Does Gender Really Matter in Agriculture?

Agriculture comprises around 9.5 percent of GDP for all developing countries, 26.0 percent for the least developed, 17.6 percent in South Asia and 17.4 percent in Sub -Saharan Africa compared with only 1.1 percent in the United States (World Bank, 2018). Agriculture is the main source of employment and livelihood for many, especially in Asia and Africa where about 60 percent of workers (both men and women) are employed in the agricultural sector (Agarwal, 2015). Globally, about 43 percent of workers who are engaged in agricultural activities are women (Akter et al., 2017), and across Asian and African countries, about half of all agricultural workers are women (Agarwal, 2015). Additional information on the role of women in agriculture in low-income countries can be found in Table 1. Women perform a wide range of activities including the majority of weed control and harvesting (FAO, 2011). They also do transplanting, cleaning of grain, processing, sowing, clearing of fields, and much more. In Benin and Mali, for example, women are heavily involved in land clearing, tillage, harvesting, threshing, and the marketing of staple food crops (Adétonah et al., 2015)

A Note on the Implications of Brexit

On June 23, 2016, the citizens of the United Kingdom (UK) voted by a narrow margin to withdraw from the European Union (EU) and on October 2, 2016, the recently chosen Prime Minister, Theresa May, announced that her government would invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March 2017 triggering the process of exiting the EU. The purpose of this note is to review the history of the EU and the procedures a country has to follow to withdraw from it. The implications of the British exit, commonly referred to as “Brexit,” for US-European trade and the agreement with the EU on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will also be addressed

Does Gender Really Matter in Agriculture?

Agriculture comprises around 9.5 percent of GDP for all developing countries, 26.0 percent for the least developed, 17.6 percent in South Asia and 17.4 percent in Sub -Saharan Africa compared with only 1.1 percent in the United States (World Bank, 2018). Agriculture is the main source of employment and livelihood for many, especially in Asia and Africa where about 60 percent of workers (both men and women) are employed in the agricultural sector (Agarwal, 2015). Globally, about 43 percent of workers who are engaged in agricultural activities are women (Akter et al., 2017), and across Asian and African countries, about half of all agricultural workers are women (Agarwal, 2015). Additional information on the role of women in agriculture in low-income countries can be found in Table 1. Women perform a wide range of activities including the majority of weed control and harvesting (FAO, 2011). They also do transplanting, cleaning of grain, processing, sowing, clearing of fields, and much more. In Benin and Mali, for example, women are heavily involved in land clearing, tillage, harvesting, threshing, and the marketing of staple food crops (Adétonah et al., 2015)

Land Reform and Farm Structure in the Former Soviet Union

Land is a critical input for agricultural production. At the same time, land has long been seen as a store of wealth, an asset that may be held for a wide range of purposes and that may account for a significant share of a nation’s resource stock. The way in which land is owned, used and transferred has varied over time and throughout the world. Laws and customs governing land ownership, use and transfer, are known as institutions, and are extremely important determinants of agricultural output. Insecurity of land ownership rights, for example, may reduce not only the incentive individual households have to make long-term land improvements, but also generate economic and social instability in people’s lives. This is the first of a series of three Cornhusker Economics articles on the nature of land institutions around the world, and the implications of various institutional arrangements for agricultural development. The focus of this article is on a particular institutional change, the transition from collective land ownership by the state to private land markets in the countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU): the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania); the Eastern European countries (Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine); the Caucasian countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia); and the Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan)

Economic Inequality and Changing Family Structure

Rising economic inequality in the United States and around the world is widely seen as an important public policy issue. While academic social scientists have long been interested in the causes and consequences of inequality, the economic situation in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008-09 has stimulated increased public awareness of this issue along with an outpouring of books and articles aimed at understanding it. Explanations for the current increase in the level of inequality draw attention to technological change, globalization, the declining influence of labor unions, and public policies among many other causes. In addition, many analysts point to changes in family structure as a contributing factor to the rise of economic inequality (e.g., Galbraith, 2016; Milanovic, 2016). The purpose of this article is to explore this aspect of the inequality problem in the United States

A Note on the Implications of Brexit

On June 23, 2016, the citizens of the United Kingdom (UK) voted by a narrow margin to withdraw from the European Union (EU) and on October 2, 2016, the recently chosen Prime Minister, Theresa May, announced that her government would invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March 2017 triggering the process of exiting the EU. The purpose of this note is to review the history of the EU and the procedures a country has to follow to withdraw from it. The implications of the British exit, commonly referred to as “Brexit,” for US-European trade and the agreement with the EU on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will also be addressed

Land Reform and Farm Structure in the Former Soviet Union

Land is a critical input for agricultural production. At the same time, land has long been seen as a store of wealth, an asset that may be held for a wide range of purposes and that may account for a significant share of a nation’s resource stock. The way in which land is owned, used and transferred has varied over time and throughout the world. Laws and customs governing land ownership, use and transfer, are known as institutions, and are extremely important determinants of agricultural output. Insecurity of land ownership rights, for example, may reduce not only the incentive individual households have to make long-term land improvements, but also generate economic and social instability in people’s lives. This is the first of a series of three Cornhusker Economics articles on the nature of land institutions around the world, and the implications of various institutional arrangements for agricultural development. The focus of this article is on a particular institutional change, the transition from collective land ownership by the state to private land markets in the countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU): the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania); the Eastern European countries (Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine); the Caucasian countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia); and the Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan)

The regulatory and catalytic subunits of cAMP-dependent protein kinases are associated with transcriptionally active chromatin during changes in gene expression.

Changes in the association of the catalytic subunit and the regulatory subunits of isozymes I and II of cAMP-dependent protein kinases (RI and RII, respectively) with the transcriptionally active chromatin fraction from rat liver were examined after a glucagon/theophylline injection and also after partial hepatectomy. Chromatin was partitioned into transcriptionally active and bulk, transcriptionally inactive fractions by digestion with micrococcal nuclease under appropriate conditions. In both experimental models, an increased content of catalytic and both RI and RII subunits was observed in chromatin fractions that were enriched in transcriptionally active DNA, particularly in the fraction associated with the residual nuclear matrix-lamina. The changes in the association of the subunits with these fractions paralleled the increases in intracellular cAMP levels and occurred in a time frame compatible with the changes in gene expression. The catalytic subunits could be removed from the nuclear matrix-lamina fraction by salt, whereas the two regulatory subunits remained tightly bound. The data support the concept of a direct role of the regulatory subunits of cAMP-dependent protein kinases in the induction of gene expression. However, we were unable to confirm that RII possessed an intrinsic topoisomerase activity