Agricultural pricing and environmental degradation

The link between agricultural pricing and land degradation is often difficult to analyze empirically. The authors'understanding of how agricultural supply responds to changing prices in developing countries is incomplete. Even more incomplete is the author's analysis of subsequent impacts on the resource base sustaining agricultural production. Yet available evidence suggests that some important effects do exist, and much further analysis of them is warranted. The social, economic, and environmental relationships that determine the often countervailing effects of price changes on land use and management are extremely complex. Not enough is known about: (1) farming systems in developing countries; (2) open-access use and common property resource rights; (3) land tenure regimes and security; (4) access to technology and other farming systems information; (5) the distribution of wealth and income; and (6) coping strategies for variable climatic, economic, and social conditions. All these factors influence how rural households respond to price changes in terms of managing land and natural resources, and often they may override the incentive effects of price changes. Changes in pricing policies will then be less effective in correcting resource degradation than other approaches to dealing with its underlying causes. Such approaches include providing better research and extension advice, improving property rights and management, and establishing more secure tenure or access rights. At the same time, it is wrong to assume that poor farmers - even those in resource-poor regions far from major markets - are totally isolated from agricultural markets. Virtually all subsistence households require some regular market income for cash purchases of agricultural inputs and basic necessities; many small farmers provide important cash and export crops. So changes in market prices often significantly affect the livelihoods of rural groups. Clearly, the economic incentives emerging from these impacts will affect farmers'decisions to invest in land management and improvements. Just because we do not always understand the economic and social factors determining these incentive effects does not mean they do not exist. Nor should the complexity of the links between price changes and resource management - which sometimes appear counterintuitive - deter further analysis of the role of agricultural pricing in land degradation.Environmental Economics&Policies,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Economic Theory&Research,Agricultural Research

The chemistry of new functional groups in enzymes

Issued as Annual progress report, Project no. G-33-N03 (continuation of G-33-N02; continued by G-33-N04

The chemistry of N-sulfonylamines

Issued as Summary progress reports [1-2], and Final progress report, Project no. G-33-67

Famine and its effects on health in South Sudan A Commentary

No Abstrac

War and deforestation in Sierra Leone

The impact of armed conflict on the environment is of major public policy importance. We use a geographically disaggregated dataset of civil war violence together with satellite imagery of land cover to test whether war facilitated or prevented forest loss in Sierra Leone. The conflict data set allows us to establish where rebel groups were stationed and where battles and attacks occurred. The satellite data enables to us to monitor the change in forest cover (total, primary, and secondary) in all of Sierra Leone's 151 chiefdoms, between 1990 (prior to the war) and 2000 (just prior to its end). The results suggest that conflict in Sierra Leone acted as a brake on local deforestation: conflict-ridden areas experienced significantly less forest loss relative to their more conflict-free counterparts

An Analysis of Distributed Leadership Implementation In Schools

Many policymakers have sought greater levels of success in schools by implementing more distributive models of leadership, yet many have not achieved desired outcomes. This grounded theory study uncovers what happens within a school organization as it moves from a traditional leadership model to a district mandated distributive leadership model.https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/archivedposters/1002/thumbnail.jp

Gandhi's Diet and 'The Other' Side of Orientalism

This paper examines the ways in which Gandhi's diet--his practice of eating meat as a young man in India, his associations with the London Vegetarian Society, his experiments in South Africa, and, ultimately, his important role in the resistance movement against the British Colonial project in India--functioned as an agentive means of constructing the subject via specific technologies of the self. It is my contention that the roots of Gandhi's social activism can be found in his dietetic practices, which were an essential component of his social philosophy as instigated, initially, as a young man in India, then developed in England, further refined in South Africa, and most famously applied in India. Throughout his life Gandhi's dietary discourse went through many discursive shifts; what remains consistent, however, throughout this dietetic history is the presence of Orientalist discursive constructions, as well as the element of resistance to modern civilization

Inter-rater reliability of the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX): comparative data from non-clinician respondents – all raters are not equal

Primary objective: The Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX) is used to obtain information about executive and emotional problems after neuropathology. The DEX is self-completed by the patient (DEX-S) and an independent rater such as a family member (DEX-I). This study examined the level of inter-rater agreement between either two or three non-clinician raters on the DEX-I in order to establish the reliability of DEX-I ratings. Methods and procedures: Family members and/or carers of 60 people with mixed neuropathology completed the DEX-I. For each patient, DEX-I ratings were obtained from either two or three raters who knew the person well prior to brain injury. Main outcomes and results: We obtained two independent-ratings for 60 patients and three independent-ratings for 36 patients. Intra-class correlations revealed that there was only a modest level of agreement for items, subscale and total DEX scores between raters for their particular family member. Several individual DEX items had low reliability and ratings for the emotion sub-scale had the lowest level of agreement. Conclusions: Independent DEX ratings completed by two or more non-clinician raters show only moderate correlation. Suggestions are made for improving the reliability of DEX-I ratings.</p