Exit from farming and land abandonment in Northern Norway

The combination of nature and farmed land is one reason why Northern Norway is attracting tourists. It is therefore of interest to know which farms that are more likely to quit faming, and to see what factors that are important for abandonment of farm land when the owner of the farm exits farming. Our results indicate that smaller properties in areas with few farmers are the most likely to be abandoned. Property structure is another important factor for abandonment, but is less important for the exit-decision. Size of the farm, including both rented and own farm land, appears to be more important for the exit-decision. Larger farm operations, with breeding stock, primary sheep and dairy cattle are more likely to continue farming.Farm exit, abandoned land, logistic regression., Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Labor and Human Capital,

A model for prediction of spatial farm structure

Spatial micro structure and its change over time is recorded for Norwegian farm firms. Relative strong correlations between geographically close neighbors are expected, either because growing farms swallow the smaller ones, or because they are affected by some spatially related unobserved factors. Strong correlations over time are also expected because of prevalent family farming. The paper proposes a state-of-the-art Markov chain model in order to predict the spatial and temporal micro structure taking account of both non-stationarity and spatio/temporal correlations by means of techniques from non-linear state space modeling and Gaussian Markov random fields. The model and the complete data set is then a device with which one can investigate the consequences of ignoring spatial and/or temporal correlations, both with complete data and with more sparsely sampled data, like FADN panels or USDA's repeated cross-sections (ARMS).Farm Management,

Overvåkingsprogrammet «Tilstandsovervåking og resultatkontroll i jordbrukets kulturlandskap»

NIBIO overvåker jordbrukslandskapet gjennom det nasjonale overvåkingsprogrammet «Tilstandsovervåking og resultatkontroll i jordbrukets kulturlandskap (3Q)». Basert på 3Q-registreringene rapporterer NIBIO indikatorer for arealstruktur, biologisk mangfold, kulturminner og kulturmiljøer, og tilgjengelighet i jordbrukslandskapet.Overvåkingsprogrammet «Tilstandsovervåking og resultatkontroll i jordbrukets kulturlandskap»publishedVersio

Status og endringer i jordbrukslandskapet i Vestfold, Telemark og Agder

Rapporten dokumenterer status og endringer i jordbrukslandskapet i Vestfold og Telemark og i Agder. I tillegg til å presentere tall for tidligere fylkesinndeling er det brukt en inndeling av kommuner etter dominerende jordbruksregion. I rapporten er det benyttet endringsdata basert på tolkning av flyfoto i regi av overvåkingsprogrammet «Tilstandsovervåking og resultatkontroll i jordbrukets kulturlandskap» (3Q) ved NIBIO. Det rapporteres på arealendringer med hensyn til jordbruksareal, endringer i arealstruktur og forekomsten av ulike elementer i jordbrukslandskapet som for eksempel åkerholmer og steingjerder. Informasjon fra søknad om produksjonstilskudd er brukt til å undersøke bruksstruktur og hva arealene brukes til.Status og endringer i jordbrukslandskapet i Vestfold, Telemark og AgderpublishedVersio

Endring i jordbruksareal i drift per fylke

Både avgang og tilgang av jordbruksareal betyr endringer i kulturlandskapet. Netto endring i jordbruksareal over 5 år basert på data fra 3Q viste kun en reduksjon på 1,5 prosent, men i snitt for Norge så utgjør endringsarealet (sum tilgang og avgang av areal) et areal som tilsvarer over 6 prosent av jordbruksarealet. Andelen som endres varierer over landet, størst endring er registrert i Nord-Norge. Her utgjorde endringsareal over en femårsperiode et areal tilsvarende mer enn en tidel av det totale jordbruksarealet.publishedVersio

Nedlegging av jordbruksdrift og jordbruksarealer i Nord-Norge

Antallet aktive bruk i Nord-Norge synker, men størstedelen av jorda holdes i hevd ved at drifta overtas av andre bruk. Men hvilke faktorer er det som avgjør om et areal drives videre eller går helt ut av produksjon?publishedVersio

Endring i jordbruksareal i drift fordelt på jordbruksregioner

Arealovervåkingsprogrammet 3Q viser en moderat netto avgang av jordbruksareal på 1, 5 prosent over 5 år. Nettotall skjuler imidlertid at det lokalt kan foregå større endringer, og dette varierer over landet. Her vises de estimerte endringene, både når det gjelder netto og total tilgang og avgang av jordbruksareal fordelt på de ulike jordbruksregionene. De største forskjellene med hensyn til totale endringer, finner vi mellom Nord-Norge og Sør-Norge. Størst arealendringer skjer det i Nord-Norge. Innen Sør-Norge så er det først og fremst skogtraktene på Sør- og Østlandet hvor det skjer relativt store endringer, og da først og fremst ved at areal går ut av drift.publishedVersio

Determining member contributions to marketing cooperative returns when raw products are commingled before sale

Marketing cooperatives that operate on a pool basis allocate net returns on the basis of the "economic value" of the raw products each member has delivered. Economic values ideally reflect the raw products' expected contributions to pool net return. In a competitive market, raw product prices would reflect these expected returns quite well. In the absence of such a competitive market, one must formulate expectations models of returns to each product, which requires identifying the separate returns. The purpose of this thesis is to describe and employ a method of distinguishing expected return to each raw product when raw products are commingled on the assembly line. The approach taken is to conduct a hedonic analysis of processed product net returns as a function of raw product ingredients

Agri-environmental policies and their effectiveness in Norway, Austria, Bavaria, France, Switzerland and Wales: Review and recommendations

This review identifies ‘successful’ policies for biodiversity, cultural heritage, and landscape scenery and recreation in Austria, France, Bavaria (Germany), Wales (UK), and Switzerland, and a comparison with current efforts in Norway. All of these countries face similar risks and challenges, mostly with regard to mountain areas. Sources used for the analysis were the evaluations of the national Rural Development Plans, and the midway evaluation and national ex-post evaluations of the CAP programme period 2000–2006. An evaluation of the Swiss Direct Payment System was available from 2009, as well as information about further development from 2011. Scientific papers and other official reports by, e.g., the OECD, the European Commission and the European Environmental Agency, were used as well. Expert interviews were conducted by telephone and e-mail. Measures deemed particularly successful often had very specific aims, included local information, appeared to involve fairly simple application and organization requirements, were developed and designed in cooperation with farmers and were adapted to local characteristics or challenges. Measures considered less successful were criticized for being unfair in terms of regional repartition of grants, for lacking transparency, for being applied only to small areas, and for requiring a great deal of organization and implementation work. In terms of future developments of the Norwegian agricultural and agri-environmental subsidy system we recommend examining the following particular policies more closely: the Organic Farming scheme in Austria, the Welsh whole-farm scheme Tir Gofal, and the Austrian, Bavarian and Swiss measures for cultural landscape maintenance. Since no ‘best practice’ or ‘standard design’ of agricultural support schemes has been recognized on an international level to date, an enhanced evaluation system will be as important as new and adjusted schemes. Monitoring data suitable for comparison should be collected, based on internationally defined indicators. For the time being, we suggest “double-tracked” agri-environmental support: mainly measures that have proved to be effective; but also measures where positive effects are considered very likely due to well-known cause-effect relationships, even though they may not yet have been thoroughly documented and approved, e.g. because of their long-term character or due to weaknesses in monitoring and evaluation

Integration of all FSSIM components within SEAMLESS-IF and a stand alone Graphical User Interface for FSSIM

Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,