1,721,078 research outputs found
SMALL FARMS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: IS THERE A FUTURE FOR THEM?
Get PDFAgribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Land Economics/Use,
Need, Greed or Customary Rights - Which Factors Explain the Encroachment of Protected Areas? Empirical Evidence from a Protected Area in Sulawesi, Indonesia
Get PDFThe encroachment of protected areas for agricultural and livestock production is an important challenge for nature conservation in developing countries. The driving forces of encroachment are debated - major arguments focus on (1) the need of local people to cultivate land inside protected areas due to poverty, (2) commercial interests of cultivating inside protected areas, which indicates free-riding ("greed"), and (3) resistance against protected areas caused by disregard of customary rights. Understanding the role of these factors is important for designing appropriate conservation and development strategies. The paper contributes to this understanding by analyzing the encroachment of a National Park in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The analysis is guided by a theoretical framework which acknowledges that most individuals are neither purely altruistic nor entirely self-interested. The empirical analysis combines data from a village-level survey in 80 villages with information from a sate llite image and other spatial data. The following factors had a significant influence on the extent of encroachment: (1) population density in the area, which is related to needs, (2) the availability of suitable land inside the Park, which indicates "temptation", and (3) the extent of land that was already cultivated before the Park was established, which points to customary rights. Community agreements on conservation are discussed as a policy approach that can address all three factors.land use change, nature conservation, household decision-making, regulation, Indonesia, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, O13, Q12, Q57,
WIMP dark matter through the dilaton portal
Get PDFWe study a model in which dark matter couples to the Standard Model through a dilaton of a sector with spontaneously broken approximate scale invariance. Scale invariance fixes the dilaton couplings to the Standard Model and dark matter fields, leaving three main free parameters: the symmetry breaking scale f, the dilaton mass m(sigma), and the dark matter mass m(chi). We analyze the experimental constraints on the parameter space from collider, direct and indirect detection experiments including the effect of Sommerfeld enhancement, and show that dilaton exchange provides a consistent, calculable framework for cold dark matter with f, ma, mx of roughly similar magnitude and in the range 1-10 TeV. Direct and indirect detection experiments, notably future ground-based gamma ray and space-based cosmic ray measurements, can probe the model all the way to dark matter mass in the multi-TeV regime.
CHINESE REGIONAL AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY IN THE 1990'S
Get PDFA nonparametric Malmquist index and a stochastic frontier translog production function are employed to measure the regional agricultural productivity growth in China during the 1990's. Both models show high average productivity growth in 1994 & 1995 and average productivity decrease during 1996 to 1999, although the regional rates are different from two models.Productivity Analysis,
PRODUCTION DISTORTIONS IN THE SLOVAKIAN GRAIN SECTOR RESULTING FROM AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES
Get PDFA Policy Analysis Method, based on social benefit-cost analysis, is applied to five production areas of the Slovak Republic to analyze production distortions resulting from direct systematic subsidies in Slovakia. Three grains are analyzed: wheat, barley, and corn. Results indicate that currently applied policies have significant distortion effects, but those effects are not homogeneous across commodities and production areas.Agricultural and Food Policy, Productivity Analysis,
A Comparative Analysis of the Meat Sector in Hungary and Emilia-Romagna: Performance and Effiency
No full textIn this paper we will evaluate and compare the growth process in the agro-food meat sector in Hungary and in the Emilia-Romagna region. In the first partof the work we will compare the different economic performances using the most important economic and financial index. In the second part, we will analyze the technical efficiency of firms involved in the meat industry on in Hungary and in Emilia-Romagna, utilising the stochastic production function. In the third and final part we will discuss the main role of the Industrial Districts in Emilia-Romagna and how the Hungarian entrepreneurial system differ facing the competition in the enlarged EU and in the global market
Transformation of agriculture in central Eastern Europe and the former USSR : major policy issues and perspectives
Get PDFThe author surveys agricultural reform to date, identifies key policy issues, and outlines potential scenarios for the transformation of agriculture in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), Hungary, Poland, Romania, and to a lesser extent - the former USSR. After years of socialism, these countries'agricultural sectors are characterized by large, inefficient farms with high production costs; heavier food consumption than in market economies of comparable prosperity, and excess demand for food, at subsidized food prices. Central Eastern Europe is beginning to create a new agricultural structure based on private ownership, real cooperatives, and a market economy. The former USSR is also striving to overcome serious economic difficulty with comprehensive economic and political reform. To develop a market-oriented, competitive agricultural structure, these countries need to : a) create marketable landed property; b) change agriculture's structure to emphasize medium size private agricultural ventures and cooperatives; c) create an environment supportive of private ventures; d) create an agricultural market that encourages fair competition; e) develop a policy emphasizing efficient production; and f) support environmentally sustainable agricultural production technologies.Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Agribusiness&Markets
Farm restructuring and agricultural recovery in Kazakhstan's grain region: An update
Get PDFAgainst the rising global concern of how to achieve sustainable output expansion in food, we document the main outcomes of post-Soviet agricultural recovery and restructuring in the Kazakhstan grain region. Together with an expansion of cropland area and increasing capital input, real agricultural value added has almost doubled within the recent decade. Privatisation legislation has allowed private ownership of land. However, access to state land and capital continues to be strongly regulated, and private lenders even turn away from agriculture. There are now three dominant groups of agricultural producers in the region: large agricultural enterprises and smaller individual farms mostly engaged in grain, and tiny household economies focusing on vegetable and live-stock. While agricultural enterprises have been growing more persistently than individual farms in recent years, average land productivity of both farm types is practically identical and wheat yields are even higher in individual farms. Both vertically and horizontally integrated agroholdings have emerged among the agricultural enterprises and have brought outside investment and management to the region. With stable employment in agriculture, nominal consumption spending of rural households has tripled over the last decade and has risen much faster than the costs of living. While North Kazakhstan looks much like a success story, constrained factor markets are likely to dampen further growth. The Kazakh government should improve the legal conditions for a functioning land rental market, avoid driving commercial lenders out of the market, and make sure that future access to qualified labour in agriculture is warranted. --agricultural productivity,agricultural transition,farm organisation,Kazakhstan
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