The promotion of maize fertiliser packages: A cause of household food insecurity and peasant impoverishment in high rainfall areas of Zimbabwe

Child malnutrition is a continuing problem in Zimbabwe's communal areas. These include some high rainfall areas, which make a contribution to the country's maize surplus during non‐drought years. A survey of farmers and extension workers in four high rainfall communal areas was carried out to investigate the effects of following recommended practices for maize production on household economy and food security.

Thirty‐two per cent of communal farmers had applied all the officially recommended fertiliser to their 1990/91 maize crop, often by obtaining these inputs on credit in lieu of grain sales receipts from the subsequent harvest. Yet. yields were so low that 48 per cent of these farmers would have been unable to retain sufficient grain to satisfy their families’ minimum requirements, if they had reimbursed the full cost of the input credit.

The majority (64 per cent) of farmers had deviatedfrom the recommended practice by adopting ‘low external input strategies’. A key feature of most of these strategies was the substitution of manure for part or all of the recommended fertiliser. In three of the four communal areas studied, this had improved the chances not only of recovering input costs, but also of achieving maize self‐sufficiency.

These results suggest that policy‐makers should shift emphasis from a dependence on costly external inputs to the integration of low levels of fertiliser with a range of more natural methods of soil improvement, in an effort to improve household food security in the communal areas.     

企业财务危机运营战略

企业一旦出现财务危机，便站在了崩溃边缘，随时都有“生命危险”。化解财务危机，必须面对现实，分析原因，制定切实可行的财务重整计划；确定短期行动方案，降低现金需求、扩大现金来源；寻求过渡时期的资产支援；检讨企业策略与目标，吸取教训，拟定长期整顿方案及实施时间表。     

三峡后靠移民发展取得的成就、存在的问题与对策

阐述三峡后靠移民区域经济社会发展取得的主要成就,对三峡移民目前存在人多地少的矛盾更趋突出、产业发展滞后难以消化吸收移民就业、库岸地质灾害频发、灾民安置难度很大、农田水利基础设施落后、抗御自然灾害能力弱、后期发展缺乏资金注入等问题,提出进一步加大对三峡库区的政策扶持力度,尽可能地实现二次外迁,积极发展第二、第三产业,积极推进库区农业产业化经营和继续做好对口支援等对策,进一步解决好后靠移民“稳得住、逐步能致富”的问题。     

Deposits and relationship lending

We empirically examine whether access to deposits with inelasticrates (core deposits) permits a bank to make contractual agreementswith borrowers that are infeasible if the bank must pay marketrates for funds. Such access insulates a bank's costs of fundsfrom exogenous shocks, allowing it to insulate its borrowersagainst exogenous credit shocks. We find that, controlling forloan market competition, banks funded more heavily with coredeposits provide more loan rate smoothing in response to exogenouschanges in aggregate credit risk. Thus we provide evidence fora novel channel linking bank liabilities to relationship lending.     

三峡库区农业产业结构坝状及调整对策

在对库区农业产业结构现状进行深入考察的基础上。针对当前库区农业产业结构调整存在的一些问题。提出了制定优惠政策，产学研结合建设农业示范基地，实施精品名牌战略等对策。