Persistence of family farming, learning from its dynamics

Traditionally, the family farm has always been seen as a cornerstone of the agricultural production system. Given social, economic and political evidence (Calus, 2009), this organisational form might still continue to shape agricultural development. However, important changes in social and economic environment (e.g. industrialisation of agriculture, increased risk level and public vision on agriculture) become threats to the traditional model. A SWOT analysis of the family farms indicates the various intrinsic characteristics that make family farms resilient to changing conditions. Even in a changing economic and social landscape these aspects provide them with building blocks for creating new organisational forms or institutional arrangements. This paper shows these building blocks, and is only, prudentially, indicative for possible new institutional arrangements. Creativity may produce numerous outcomes from building blocks. Land tenure is only one example from past and present to show how institutions can deal with a potential threat, such as the large demand for land as production factor. Similar creativity is needed to the exploding capital demand in agriculture. One of the major challenges will be to provide family farms with low-costing capital. Food security and local community viability is the social price for this low cost supply.family farm, corporate farm, peasant, SWOT, Consumer/Household Economics,

An (in)efficiency based measurement of economic resilience

The ecosystem and the economic subsystem are interlinked. In fact, it is the overconsumption of scarce resources or the overproduction of bad outputs at economic system level that causes a great part of the imbalances at the ecosystem level. Some imbalances do not originate at the economic system level, but are due to external factors. Given the possibility of external shocks, respecting static sustainability thresholds is not a guarantee for system sustainability. In a dynamic setting, the concept of resilience is therefore helpful. In this paper we show how this concept can complement the traditional efficiency approach to come to a sustainable value creating economic system.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Using different groups of technological progress as input for sector modeling

This poster aims at describing different groups of technology use within a farm population and at delivering realistic prognoses of their future status as input for sector modeling. This because sector models are in many cases not based on reasonable technological progress estimations or too simplified as normative estimation or seen as mere extrapolation of past evolutions. The classification and utilization of technology groups is done for livestock activities, but illustrated hereafter for the finishing pigs activities. The research is worked out in three phases: • Organizational aspects of tuning information demand and supply; • Identification of technology groups; • Evolution of technology groups. Following techniques are used to identify the technology groups: Stochastic frontier analysis, cluster analysis and others. The results can be used in sector models to measure the impact of induced innovation on different technology groups.technology, sector modeling, induced innovation, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

MATERIALS BALANCE BASED MODELLING OF ENVIRONMENTAL EFFICIENCY

A new method for analysing environmental efficiency, based on the materials balance, is proposed. With this method, an environmental allocative efficiency measure can be defined analogously to the more commonly used economic allocative efficiency. Nutrient surplus in pig fattening, a typical balance indicator, is used to illustrate the concept in a two input one output case. The materials balance based efficiency analysis is elaborated using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Results are compared with those of more common, merely input or output oriented DEA approaches. A main conclusion is that, ignoring the balance feature of environmental issues such as nutrient surplus might be a main reason why traditional integral analyses of economic and environmental efficiency yield contradictory conclusions.Environmental Economics and Policy,

BRANDING REGIONAL IDENTITY AS A DRIVER FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Within the globalizing world, regions and their identities are subjected to great pressure. At present, places are engaged in a process of “territorial competition” in an integrated world economy. The identity of the region can be used as a starting point to brand a region and differentiate it from others. In the regional branding process, the region as a whole becomes a product or brand and offers a “basket” of regional products and services. This paper discusses the possibility of regional identity as a mobilizing force for rural development, by studying best practice examples of regional branding. Using the grounded theory approach, we conducted interviews in three case regions: West Cork (Ireland), Groene Woud (the Netherlands) and Pajottenland (Belgium). The study of these cases led to the formulation of critical success factors on the organization of regional branding.Identity, Region formation, Regional branding, Rural development, Agribusiness, Community/Rural/Urban Development, International Development,

Economic aspects of manure management and practices for sustainable agriculture in Turkey

Turkish livestock sector plays very important role in the Turkish GDP and the use of manure affects the environment but the farming sector want the farmers to employ the use of more integrated manure practice. The study assessed the economic impacts of integrated manure and chemical fertilizer used and the manure management practices sustainable for Turkish agriculture. Turkey is dependent on foreign countries not only for energy but for chemical fertilizers raw materials. High price of chemical fertilizers is one of the negative impact, manure substitution will lead to stable macro-economy, and environmental friendly economy and agricultural productivity will also impacts. To achieve these impacts, some manure practices suitable for sustainable rural development in Turkey was assessed