A Spatial Mathematical Model Analysis of the Linkage between Agricultural Trade and Deforestation

Like agricultural trade, deforestation has increased tremendously throughout the past five decades. We analyse the linkage between both factors by applying trade and forest policy scenarios to the global land-use model MAgPIE ("Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment"). The model predicts global landuse patterns in a spatially explicit way and uses endogenously derived technological change and land expansion rates. Our study is the first which combines global trade analysis with a spatially explicit mapping of deforestation. By implementing self-sufficiency rates in the regional demand and supply equations, we are able to simulate different trade settings. Our baseline scenario fixes current trade patterns until the year 2045. The three liberalisation scenarios assume a path of increasing trade liberalisation which ends with no trade barriers in 2045 and they differ by applying different forest protection policies. Regions with comparative advantages like Latin America for oilcrops and China for cereals will export more. Whereas, Latin America will buy this competitiveness by converting large parts of its Amazonian rainforest into cropland, China will benefit most due to its decreasing food demand after 2025. In contrast, regions like the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia face the highest increases of imports. Forest protection policies lead to higher technological change rates. In absence of such policies, investments in agricultural Research & Development are the most effective way for protecting the forest.International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

EU-level assessments and scenarios

Shared socio-economic pathways are used to look at particular possible futures of major trends in global socio-economic trends (e.g. global population, GDP, urbanization, strength of political institutions, international trade). These scenarios make no inference to their likelihood of becoming true. These scenarios are used in MACSUR to assess different questions, e.g.What is the future of agricultural prices?How will agricultural production and food consumption evolve?How will climate change impacts and mitigation affect…Prices,Land use,Trade,Undernourishment

Implementing Bilateral Trade in a Global Landuse Model

International Relations/Trade, Land Economics/Use,

The Economics of Consumer Protection in Developing Countries' Food Economy: The Case of Diarrhea Prevention and Treatment in Rwanda

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy,

The Economics of Alternative Strategies for the Reduction of Food-borne Diseases in Developing Countries: The Case of Diarrhea in Rwanda

The paper provides a methodology which is suitable for the analysis of the social cost of disease and the benefits and cost of health intervention by integrating public health analysis and economics. The approach developed in the paper is applied to food-borne diarrhea in Rwanda. The results suggest that simple treatments such as Oral Rehydration Therapy have a higher social rate of return than consumer protection via education.public health, consumer protection, social cost, economics of food-borne diseases, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, I12, I18, Q12,

GOING EAST: EU ENLARGEMENT TO CENTRAL EUROPE, AND THE AGENDA 2000

International Relations/Trade,

XC8 Extreme events – Final report

Following a MACSUR Workshop a joint working paper preliminary titled "More than a change in crop production: metrics and approaches to understand the impacts of extreme events on food security" is now in an advanced stage. A conference paper based on an M.Sc. thesis by Christoph Buschmann, titled "A model-based economic assessment of future climate variability impacts on global agricultural markets" has been presented and the International Conference of Agricultural Economists, 2015. We are working on a journal publication at the moment. Based on a B.Sc. thesis by Patrick Jeetze, we have submitted an abstract and held a presentation at the GlobalFood Symposium 2017, 28-29 April 2017 at Georg-August-University of Goettingen, Germany. Title: "Implications of future climate variability on food security: A model-based assessment of climate-induced crop price volatility impacts" We are currently working on a journal publication on this. Finally, we contributed one section to MACSUR's Research Gap Report (H0.1-D)

Social rate of return to plant breeding research in Germany

This article focuses on the social rate of return to plant breeding investment in Germany between 1980-2000. Starting point of the analysis is the development of total factor productivity which is decomposed into the effects of factor input and research investment. Information on investment in plant breeding have been obtained via questionnaires sent to both private plant breeding companies and public research organizations. The empirical results suggest significant underinvestment in German plant breeding research, as the calculated social rate of return is in the range of 16 to 28%.agricultural research, plant breeding investment, social rate of return, Public Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

The Impacts of Water Management Policies on Agricultural Production in Australia - An Economic Analysis

In the Australian Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) the combination of severe and prolonged droughts and historic water management decisions to divert water for cultivation stressed water resources in such an intensive manner that wetlands went dry and rivers are now far from a natural flow. More appropriate water management policies must be implemented to restore ecological function. However, with 39 % of Australia’s total value of agricultural production, transitions in use need to be managed to minimise economic and social impacts on basin communities while they adjust. Recent studies estimate that industries with high water usage but lower or more volatile value products will be impacted more than higher value products. Therefore, this study’s focus is to analyse different water management policies and their impacts on agricultural production, particularly changes in production of water low value and water high value crops and agricultural water consumption. By applying the Water Integrated Market (WatIM)-Model, benefits and costs of water management policies can be evaluated by identifying changes in quantities, prices and economic welfare, such as consumer and producer surplus. The WatIM-Model is a multi-market model combining water low and water high value crop markets and the water market with its supply and demand. Since the MDB is a complex system with different types of agriculture and water sharing rules in each catchment, economic variables are aggregated in the WatIMModel to examine overall trends and changes in the MDB. By the assumption that policy decisions on one market cause reactions on prices, supply and demand on other markets, market interdependencies can be derived. With these results, the merit of shifting production from water low value crops to water high value crops is examined and advantages and disadvantages of water management policies can be determined. This enables refinement of water management policies to optimise social, economic and environmental outcomes.Water market, water management policy, agriculture, sustainable water allocation, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Understanding adaptive capacity of smallholder African indigenous vegetable farmers to climate change in Kenya

Understanding the adaptive capacity (AC) of farmers is crucial to planning effective adaptation. Action to promote farmers’ AC is required because climate change (CC) is resulting in unpredictable alterations in weather patterns. Based on the sustainable livelihoods framework (SLF), this study explored how access to natural, physical, financial, social and human capitals enhances the AC. Quantitative data from 269 African indigenous vegetable (AIV) farmers in three selected agro-climatic zones in Kenya were analysed. Four indicators in each capital were selected based on previous studies and judgments collected from an expert online ranking survey (n = 35). The Kruskal-Wallis H test and an independent sample t-test were used to test the independence of AC scores and access to the different resources. The findings showed that the majority of farmers (53%) had a moderate AC, while fewer (32%) and (15%) had low or high AC levels respectively. Disparities in adaptive capacity scores were recorded between respondents in terms of their age, marital status and location. Farmers had high access to social capital but low access to financial, natural and human capitals. Female farmers showed lower capacities in the areas of financial, human and natural resources, while their male counterparts had low access to some human and social capitals. Resilient interventions that target individuals with low adaptive capacities are required. © 2020 The Author