The iLUC dilemma: How to deal with indirect land use changes when governing energy crops?

Due to land use effects, bioenergy use may cause adverse effects on biodiversity, soil and water and may even fail to guarantee a GHG emissions reduction compared to fossil fuel use. Accounting methodologies and policy instruments were elaborated to prevent these effects, but there is still no sound and consensual methodology to take into account indirect land use change that substantially contributes to GHG emissions as well as a loss of biodiversity. While the iLUC hypothesis, that is the potentiality of adverse effects arising from indirect land use change related to biomass cultivation, is hardly subject to dispute, the quantification of these effects and especially their policy implications are however contentious. Hence, bioenergy policies worldwide face a dilemma: Neglecting iLUC effects that do in fact exist or taking them into account although no sound methodology is available? The article covers the current state of the discussion and also analyses the approaches developed for taking indirect land use change into account. Assessment criteria for coping with the iLUC dilemma are developed and policy recommendations are derived from that.     

Did the Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act Alter Farm Enterprise Diversification?

We estimate how much United States farms changed enterprise diversification in response to a marked increase in crop insurance coverage brought about by the 1994 Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act, which substantially increased insurance subsidies. The analysis exploits farm‐level panel census data to compare farm‐specific changes in enterprise diversification over time. By examining diversification decisions of the same farms over time, we control for time‐invariant unobserved individual heterogeneity. We then use pooled cross‐sectional data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Resource Management Survey to estimate the relationship between farm diversification and average returns. We find that the insurance subsidies caused a modest increase in enterprise specialisation and production efficiency. Estimated efficiency gains are far less than the subsidies.     

Hypothetical extractions from a global perspective

ABSTRACT

The hypothetical extraction method (HEM) has been widely used to measure interindustry linkages and the importance of industries. HEM considers the hypothetical situation in which a certain industry is no longer operational. HEM was developed for national economies, using national input–output tables. When performing HEM, it is assumed (often implicitly) that the input requirements that were originally provided by the extracted industry are met by additional imports in the post-extraction situation. Applying HEM to global multiregional input–output tables then causes serious problems. It is no longer sufficient to assume that the required inputs are imported. Instead, it is necessary to indicate explicitly how much is imported from each origin to replace the original inputs. Our adaptation of HEM is the global extraction method (GEM). As an illustration, GEM is applied to the extraction of the motor vehicle industry in China, the US, and Germany, using the 2014 WIOD input–output table.     

Food additive regulation in the UK

This paper reviews the use, regulation and testing of food additives in the UK. Comparisons are drawn with other industrialized countries. In particular, the reasons (both explicit and implicit) for the use of additives are examined and the institutional mechanisms for their control are described. Since regulatory policy is dependent on toxological expertise, the contribution and adequacy of toxological science is considered. Present regulations are viewed to have been too heavily influenced by the food industry at the expense of the protection of the consumer, and several possible avenues for reform of both toxological science and regulatory policy are explored.