The economics of public private partnership in plant breeding

The report provides proceedings of the "Workshop on public-private partnerships in plant breeding" which was organised by JRC-IPTS in September 2013. It contains a summary and evaluation of the presentations and discussions from the workshop. Additionally short papers submitted by the presenters are annexed. PPPs are regarded as a possible approach to address market failure in the field of technology innovation when the public and the private sector (alone) are not able to carry out the required R&D activities. PPPs in plant breeding are established at national, regional or transnational level (currently only in the EU15). The examples of PPPs and other forms of public-private cooperation presented in the workshop show that these approaches may allow broader access to modern plant breeding techniques and germplasm and help to address (to some extent) the challenges of climate change and other breeding needs of the bioeconomy 2020. However, projects under PPPs are mainly focused on basic and pre-breeding. The duration of of approximately three years is too short for the development of new varieties (applied plant breeding). PPPs are not used for the development of new varieties of minor crops. The public sector generally does not carry out an analysis of the social efficiency before the decision to provide funds for PPPs in plant breeding is taken.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

Time Preferences, Land Tenure Security and the Adoption of Sustainable Land Management Practices in Southeast Nigeria

Sustainable land management (SLM) practices are important for tackling agricultural land degradation. This study investigates the association between farmers’ time preferences and their adoption of SLM practices (agroforestry, terracing, and land fallow practices) with intertemporal benefits, and further documents the moderating role of land tenure security in this relationship. The analysis in the paper is based on data from a survey of 480 farmers in south-east Nigeria, complemented by semi-structured interviews. Farmers’ time preferences were elicited using both a survey and experiments with hypothetical payouts. Land tenure was conceptualised as a composite concept to suit the legally pluralistic context of the study area. This study found that many of the sampled farmers have high discount rates. The result further shows that farmers’ time preferences are negatively associated with their adoption of agroforestry and land fallow practices. Moreover, the result shows that both legal and de facto tenure security encourage the adoption of SLM practices. Other factors influencing the adoption of SLM practices include gender, household size, education, credit constraints, marital status, risk attitude, farming experience, and farm characteristics (e.g., erosion problems and steepness of slope). Furthermore, this study found that the security-enhancing effect of land tenure security (de facto) can alleviate the negative influence of time preferences on farmers’ adoption of SLM practices. The findings suggest that farmers with higher discount rates, who have secure tenure rights to land, are more likely to adopt SLM practices, compared to similar farmers without tenure security

Analysis of the enabling environment for delivering land degradation neutrality in Nigeria: perspectives from the sub-national to local level

The discourse around the planning, monitoring, and assessment of land degradation neutrality (LDN) has been communicated strongly on global and national scales; however, there is relatively little information on the enabling environment that will support the achievement of LDN targets locally. Recognising the dearth of studies that apply the LDN concept at the local scale, this study investigated local stakeholders’ perspectives on the progress towards, and challenges around, establishing the enabling environment for achieving LDN. It developed and used an extended LDN enabler framework that incorporates the gender component of LDN. The data for this study were collected from stakeholders from sub-national and local institutions concerned with LDN in Nigeria. The study findings indicate the presence of several relevant institutions and policy instruments to support progress towards LDN. However, this did not create an enabling environment for land users due to the lack of sufficient funding, weak systemic capacities of the relevant institutions, and the operational challenges for delivering policy incentives. Moreover, shortcomings in the regulatory framework give rise to land tenure insecurity and gender-biased land administration systems. Also, the findings indicate that entrenched traditional norms are a major challenge in achieving gender-balanced LDN outcomes. The extended LDN-enabler framework developed in this study will extend the scope of future studies examining progress toward LDN at regional and local scales

Using renewable energy to meet the energy needs of smallholder farmers: Are there policies to promote adoption in Ghana?

Integrating renewable energy (RE) technologies into agriculture can contribute to attaining sustainable production. Farmers’ adoption of RE in agriculture can lead to substantial reductions in Greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions as well as providing alternative income sources for farmers, and reliable energy supplies for farms and households. Policies can facilitate, support, or encourage farmers’ adoption of RE. However, it is not clear what policies currently exist which facilitate or promote the adoption of RE technologies in Ghanaian agriculture. This paper aims to identify policies in Ghana that can facilitate the adoption of RE in agricultural production. A policy review was conducted to identify such policies, evaluate their potential impact on RE adoption, and suggest paths to enhance RE adoption by farmers. These policies are focused on two aspects: 1) promoting solar energy and 2) the conversion of agricultural waste to energy. Noting limitations including the underdevelopment of the RE sector and the lack of a central policy to promote RE utilization in Ghanaian agriculture, the review suggests that policymakers need to fully implement provisions of the Renewable Energy Act-(832) (2011) through the application of, for example, policy levers such as subsidies, tax exemptions, financing, and training potential end-users in the agricultural community

Towards stability of food production and farm income in a variable climate

Stable food production is vital for food security. Stability of farm income is also necessary to ensure the sustainability of food production and to protect livelihoods, in a changing climate. We analyse the relative effects of climate variability, subsidies and farming practices on the stability of food production and farm income. We examine farms in England and Wales between 2005 and 2017, and link farms to climate data at a sub-regional scale. Our results show that variability in temperature and rainfall reduces the stability of farm income and food production. While variability in climate can be largely outside of the farmers control our findings indicate that, under current conditions, farm management can have a larger effect on stability than climate. We identified three key aspects of farm management and policy that improve stability: i) increasing agricultural diversity, ii) increasing the efficiency of agrochemical use and iii) agri-environmental management. These management practices have previously been associated with benefits to natural ecosystems and may therefore increase the stability of agriculture whilst reducing negative impacts of farming on the environment. We also found differences in effect size of climate impacts and adaptation options between farm types, emphasising the need for flexible agricultural policies

Preferences for Mitigation of the Negative impacts of the Oil and Gas Industry in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

We examine Nigerian preferences for the mitigation of negative impacts associated with oil and gas production using a discrete choice experiment. Our data are estimated using a Bayesian "infinite mixtures" model, which given its flexibility can approximate an array of existing model specifications including the mixed logit and finite mixture specifications. The application of this model to our data suggest multimodality in the distributions describing respondents' willingness to pay to mitigate the negative impacts of oil and gas production. Individuals are willing to pay for mitigation of negative impacts, but are not necessarily willing to trade-off very large increases in unemployment or poverty to achieve these benefits

Prioritising surveillance for alien organisms transported as stowaways on ships travelling to South Africa

The global shipping network facilitates the transportation and introduction of marine and terrestrial organisms to regions where they are not native, and some of these organisms become invasive. South Africa was used as a case study to evaluate the potential for shipping to contribute to the introduction and establishment of marine and terrestrial alien species (i.e. establishment debt) and to assess how this varies across shipping routes and seasons. As a proxy for the number of species introduced (i.e. 'colonisation pressure') shipping movement data were used to determine, for each season, the number of ships that visited South African ports from foreign ports and the number of days travelled between ports. Seasonal marine and terrestrial environmental similarity between South African and foreign ports was then used to estimate the likelihood that introduced species would establish. These data were used to determine the seasonal relative contribution of shipping routes to South Africa's marine and terrestrial establishment debt. Additionally, distribution data were used to identify marine and terrestrial species that are known to be invasive elsewhere and which might be introduced to each South African port through shipping routes that have a high relative contribution to establishment debt. Shipping routes from Asian ports, especially Singapore, have a particularly high relative contribution to South Africa's establishment debt, while among South African ports, Durban has the highest risk of being invaded. There was seasonal variation in the shipping routes that have a high relative contribution to the establishment debt of the South African ports. The presented method provides a simple way to prioritise surveillance effort and our results indicate that, for South Africa, port-specific prevention strategies should be developed, a large portion of the available resources should be allocated to Durban, and seasonal variations and their consequences for prevention strategies should be explored further. (Résumé d'auteur

Governmental Context Determines Institutional Value: Independently Certified Performance and Failure in the Spanish Newspaper Industry

Many societies demand that independent professionals (e.g. auditors) certify the performance of firms. The value placed on such certification (i.e. the public perception of reliability/unreliability that may impact on an organization's success/failure) is not uniform, however, but contingent upon changing political contexts. This study presents and analyses data on the entire population of newspapers in Spain from 1966 to 1993, a time of peaceful transition from military dictatorship to capitalist democracy. Our results highlight the contingent nature of institutional life, demonstrating how changes in political contexts are associated with varying understandings of institutions. In particular, our findings support the prediction that, under a dictatorship, independently certified performance is not instrumental in organizational success or failure whereas, in a modern democracy, the certification process has a positive effect on the survival chances of firms.Publicad