farm policy Articles
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Moving on – European organic farming movements between political action and self-reflection
Organic farming movements in Europe are widely recognised as a positive force by market actors and civil society, as well as relevant actors in policy networks. At the same time, the organic movement is in a process of self-reflection, reconsidering its value basis. Taking account of both a policy network and a social movement perspective, this article seeks to understand political action of the ...
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Policy instruments in support of organic farming in Austria
This paper explores the connection between agricultural policy measures and the development of organic farming in Austria from 1991 onwards. First, past policy measures are reviewed. Then, various new policy strategies for the further development of the organic sector in Austria are elaborated and their potential impact discussed. The analysis suggests that the current direct policy measures ...
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Weekly Roundup of other biobased news
Reuters, “Genscape Says It Will Fight EPA Move to Boot It from Biofuels Program” University of Bath, “Scientists Make Plastic from Christmas Trees” Washington Examiner, “Energy, Farm Policy Collide in the New Congress” Growth Energy, “Poll: Trump Voters Overwhelmingly Support Ethanol” PETROSS, “Dual-Purpose Biofuel Crops Could Extend ...
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How farm policy used to work
In the period between the 1930s and 1992, farm bills generally instituted compensation policies that took the form of price supports. These policies were designed to manage the surplus production that resulted from centuries of developmental policies while allowing U.S. farmers the chance, with hard work and good management skills, to provide their family with a livelihood. Compensation policies ...
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Innovative farm policies and their impact in a French frontier zone: reviving old conflicts in Guadeloupe (FWI)?
Society now expects agriculture to fulfil new functions to improve quality of life. This requirement has been reinforced by recent crises. The 1999 French Agricultural Framework Law (LOA) formalised agricultural multifunctionality and included payments to farmers for new practices, which satisfy both social and environmental functions, in addition to economic ones. A voluntary territorial farm ...
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Organic agriculture as a new player in sustainable regional development? Case studies of rural areas in Eastern Germany
The paper analyses the possible effects of organic agriculture on sustainable regional development in peripheral Eastern German regions, drawing on results from two recent research projects taking two different but complementary perspectives on the organic sector. One project, 'Regional wealth reconsidered', analysed a broad variety of economic, ecological, social and cultural activities in the ...
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So what is the role of commodity programs? Can they even be justified?
No matter what our area of daily activity, it is natural and even necessary that we myopically focus on the problems and issues of the day. But it is also important to step back once in a while to consider how the situations of today fit into a longer-term context. Along that line, we are in the midst of a series of columns that goes beyond the agricultural issues and policy motivations of ...
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Conflicting farmers' objectives and environmental policies: the case of a Mediterranean farm
In dry land areas of the Mediterranean region, farmers' decisions are particularly difficult due to irregular rainfall. Yield risk, soil erosion and desertification are important problems. Decision-making behaviour of farmers is supposed to incorporate a particular concern in the adoption of strategies to decrease income variability, to conserve soil and to guarantee a comfortable level of ...
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Tillsonburg: From tobacco farming to building wind turbine blades
The story of Tillsonburg is probably close to the ideal example of what the Ontario government was looking for when it enacted the Green Energy Act in 2009. A small town of 16,000 people in southwestern Ontario, Tillsonburg’s history is famously celebrated in Stomping Tom Connor’s distinctive drawl when he sung about making seven dollars a day in the tobacco fields. Eventually ...
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Using coir as a growing susbstrate - sustainably and ethically
Manufactured from the inner husk of coconuts, coir is, but its very nature, produced in distant, and often developing, countries. This means that there is also an ethical slant to consider, as well as the question of shipping costs and carbon use. As retailers apply more pressure on their suppliers to focus on sustainability and ethics, these points are becoming increasingly important. Growers ...
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Rethinking food production for a world of eight billion
The World Food Programme and the Chinese government jointlyannounced that food aid shipments to China would stop at the end of theyear. For a country where a generation ago hundreds of millions of peoplewere chronically hungry, this was a landmark achievement. Not only hasChina ended its dependence on food aid, but almost overnight it has becomethe world’s third largest food aid donor. The key ...
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Agroecology Taps a Wellspring of Farming Knowledge
Agroecology shares family farmers' evolving knowledge — and should go mainstream, says Fernando R. Funes-Monzote. Over recent decades, formal research and extension, led by governments and big enterprises, have led to novel answers for emerging problems in agriculture. However, these have generally failed small-scale farmers — one fifth of the world's population. Every day, ...
By SciDev.Net
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Building a static farm level spatial microsimulation model for rural development and agricultural policy analysis in Ireland
Using statistical matching techniques, economists can now create attribute rich datasets by matching across the common variables in two or more datasets. The farm level spatial microsimulation model developed in this paper uses one of many combinational optimisation techniques – simulated annealing – to match the Irish Census of Agriculture to the 2005 Irish National Farm Survey (NFS). Using the ...
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Direct payment policies for the regeneration of less-favoured areas: a comparative study of the EU and Japan
This paper evaluates the constitution, significance and limitations of direct payment policy to farmers in hilly mountainous areas (i.e., Japan's less-favoured areas), where small-sized terraced paddy field farming is predominant. A significant period of depopulation and the successive aging of the rural society have resulted in the decline of farming output and the abandonment of farmland. As a ...
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Distorted agricultural prices cause hunger and resources dilapidation
The main objective of this paper is to present facts and arguments trying to prove that price distortion has been the main reason for the dilapidation of human and physical resources all over the world. In some countries, farmers sell their products at prices below their real cost. In these countries, most often, family labour and equipment depreciation are not accounted as real costs. The ...
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Costs of land use for conservation in Central Europe and future agricultural policy
In Germany and other countries of Central Europe, biodiversity in the rural countryside is best conserved by applying traditional land-use methods, such as low input sheep and cattle grazing. These are very uneconomical according to conventional accounting and can only be carried out at present by benefitting heavily from the subsidy schemes of the CAP. Trade liberalisation demands the abolition ...
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Factors influencing the conversion to organic farming in Norway
Determinants of the decision to convert to organic farming methods are examined by applying bivariate analyses and a multinomial logit model to a survey of 1018 Norwegian crop and dairy farmers. The results show that 4% of the conventional respondents plan to convert by 2009, which may imply that the national goal of 10% organically managed area will not be achieved. The analysis indicates that ...
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Lessons learned from bovine spongiform encephalopathy for the future management of the Canadian cattle industry
Globally, Canada is only a minor beef producing country, and yet ranks fourth among countries exporting beef products. That fact alone shows considerable market vulnerability. When coupled with dependence on corporate-owned slaughter capacity and heavy reliance on only one export market (the USA), that vulnerability is magnified. Economic losses from BSE in Canada following the occurrence of the ...
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Using land-time-budgets to analyse farming systems and poverty alleviation policies in the Lao PDR
This paper applies the method of 'Land-time-budget analysis' to a rural subsistence community and to the national economy of the Lao PDR. The analysis is conducted to meet two ends: to identify the community's/the nation's resource use profile in terms of land and time use - the analysis identifies biophysical constraints of socio-economic development and trade-offs in resource use patterns; to ...
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Factors that influence farm women to advocate the adoption of environmentally benign agricultural production practices
Few researchers have examined the roles and responsibilities of women in the farm enterprise or women's influence in the adoption of environmentally responsible farming practices; thus, women's role in the adoption of conservation practices has remained relatively unclear. A better understanding of women's role around the farm and in the adoption process could assist policy makers and ...
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