriate evaluation methods, are each contested at various levels including national politics and in energy policy literature. Here, first a range of renewable energy goals across countries and the policies directed at achieving those objectives are reviewed. Second, the arguments advanced to support use of renewable energy policies in many nations are critiqued. Third, some principles are proposed for design of renewable energy policies. Context always matters, and it is essential to consider energy, economic, and geography opportunities and constraints before developing renewable energy policies. Fourth, to ensure renewable energy policies contribute towards attainment of high‐level national goals, a decision support approach is outlined that considers the energy context, and asks a series of evaluation questions to aid identification of first best policy measures. Fifth, barriers to and benefits from implementation of appropriate renewable energy policies are briefly reviewed.     

Effort optimisation in artisanal fisheries with multiple management objectives,collective quotas and heterogeneous fleets*

In this study, we analyse effort optimisation in common rights‐based joint‐stock artisanal fisheries when several objectives are pursued by the authorities and the fleets are heterogeneous. The purpose is to discuss policy options available to the authorities and their implications in terms of trade‐offs between goals. We apply a multi‐objective programming model to the sardine and anchovy artisanal fisheries in central southern Chile. The results suggest that the regulatory system generates inefficient solutions for profit and employment maximisation goals. Moreover, the fleet structure of the artisanal organisations is central for the outcomes obtained by different policy simulations. To improve effort assignment, the authorities should seek to increase flexibility in the system.     

To populate or preserve? Evolving political-demographic and environmental paradigms in Israeli land-use policy

There has been a recent proliferation of national land-use policies that emphasize protecting open space and ecosystem integrity. However, countries grappling with internal political conflict, or that are engaged in military conflicts with neighboring countries, have priorities that focus on control of land in areas where state sovereignty is perceived to be threatened. These two concerns, political-demographic control and environmental protection, create very different paradigms for how to think about open space policy. The objective of this paper is to consider the impact of competing paradigms in land-use policy formulation and implementation—one that encourages sprawl and the other that encourages compact development and the preservation of open space. We use Israel as a case study where both political demography and environmental land-use paradigms are currently influencing policy and planning. We explore the historical evolution of both land-use paradigms and consider how they are currently competing in the formulation and execution of land-use policy decisions. We consider how these distinct priorities are playing out in current discourse and policy implementation, and characterize the past, current and prospective future physical outcomes of policies on the landscape. Our goal is to alert policy makers and land-use scholars of the subtle and contradictory influence of political-demographic land-use priorities with regard to their potential impact on the successful implementation of environmental policies. The Israeli case study is indicative of a diversity of countries that have a history of political-demographic land-use policies, but have also begun to adopt environmentally motivated policies.     

Managing the energy trilemma of reliability,affordability and renewables: Assessing consumer demands with discrete choice experiments

In response to the looming climate crisis, many countries are adopting technologies to reduce the accumulation of greenhouse gases. However, national energy policies are often multiobjective and resolution deeply divisive. The result is a policy trilemma between the energy mix and the trade-offs with other policy objectives, including cost and reliability. Utilising a discrete choice experiment (DCE), the objective of this study is to explore Australian household preferences for alternative electricity contracts containing features reflecting changes in future energy policy. The first set of features include investments in renewable generation and community-based energy storage. The second set of features reflect demand-side management policies, including installing smart meters and consumption limits being imposed on households during peak demand. Two versions of the DCE were developed to obtain both willingness to pay and willingness to accept estimates for the same features. In line with the literature, differences in the two sets of estimates were observed, with the willingness to accept estimates being statistically larger for some features. These dollar value measures can be used to support public policy decision-making – the choice of which depending on the context of the policy problem being considered.     

基于政策建模一致性指数模型的宅基地管理 政策量化评价

研究目的：开展中央和地方宅基地管理政策的文本分析和量化评价,为新时期宅基地政策的制定和完善提供参考。研究方法：文本分析法、政策建模一致性指数模型法。研究结果：（1）39项宅基地管理政策制定较为合理,一致性可接受等级及以上的政策数量为28项;（2）中央和地方层面上,宅基地管理存在的共性问题包括发布主体和执行机构类别较少,激励手段不明确,政策保障不完善;（3）区际层面上,宅基地政策的短板因地而异。东北地区对住宅建设的约束不足,中西部地区的信息化管理较弱,西部部分地区宅基地管理监督系统不健全。研究结论：中国宅基地管理政策存在较大完善空间,各地应充分考虑自身特色和宅基地管理现状,在增强可操作性的同时,加快推进宅基地管理立法工作。     

Community resilience,policy corridors and the policy challenge

This article discusses the complex interlinkages between community resilience and the policy challenge, linked especially to the notion of state-led policy corridors and who should be in charge of the ‘global resilience transition’. State policies affect every community within a nation state either directly or indirectly, and pathways of change are channelled into specific ‘corridors’ which can have both malign and benign repercussions for community resilience. While the most effective policies are usually tailored specifically at the needs of particular communities and dependent on appropriate timing of policy implementation, state policies also often lead to a reduction of community resilience. The increasing embeddedness of most communities into the global capitalist system also makes it difficult to raise resilience and trade-offs become inevitable. In many communities (often in the global South) policies may have to focus on preventing further loss of resilience at community level, while in others (often in the developed world) the focus may have to be on the rediscovery of strongly resilient pathways. A new contract between the state and communities may have to be established, as new forms of institutionalisation, regulation and spatialisation become significant in the uneven development of spaces of resilience where the rediscovery of strong resilience has to become an inherently moral process. Building strong community resilience is often an endogenous process linked to local customs that, at times, may operate, change and influence decision-making outside of the state policy realm, although community-level actors cannot always be left alone to guide their own resilience pathways without interference from the state. Some external regulation of resilience transitions may be needed and in most cases the state has to play at least some role in guiding and influencing the transition towards strong community resilience – i.e. resilience is not ‘made’ and does not emerge out of a vacuum, but it is transferred through complex processes of policy and other exchanges between communities and wider society.     

Assessing policy tools for encouraging farm afforestation in Ireland

To encourage Irish farmers to afforest agricultural land, a premium scheme supporting such planting was implemented in 1989 and afforestation targets outlined in 1996. In the period from 1996 to 2009, however, only half of the targeted area was planted although the income of many farmers would have improved on joining the scheme. A multi-method study was undertaken looking at farmers’ decision-making with regard to afforestation under the scheme. In this paper we focus on one particular element of the study, which is about identifying policy tools that best match farmers’ behaviour with regard to afforestation. Based on previous work, which we undertook on farmers’ goals and values with regard to afforestation and which was presented in this journal, a postal survey was designed and distributed in spring 2012 to farmers all over Ireland. The results indicate that the majority of those surveyed do not make their decision to afforest based on profit maximisation goals. Offering only an incentive tool – such as the current premium scheme – will not be sufficient to encourage those farmers to plant trees. Additionally capacity tools such as group plantings of neighbouring fields and symbolic tools such as information and PR- or image-building campaigns should be deployed to further encourage afforestation by farmers.     

The Formation of GM‐free and GM Coasean Clubs: Will They Form and If So How Much Can They Achieve?

The unintended presence of traces of genetically modified (GM) crops in the harvests of non‐GM crops plays a prominent role in the debate over the coexistence of GM and non‐GM crops. One way to address the issue is the formation of GM‐free or GM‐only clubs. We model the decisions of individual farmers to cultivate either GM or non‐GM crops and combine this with a game theoretic model of club formation to investigate the feasibility of such clubs. We consider two liability regimes: GM farmers are liable or they are not. We consider two benchmarks: Nash equilibrium without negotiations and the efficient allocation and compare those with partial co‐operation through a Coasean club. We find that in both regimes a relatively large club can form but they are not always necessary to reach the efficient allocation. In fact, if farmers can freely decide under profit maximisation what to cultivate, they reach 95% of an efficient allocation. This holds independent of the property rights system and provides strong support for coexistence policies based on ex‐post liability such as in the US and Spain.     

A framework proposal for sustainability assessment of sugarcane in Brazil

In many countries, the biofuels sector was encouraged to expand its activities supported by public policies incentives, especially to achieve improvements in energy security and to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. The Brazilian government followed these initiatives and undertook some responsibilities against the international scenario related to climate change. One of the theses commitments concerning actions to reduce the GEE emissions by some 37% by 2020. The Sugarcane Agroecology Zoning provides technical subside to policy makers to direct sugarcane expansion to permitted areas and a sustainable production in Brazil and is considered a guideline to sustainable sugarcane production in Brazil. However, although aiming at a sustainable production, the zoning only considered natural aspects of the country, as soils and climate and an approach that consider all the dimensions of the sustainability is still missing. Hence, this paper aims to propose a framework to evaluate biofuel sustainability to support public policies, especially concerning improvements in Brazilian decision-supporting tools.     

福建生态公益林补偿政策绩效棱柱评价

基于绩效棱柱法与专家评分法,从农户满意度、政府贡献、政策战略、政策流程以及政策执行能力5个方面设计了生态公益林补偿政策效果评价指标,并运用层次分析法和模糊综合评价法对这些指标权重与补偿政策执行效果进行综合评价,评价结果表明:农户满意度、政府贡献、公正的政策、公开的政策等项目水平"一般"甚至"较差",是导致福建省现行的生态公益林补偿政策效果综合评价结果 "一般"的重要原因。据此提出完善生态公益林补偿政策的政策启示。     

The regional economic effects of a reduction in carbon emissions

Concern about climate change has led to policy to reduce CO₂ emissions although it is likely that policy will have differential regional impacts. While regional impacts will be politically important, very little analysis of them has been carried out. This paper contributes to the analysis of this issue by building a small model involving two regions, incorporating the right to emit CO₂ as a factor of production with the level of permitted emissions set by the national government. We argue that there is likely to be pressure on governments to use other policies to offset the possible adverse regional economic consequences of the pollution‐reduction policy; we also consider a range of such policies. Using numerical simulation, we find that a 10 per cent reduction has relatively small but regionally differentiated economic effects. Standard fiscal policies are generally ineffective or counterproductive while labour market policies are more useful in offsetting the adverse effects.     

Opportunities and pitfalls for researchers to contribute to the design of evidence-based agricultural policies: lessons from Uganda

Agricultural policies in sub-Saharan Africa have paid insufficient attention to sustainable intensification. In Uganda, agricultural productivity has stagnated with aggregate increases in crop production being attributed to expansion of cultivated land area. To enhance sustainable crop intensification, the Ugandan Government collaborated with stakeholders to develop agricultural policies using an evidence-based approach. Previously, evidence-based decision-making tended to focus on the evidence base rather than evidence and its interactions within the broader policy context. We identify opportunities and pitfalls to strengthen science engagement in agricultural policy design by analysing the types of evidence required, and how it was shared and used during policy development. Qualitative tools captured stakeholders' perspectives of agricultural policies and their status in the policy cycle. Subsequent multi-level studies identified crop growth constraints and quantified yield gaps which were used to compute the economic analyses of policy options that subsequently contributed to sub-national program planning. The study identified a need to generate relevant evidence within a short time 'window' to influence policy design, power influence by different stakeholders and quality of stakeholder interaction. Opportunities for evidence integration surfaced at random phases of policy development due to researchers’ ’embededness’ within co-management and coordination structures.     

China's agriculture: drivers of change and implications for China and the rest of world

The overall goal of this article is to identify major changes in China's agriculture/food economy and their implications for both China itself and, more importantly, to the rest of world. China has become one of the fastest‐growing economies in the world since late 1970s. GDP grew at about 10% annually in the past 30 years. China's experience shows the importance of both domestic and external policies in achieving sustainable growth. The results from this study provide significant policy implications to many countries that are currently China's major trade partners or those seeking greater economic and trade relations with China. The main conclusions on the implications of China's rapid economic growth are that China's growth will provide more opportunities than challenges to the rest of the world, on average. Overall, the rest of the world will gain from China's economic expansion though this general conclusion may not hold for some countries.     

Social involvement in environmental governance: The relevance of quality assurance processes in forest planning

Socio-environmental policy issues are characterized by inherent scientific uncertainty, ignorance and frequently by social discrepancies. Lack of recognition of the complexity and uncertainty of environmental issues has given rise to problems that have cast doubt on the adequacy of the science for policy model and traditionally employed evidence-based policy, thus leading to a crisis in science. In this context, there is a need for quality assurance procedures to assess policies and measures resulting from decision-making in environmental governance issues.Involving quality assurance in decision-making processes recognizes the different types of uncertainty related to an issue and the limits of problem-solving analysis. This approach requires participatory methodological frameworks in which stakeholders analyze the robustness of the assessment process used as well as the validity of assessment results. The approach considers governance as being a relative term depending on the historical, social, economic, political, environmental and cultural context in which it is developed.A participatory methodology is applied to an assessment of forest track alternatives on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands). In this study, a social sensitivity analysis explores the social validity of this assessment through the concept of quality understood as ‘fitness for use’. Such a methodology facilitates processes of dialogue and consensus needed in decision-making in conflictive situations. As a result this methodology should serve as a reference for other places with similar situations.     

信息传递、家庭养老保险与农户农业规模经营参与决策分析——以农户农地股份合作社入股决策为例

如何激发农户参与农业规模经营的积极性,是实现其与现代化农业有机衔接的关键之一。本文以农地股份合作社为例,基于728户非社员农户样本,着重分析了信息传递、家庭养老保险对非社员农户入股决策的调节作用及其相互作用。研究发现,家庭养老保险参与、政策信息、社员评价信息传递对非社员农户入股决策均表现出显著的正向调节作用。其中,社员评价信息传递边际效应最高,对非社员农户的调节作用随传递信息内容等级的提高而提高。此外,信息传递对非农社员入股决策影响的边际调节效应递减。家庭养老保险对非农户社员入股决策的正向调节作用需要一定的信息传递为基础。因此,本文提出如下建议:可针对特定农业规模经营方式,在发展的不同阶段采取不同的信息传递方式;健全运行机制和监督机制,提高参与农户评价;完善农村社会保险体系,提高农户风险补偿预期。     

Farmers in a deregulated dairy regime: Insights from Ireland's New Entrants Scheme

While the impending review of the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is set to have an impact on all farming sectors across Europe, particularly transformative change is sought by policies relating to dairy farmers. EU milk quota abolition in 2015 will fundamentally revise the terms of dairy production, transitioning from policies of subsidy and protection to a scenario where farmers will produce milk on the open market. Dairy quota abolition essentially represents an economic but also socio-cultural disruption for a sizeable cohort of farmers, requiring adaptation to more market-driven production strategies. Agricultural policy-makers in EU member states are demonstrably preparing for this imminent change and dairy farmers are considering and strategising their responses at farm-level. Our focus in this paper is the interplay between quota abolition and farm-level decision-making in the pre-abolition period. Drawing from a broader mixed-methodological and multi-disciplinary research project, this paper uses qualitative narrative analysis to identify the key determinants arising in dairy farmers’ decision-making processes. How are farmers currently strategising their responses to dairy quota deregulation? Using the qualitative Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM), we examine the range of factors determining how a particular group of dairy farmers are strategising their positions on the impending open dairy market. Our analysis highlights how, in the advent of a deregulated dairy production regime, dairy farmers are carefully deliberating their responses at farm level, drawing from policy and market related information, their own personal speculations, and conventional wisdom shared with other members of the farming community. We find that the dairy farmers are influenced not only by motivations to increase productivity and scale but by a tenacious approach to farm sustainability and resilience that is informed by past experiences of farming and seeks to preserve and promote socio-cultural farming values. The paper is of particular interest to policy makers and academics interested in the interchange between policy and farmer behaviour, particularly in the context of current CAP reform.