Agriculture in a Water-Scarce World

With a relatively small population and 7% of the world's available freshwater resources, Canada is well placed for a world of water scarcity where the real value of water in its many uses becomes more and more apparent. However, action is necessary to ensure that Canada continues to benefit from the social, economic and environmental goods and services derived from water resources. Experience and analysis suggests that policy and incentives play critical roles in the sustainable exploitation of natural resources. In particular, properly valuing water in all its forms and uses appears to be critical. Analysis abroad has underlined the benefits of clearly delineating the roles of regulators, resource managers, infrastructure operators and service providers. The separation of water property rights and use rights from land title issues has also been found to improve incentives and resource governance. Approaches which build in rewards for non-market benefits and penalties for negative spill-overs have achieved success. To better prepare for the future, Canada' s water governance institutions need to explore means of improving our own water allocation and incentive systems. Experts in the field have already identified several areas where effort is warranted: plant breeding to deal with water scarcity and changing climate in areas of stress; understanding and better protecting natural capital and ecosystems that will become scarcer in future; inter-agency collaboration to ensure coordinated engagement on water with U.S, and; undertaking more comprehensive bio-economic modeling and analysis to better anticipate water stresses at home and abroad.water, governance, scarcity, incentives, sustainability, valuation, accountability, transparency, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Temperature and rainfall are separate agents of selection shaping population differentiation in a forest tree

Research highlights: We present evidence indicating that covariation of functional traits among populations of a forest tree is not due to genetic constraints, but rather selective covariance arising from local adaptation to di erent facets of the climate, namely rainfall and temperature. Background and Aims: Traits frequently covary among natural populations. Such covariation can be caused by pleiotropy and/or linkage disequilibrium, but also may arise when the traits are genetically independent as a direct consequence of natural selection, drift, mutation and/or gene flow. Of particular interest are cases of selective covariance, where natural selection directly generates among-population covariance in a set of genetically independent traits. We here studied the causes of population-level covariation in two key traits in the Australian tree Eucalyptus pauciflora. Materials and Methods: We studied covariation in seedling lignotuber size and vegetative juvenility using 37 populations sampled from throughout the geographic and ecological ranges of E. pauciflora on the island of Tasmania. We integrated evidence from multiple sources: (i) comparison of patterns of trait covariation within and among populations; (ii) climate-trait modelling using machine-learning algorithms; and (iii) selection analysis linking trait variation to field growth in an arid environment. Results: We showed strong covariation among populations compared with the weak genetic correlation within populations for the focal traits. Population di erentiation in these genetically independent traits was correlated with di erent home-site climate variables (lignotuber size with temperature; vegetative juvenility with rainfall), which spatially covaried. The role of selection in shaping the population di erentiation in lignotuber size was supported by its relationship with fitness measured in the field. Conclusions: Our study highlights the multi-trait nature of adaptation likely to occur as tree species respond to spatial and temporal changes in climateinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Genetic parameters for growth, wood density and pulp yield in Eucalyptus globulus

Genetic variation and co-variation among the key pulpwood selection traits for Eucalyptus globulus were estimated for a range of sites in Portugal, with the aim of improving genetic parameters used to predict breeding values and correlated response to selection. The trials comprised clonally replicated full-sib families (eight trials) and unrelated clones (17 trials), and exhibited varying levels of pedigree connectivity. The traits studied were stem diameter at breast height, Pilodyn penetration (an indirect measure of wood basic density) and near infrared reflectance predicted pulp yield. Univariate and multivariate linear mixed models were fitted within and across sites, and estimates of additive genetic, total genetic, environmental and phenotypic variances and covariances were obtained. All traits studied exhibited significant levels of additive genetic variation. The average estimated within-site narrowsense heritability was 0.19±0.03 for diameter and 0.29± 0.03 for Pilodyn penetration, and the pooled estimate for predicted pulp yield was 0.42±0.14. When they could be tested, dominance and epistatic effects were generally not statistically significant, although broad-sense heritability estimates were slightly higher than narrow-sense heritability estimates. Averaged across trials, positive additive (0.64±0.08), total genetic (0.58±0.04), environmental (0.38±0.03) and phenotypic (0.43±0.02) correlation estimates were consistently obtained between diameter and Pilodyn penetration. This data argues for at least some form of pleiotropic relationship between these two traits and that selection for fast growth will adversely affect wood density in this population. Estimates of the across-site genetic correlations for diameter and Pilodyn penetration were high, indicating that the genotype by environment interaction is low across the range of sites tested. This result supports the use of single aggregated selection criteria for growth and wood density across planting environments in Portugal, as opposed to having to select for performance in different environment

NAFTA: Outcomes, Challenges and Prospects

As the remaining agriculture-related NAFTA clauses became fully implemented on January 1st, 2008, there is much evidence of the Agreement’s benefits to all three members in the forms of the agricultural trade expansion within the region and the growth of foreign direct investments in members’ agri-food value chains. Better coordination would help the three governments to successfully address ongoing challenges such as trade disputes, security measures and animal health diseases. It would also help their economies and the agricultural sectors to continue capitalizing on opportunities that freer trade offers

NAFTA: Outcomes, Challenges and Prospects

As the remaining agriculture-related NAFTA clauses became fully implemented on January 1st, 2008, there is much evidence of the Agreement’s benefits to all three members in the forms of the agricultural trade expansion within the region and the growth of foreign direct investments in members’ agri-food value chains. Better coordination would help the three governments to successfully address ongoing challenges such as trade disputes, security measures and animal health diseases. It would also help their economies and the agricultural sectors to continue capitalizing on opportunities that freer trade offers.NAFTA, agricultural policy, trade disputes, COOL, security measures, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy, Public Economics,

Australia Agriculture Policy Review

Australia is a significant player in world trade for several commodities and agriculture is a vital part of the Australian economy. Around 60% of Australia is devoted to agriculture, with three broad zones in which agricultural activity occurs. These are referred to as the pastoral, wheat–sheep, and high rainfall zones. Australia had only about 130,000 commercial farms in 2005, so average farm size is high. Australia's agriculture is market driven and export-oriented. For some products, aggregations for values of production and for export values are not directly comparable because export values reflect the value of more highly processed products such as sugar and wine. Overall, about 65% of agricultural production is exported, representing about 25% of total merchandise exports. The processed agrifood products share of total merchandise exports has doubled since 1986-88. Between 1986-88 and 2002-04, the support to producers in Australia decreased from 8% to 4% of the total value of agricultural production. Australia has the second lowest level of producer support across OECD members. Productivity has grown at an average annual rate of 2.8% for the past 3 decades (Dolman et al, 2005)

India Agricultural Policy Review

With a population of about 1.1 billion, India is expected to overtake China as the world's most populous country by 2030. India's economy ranks as Asia's third largest, after Japan and China, and is now one of the world's fastest growing. While growth has led to significant reductions in poverty, India still ranks among the world's low income countries in terms of income per capita. Nevertheless, economic growth has resulted in a burgeoning middle-class. India's agriculture sector accounts for 18% of GDP, and employs around 60% of the workforce. Rice, wheat, cotton, oilseeds, jute, tea, sugarcane, milk and potatoes are India's major agricultural commodities. With its growing urban middle-class and increasing influence in global affairs, India's policies have important implications not only for its own economic development but also for global agricultural markets and trade. This note first reviews India's macro reforms, followed by discussion of the competitiveness of Indian agriculture. The evolution of India's major agricultural policies is then described, and new policy directions and emerging challenges are discussed. The note closes with some of the prospects for India's agri-food