Designing trans-disciplinary research to support policy formulation for sustainable agricultural development

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Decentralized Rural Development Policies: Does it Make Sense? The Example of Diversification in Flanders

Changes in consumer preferences and demands, the process of globalisation, etc. together with the pressure of the United States to continue liberalisation of the farm sector in Europe, have caused the European Union to adapt its policy. There has been a shift in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) towards a more decentralised approach. In this paper, it is analysed if this approach is justified for rural development, by describing the case of on-farm diversification in Flanders. Using survey results, it is tested if the decision to do on-farm diversification depends not only on farm and farmer characteristics (e.g. age and gender of the farmer, his or her education, having a successor, arable surface, farm type and financial situation) but also on the location of the farm. By including a location variable in the regression, the explanatory power improves and the influence of some variables changes. This suggests that location is important when trying to alter the decision of a farmer to do on-farm diversification. Therefore policy should be decentralised to a level where location differences can be dealt with. This decentralisation is to a certain extent already taken up in the Rural Development Policy in Flanders where location specificities are taken into account for when on-farm diversification in different zones is stimulated. The results support the idea of strengthening bottom-up policies as proposed in the new Rural Development Policy 2007-2013 of the EU and this not only for on-farm diversification, but for all parts of rural development.On-farm diversification, local policy, decentralisation, farm location, farm strategy, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Modelling environmental attitudes of the users of Kilombero Valley Wetlands, Tanzania

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Perception of Land Scarcity by Peri-Urban Farmers

Farmers in peri-urban regions face many problems, among which land scarcity is a major one according to literature. However, as indicated by a survey among farmers in the peri-urban region around Brussels, land scarcity is not perceived as a problem by all farmers to the same extent. Based on econometric analysis, the survey results show that perception of land scarcity is mainly influenced by differences in landownership and perceived ratio between farm land prices and real land prices. Changes in each of these variables will lead to a shift in the problems a farmer faces and will therefore stimulate different farming or land use strategies.peri-urban, land availability, land prices, landownership, Land Economics/Use, O18, R14, Q11, Q15,

Productive water uses at household level in rural Kenya: case study of the Ukambani district

As a result of the growing world population and enhanced by the rising of living standards, competition for water is growing and this causes increased pressure on water resources worldwide. This tendency gave rise to the development of the integrated water resources management approach (IWRM), acknowledging the need to manage water resources in a holistic and integrated way. The IWRM objective to optimize economic, social and environmental outcomes of water management, can however only be reached if impact of water uses is correctly assessed. Nevertheless, often multiple uses of water within sectors are insufficiently recognized in planning and management. One of these neglected uses is the productive water use by households. Nonetheless, this use is extremely important to the livelihood of the poor, especially in the vast semi-arid rural areas of the developing world. An adequate evaluation of this use will not only help to improve outcome of water management, but will also add to the goal of poverty reduction. In this study, the role of productive water use for the rural community of the Ukambani district in Kenya was monitored, thereby focusing on income contributions and improvements in nutritional status

A System Approach on Organizational Innovations in the Agro-Food Sector: The Case of AFSCs in Flanders

Together with the evolution from the agro-industrial model to the sustainable rural development model (Roep and Wiskerke 2004), a part of the agro-food market has evolved from an anonymous, mass food market to a quality-food market. This shift is driven by factors, such as the changing relations between supply chain actors due to concentration in retail and processing, the growing importance of quality standards, considerable changes in consumer habits and preferences, the increasing attention for the multifunctional dimensions of agriculture and the establishment of new markets for public goods and services (Kirwan, Slee et al. 2003; Jahn, Zerger et al. 2007). As a consequence, the contemporary agro-food markets are more and more characterised by coordination between the actors in food supply chains. Collective action is not only adopted to improve supply chain logistics, but can also be used as a strategic instrument to realise market differentiation, to increase market share, or to obtain niche protection (Hobbs, Fearne et al. 2002; Vuylsteke, Collet et al. 2003; Ménard and Klein 2004). Moreover, new forms of dynamism and innovative forms of cooperation, such as alternative food supply chains, are emerging (Marsden, Banks et al. 2000)...

Strategieën en instrumenten voor de vergoeding van publieke diensten van landbouw

Eindrapport van een project binnen het programma Landbouwonderzoek van het agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT080525 – januari 2010 tot augustus 2012)