| Records |
| Author |
Christen, B.; Kjeldsen, C.; Dalgaard, T.; Martin-Ortega, J. |
| Title |
Can fuzzy cognitive mapping help in agricultural policy design and communication? |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2015 |
Publication |
Land Use Policy |
Abbreviated Journal |
Land Use Policy |
| Volume |
45 |
Issue |
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Pages |
64-75 |
| Keywords |
Agricultural policy; Agro-environmental measures; Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM); General Binding Rules; Stakeholder communication; Scottish agriculture |
Abstract  |
Highlights •Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM)can help to improve agricultural policy design. •We analyse the views on regulation between farmers and non-farmers. •We demonstrate the utility of FCM in disentangling reasons for non-compliance. •Non-compliance is a result of dis-alignment of views rather than unwillingness. •FCM offers a critical, reflexive approach to how a regulatory process is conceived. Agricultural environmental regulation often fails to deliver the desired effects because of farmers adopting the related measures incorrectly or not at all. This is due to several barriers to the uptake of the prescribed environmentally beneficial farm management practices, most of which have been well established by social science research. Yet it is unclear why these barriers remain so difficult to overcome despite numerous and persistent attempts at the design, communication and enforcement of related agricultural policies. This paper examines the potential of fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) as a tool to disentangle the underlying reasons of this persistent problem. We present the FCM methodology as adapted to the application in a Scottish case study on how environmental regulation affects farmers and farming practice and what factors are important for compliance or non-compliance with this regulation. The study compares the views of two different stakeholder groups on this matter using FCM network visualizations that were validated by interviews and a workshop session. There was a farmers group representing a typical mix of Scottish farming systems and a non-farmers group, the latter comprising professionals from the fields of design, implementation, administration, consulting on and enforcement of agricultural policies. Between the two groups, the FCM process reveals a very different perception of importance and interaction of factors and strongly suggests that the problem lies in an institutional failure rather than in a simple unwillingness of farmers to obey the rules. FCM allows for a structured process of identifying areas of conflicting perceptions, but also areas where strongly differing groups of stakeholders might be able to gain common ground. In this way, FCM can help to identify anchoring points for targeted policy development and has the potential of becoming a useful tool in agricultural policy design and communication. Our results show the utility of FCM by pointing out how Scottish environmental regulation could be altered to increase compliance with the rules and where the reasons for the identified institutional failure might be sought. |
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LiveM, ftnotmacsur |
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MA @ admin @ |
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4620 |
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Lotze-Campen, H.; von Witzke, H.; Noleppa, S.; Schwarz, G. |
| Title |
Science for food, climate protection and welfare: An economic analysis of plant breeding research in Germany |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2015 |
Publication |
Agricultural Systems |
Abbreviated Journal |
Agric. Syst. |
| Volume |
136 |
Issue |
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Pages |
79-84 |
| Keywords |
Plant breeding; CO2 emissions; Cost–benefit analysis; Social rate of return; Agricultural research policy |
| Abstract |
Highlights • We analyze the economic effects of plant breeding research in Germany. • Effects of reduced CO2 emissions due to productivity increases are being quantified. • Expansion of global agricultural area has been reduced by 1–1.5 million ha. • CO2 emissions have been reduced by 160–235 million tons. • German plant breeding research has an economic value of 10.8–15.6 billion EUR. Abstract We analyze the economic effects of plant breeding research in Germany. In addition to market effects, for the first time also effects of reduced CO2 emissions due to productivity increases are being quantified. The analysis shows that investments in German plant breeding research in the period 1991–2010 have reduced the global expansion of agricultural area by 1–1.5 million hectares. This has led to reduced CO2 emissions of 160–235 million tons. The economic value generated by plant breeding research, through increased production and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, is estimated at 10.8–15.6 billion EUR in the same period. This can be translated into a social rate of return on research investment in the range of 40–80% per year. Projections for the period 2011–2030 generate a return rate in the range of 65–140% per year. Investments into plant breeding research in Germany are highly profitable from a societal point of view. At the same time, our results show significant under-investments in agricultural research in Germany. These results provide a good justification for policy-makers to reverse funding cuts for public agricultural research over the last decades and to improve institutional conditions for private research, e.g. through better protection of intellectual property rights. |
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0308521x |
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TradeM, ftnotmacsur |
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MA @ admin @ |
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4999 |
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Mittenzwei, K.; Persson, T.; Höglind, M.; Kværnø, S. |
| Title |
Combined effects of climate change and policy uncertainty on the agricultural sector in Norway |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2017 |
Publication |
Agricultural Systems |
Abbreviated Journal |
Agric. Syst. |
| Volume |
153 |
Issue |
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118-126 |
| Keywords |
Climate change; Norway; Agriculture; Policy uncertainty; Modelling; LINGRA; CSM-CERES-Wheat; DSSAT |
| Abstract |
Highlights • A framework to study climate and policy uncertainty in agriculture is presented. • Combining both sources of uncertainty has ambiguous effects on agriculture. • Uncertainty needs to be highlighted in modelling tools for policy analysis. Abstract Farmers are exposed to climate change and uncertainty about how that change will develop. As farm incomes, in Norway and elsewhere, greatly depend on government subsidies, the risk of a policy change constitutes an additional uncertainty source. Hence, climate and policy uncertainty could substantially impact agricultural production and farm income. However, these sources of uncertainty have, so far, rarely been combined in food production analyses. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of a combination of policy and climate uncertainty on agricultural production, land use, and social welfare in Norway. Output yield distributions of spring wheat and timothy, a major forage grass, from simulations with the weather-driven crop models, CSM-CERES-Wheat and, LINGRA, were processed in the a stochastic version Jordmod, a price-endogenous spatial economic sector model of the Norwegian agriculture. To account for potential effects of climate uncertainty within a given future greenhouse gas emission scenario on farm profitability, effects on conditions that represented the projected climate for 2050 under the emission scenario A1B from the 4th assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and four Global Climate Models (GCM) was investigated. The uncertainty about the level of payment rates at the time farmers make their management decisions was handled by varying the distribution of payment rates applied in the Jordmod model. These changes were based on the change in the overall level of agricultural support in the past. Three uncertainty scenarios were developed and tested: one with climate change uncertainty, another with payment rate uncertainty, and a third where both types of uncertainty were combined. The three scenarios were compared with results from a deterministic scenario where crop yields and payment rates were constant. Climate change resulted in on average 9% lower cereal production, unchanged grass production and more volatile crop yield as well as 4% higher farm incomes on average compared to the deterministic scenario. The scenario with a combination of climate change and policy uncertainty increased the mean farm income more than a scenario with only one source of uncertainty. On the other hand, land use and farm labour were negatively affected under these conditions compared to the deterministic case. Highlighting the potential influence of climate change and policy uncertainty on the performance of the farm sector our results underline the potential error in neglecting either of these two uncertainties in studies of agricultural production, land use and welfare. |
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CropM, TradeM |
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MA @ admin @ |
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4986 |
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Zhen, L.; Deng, X.; Wei, Y.; Jiang, Q.; Lin, Y.; Helming, K.; Wang, C.; König, H.J.; Hu, J. |
| Title |
Future land use and food security scenarios for the Guyuan district of remote western China |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2014 |
Publication |
iForest |
Abbreviated Journal |
iForest |
| Volume |
7 |
Issue |
6 |
Pages |
372-384 |
| Keywords |
land-use patterns; scenario analysis; dynamics of land systems modeling; food security; guyuan district; north-central china; cultivated land; dynamics; conversion; policy |
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Government policy is a major human factor that causes changes in land use. Decisions on land management and land-use planning, as well as the analysis and quantification of policy consequences, may greatly benefit from the simulation of the dynamics of land-use systems. In the present study, we predicted land-use changes and their potential impacts on food security in the environmentally fragile Guyuan District, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (north-central China), under the influence of a program to convert sloping agricultural land to conservation uses. Baseline and conservation policy scenarios (2005 to 2020) were developed based on input from local stakeholders and expert knowledge. For the baseline and conservation policies, we formulated high-, moderate-, and low-growth scenarios, analyzed the driving mechanisms responsible for the land-use dynamics, and then applied a previously developed “dynamics of land systems” model to simulate changes in land uses based on the driving mechanisms. We found that spatially explicit policies can promote the conversion of land to more sustainable uses; however, decreasing the amount of agricultural and urban land and increasing grassland and forest cover will increase the risk of grain shortages, and the effect will be more severe under the conservation and high- growth scenarios than under the baseline and low-growth scenarios. The Guyuan case study suggests that, during the next decade, important trade-offs between environmental conservation and food security will inevitably occur. Future land-use decisions should carefully consider the balance between land resource conservation, agricultural production, and urban expansion. |
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1971-7458 |
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CropM |
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MA @ admin @ |
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4547 |
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Kipling, R.; Scollan, N.; Bannink, A.; van Middelkoop, J. |
| Title |
From diversity to strategy: Livestock research for effective policy in a climate change world |
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Report |
| Year |
2016 |
Publication |
FACCE MACSUR Reports |
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8 |
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H0.3-D1 |
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policy brief, networking |
| Abstract |
European livestock agriculture is extraordinarily diverse, and so are the challenges it faces. This diversity has contributed to the development of a fragmented set of research communities. As a result, livestock research is often under-represented at policy level, despite its high relevance for the environment and food security. Understanding livestock systems and how they can sustainably adapt to global change requires inputs across research areas, including grasslands, nutrition, health, welfare and ecology. It also requires experimental researchers, modellers and stakeholders to work closely together. Networks and capacity building structures are vital to enable livestock research to meet the challenges of climate change. They need to maintain shared resources and provide non-competitive arenas to share and synthesize results for policy support. ï‚· Long term strategic investment is needed to support such structures. Their leadership requires very different skills to those effective in scientific project coordination. |
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MA @ admin @ |
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