Dominos in the dairy: An analysis of transgenic maize in Dutch dairy farming

Isolation distances to limit the risk of cross-pollination from transgenic to nontransgenic crops can severely limit the potential use of transgenic crops through a so-called 'domino effect' where a field of non-transgenic crops limits adoption of transgenic crops not only on plots in its direct vicinity, but also in plots further away as its neighbors are forced to grow the non-transgenic varieties, forcing their neighbors to grow the non-transgenic variety, and so on. The extent to which this effect takes place, however, may depend crucially on the type of farm. For example, dairy farms can use grassland as a buffer between transgenic and conventional maize plots. This article assesses the effects of isolation distances for transgenic maize in dairy farming. A spatially explicit farm model is applied to a region in the Southern Netherlands to identify to what extent a single farmer (who uses non-transgenic maize) can limit other farmers’ potential to grow transgenic maize. The main findings are that 50% or more of the farms in the study area will not affect the potential adoption of transgenic maize by growing conventional maize at all. This result even holds under distance measures of 800m, which is the largest distance implemented by member states of the European Union. When they do have such effects, isolation distances can reduce the benefits from transgenic maize by €5,000 - €6,000, for a considerable part through a domino effect. Large net benefits of transgenic maize may limit the spatial effects as farmers are more willing to relocate maize production to areas where transgenic maize is allowed.Crop Production/Industries, Livestock Production/Industries,

Development of nature-oriented dairy farm systems with an optimization model: the case of ‘Farming for Nature’ in ‘de Langstraat’, the Netherlands

‘Farming for Nature’, a relatively new policy instrument being tried out in the Netherlands, is evaluated. The concept has been designed to allow dairy farmers to improve nature conservation on their farms. Under the scheme, no manure, fertilizer, or feed – concentrates or roughage - may be imported into farm systems from external sources. The feasibility of such a self-sustaining system and the conditions required for it to deliver the desired results, are explored with a farm-based linear programming model known as FIONA (Farm based Integrated Optimization Model for Nature and Agriculture). The model is explained and applied to ‘de Langstraat’, a region in southern Netherlands. The results show that levels of production under the ‘Farming for Nature’ regime are dependent upon soil fertility and the proportion of land that is suitable for growing arable crops. If all available land on a dairy farm in the scheme is arable land, then high production levels of up to 7,500 kg milk per hectare can be realized. If only 30% of the farm area is suitable for arable crops, then only lower production levels, of about 6,600 kg milk per hectare can be realized. The scheme has positive ecological effects. Both nature and cultural landscape values may benefit significantly from the concept. Improvement in ecological terms however, carries a price in terms of agricultural income. An average dairy farm adopting the concept of ‘Farming for Nature’ experiences an income loss of approximately € 840 per hectare in the short-run (5-10 years). More important is the observation that the scale of such farms in the short-run might be too small to earn an attractive income for its workers, even when fully compensated according to European Union regulations.nature management, dairy farming system, linear programming, farm-economics, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

The different dimensions of livelihood impacts of Payments for Environmentals Services (PES) schemes: A systematic review

Through a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature, this paper analyzes evidence of the livelihood impacts of Payments for Environmental Services (PES). Forty-six studies assessed PES livelihood impacts. The assessments presented more positive livelihood impacts than negative ones, focusing on financial benefits. Non-monetary and non-material impacts of PES were largely understudied. Most reviews focused on ES providers, hindering the understanding of broader societal impacts. The review yielded examples where participants lost from their participation or where improvements in one livelihood dimension paralleled deterioration in another. Consequently, we identified key research gaps in: i) understanding the social and cultural impacts of PES, ii) evaluating environmental and economic additionality from improving other ES at the expense of cultural ones, iii) and assessing PES impacts in terms of trade-offs between multiple livelihood dimensions. Moreover, increased knowledge is needed on the impact of PES on changes in household expenditure and choice, and on trade-offs between household income and inequality in ES provider communities. Finally, if PES schemes are implemented to sustainably improve livelihoods, targeting disaggregated populations, understanding equity and social power relations within and between ES providers and users, and better monitoring and evaluation systems that consider locally relevant livelihood dimensions are needed

The Information Value of Full-Retention Policies

Discard rates in marine fisheries have been estimated at more than 80% for some individual fisheries, with an average global discard rate of 8%. Discarding of catch can be problematic for three main reasons: (1) in the absence of accurate and precise discards estimates, unreliable catch data distort estimation of the appropriate quotas; (2) bycatch imposes a cost on the resource as survival rates are generally low; and (3) bycatch-induced mortality of charismatic species presents a loss of non-use values. Policy instruments to limit discarding vary from taxes on bycatch, to subsidies for selective fishing gear, to outright bans on discarding, also called full-retention policies. The 2013 reform of the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy features the introduction of such an obligation to land all catches "of species which are subject to catch limits." In this paper we aim to estimate the economic effects of a full retention policy in a mixed fishery. More specifically, we estimate the economic value of the data distortion caused by discarding of fish, and how these economic losses are ameliorated by a ban on discards. We present a bioeconomic model capable of investigating these questions in a mixed fishery for a variety of stock assessment methods, harvest control rules, and discarding policies. We apply the model to the North Sea demersal fishery, focusing on the two main commercial species plaice (pleuronectes platessa) and sole (solea solea). We find that the information value of discard bans depends largely on the prevailing harvest control rule.Keywords: Poor Data and Uncertainty, Fisheries Economics, Modeling and Economic Theor

Cost-Benefit-Analysis (CBA) on Improving Aquaculture and Restoring Mangrove in Indonesia

Large areas along Java’s north coast are threatened by subsidence and abrasion. Subsidence is even faster than sea level rise. Although forbidden by law, farmers have cleared the mangrove forest almost up to the coastline, thus reducing sedimentation and increasing exposure to coastal abrasion. Four interventions are needed: reduce groundwater' abstraction, protect the residual coastal mangrove, give up ponds along sea and rivers for mangrove recovery, and improve aquaculture (using a field school approach). The Building with Nature project, funded by the Indonesian and Dutch governments, and partners of the Ecoshape consortium, is currently implementing the latter three interventions in Demak district together with Indonesian institutions and villages. For Tambakbulusan, a village in Demak regency, north-east of Semarang, covering about 750 ha, we estimated the benefits of these actions with a Cost-Benefit-Analysis. We accounted, next to investments and profits including those for fisheries, the cost of destroyed houses and ponds, and of forgone benefits due to new mangrove forest and loss of land. Our baseline scenario assumes subsidence and abrasion similar as villages closer to Semarang, where most lands were gradually engulfed the last 25 years. For such a period, a no-intervention scenario would cost close to 3 million USD due to loss of land, infrastructure and livelihoods. Investing 88.000 USD on recovering mangrove-only or on improving aquaculture-only, would generate benefits of 7.8 and 1.0 million USD, resp.. Simultaneously investing on both mangrove recovery (climate change mitigation) and aquaculture improvement (adaptation) would yield almost double: 15 million USD

Future land-use change in the Netherlands: an analysis based on a chain of models

Analyses of the impact of European policies on agricultural change are most often based on agricultural sector models. Such models have their limitations: they cannot specify the interaction between agriculture and the rest of the economy, and their spatial dimension is usually limited. Land use simulation models, on the other hand, usually depend on other models for assessing the demand for land. The consistency of those models with the assumptions and databases of the land use model is often not examined. This article reports on a research project where the links between a macroeconomic model, an agricultural sector model and a land use model were explicitly explored in order to arrive at a consistent model chain. This integrated framework was put to the test by applying it to two contrasting scenarios, which compare impact on agricultural incomes, land use and land management.land use, CAP, agricultural policy analyses, Netherlands, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Harvest and investment Decisions Under Annual and Multiannual Adjustment of Fish Quota

Yearly revisions of Total Allowable Catch under EU policies for the management of North Sea fisheries come at high management costs and capital adjustment costs. It is unclear whether current EU fisheries policy strikes the right balance between the need to regularly adjust fish quota to new information on one hand, and the costs of gathering information and adjusting fisheries capital stock on the other hand. To analyze this question we present a model for a single-species fishery, where a profit maximizing decision-maker jointly determines optimal harvest and capital adjustment levels. Two alternative management systems are compared to the case of sole ownership without policy constraints: annual constrained quota adjustment and multiannual quota adjustment. In the case of unconstrained sole ownership the decision maker optimizes harvest and capital adjustment levels, while under annual constrained quota adjustment change in harvest is constrained by the harvest level of the previous year. Under multiannual quota adjustment capital adjustment is optimized on an annual basis while harvest is fixed for a longer period. We analyse quota adjustment in a stochastic setting, and compare results for the total discounted net benefits that include management costs and fishermen’s capital adjustment costs. For the purpose of illustration we apply the model to North Sea plaice. Results of annual constrained quota adjustment show that as the system becomes more rigid the optimal harvest policy changes less between different levels of previous harvest. Consequently, as harvest in the previous period increases fewer investments are required. Results of multiannual quota adjustment show that both optimal policies change very little as the frequency of harvest change decreases. The change in optimal policies, however, decreases together with decreasing frequency of harvest change.Keywords: Modeling and Economic Theory, Fisheries Modeling, Fisheries EconomicsKeywords: Modeling and Economic Theory, Fisheries Modeling, Fisheries Economic

Alternative harvest control rules for multi-fleet and multi-species tuna fisheries under data-poor conditions in Eastern Indonesia

Indonesian tuna fisheries are complex due to variation in the scale of fleet in the fisheries, their multi-species nature and problems with data collection. Moreover, like many developing-country fisheries, their management needs to take into account many other goals besides rents maximization, such as the distribution of rents and the stability of income and employment. This study evaluate the performance of alternative management procedures by means of a stochastic bio-economic model integrating the characteristics of three different scales of fishing, two tuna species, and partly unobserved catch. We focus on skipjack and yellowfin tuna fisheries in the eastern Indonesia in small-scale fleet, medium-scale fleet, and large-scale fleet of tuna fisheries. We combine the dynamics of an age-structured production model and the economic performance of fishing activity. We use reference points of catch per unit effort (CPUE) as representative of relative abundance to update the total number of allowable fishing effort next year. We discuss the performance of the management procedures with respect to aggregate rents, distribution of rents, and stability of fishing effort

Genetic studies of abdominal MRI data identify genes regulating hepcidin as major determinants of liver iron concentration

Background & Aims: Excess liver iron content is common and is linked to hepatic and extrahepatic disease risk. We aimed to identify genetic variants influencing liver iron content and use genetics to understand its link to other traits and diseases. Methods: First, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 8,289 individuals in UK Biobank with MRI quantified liver iron, and validated our findings in an independent cohort (n=1,513 from IMI DIRECT). Second, we used Mendelian randomisation to test the causal effects of 29 predominantly metabolic traits on liver iron content. Third, we tested phenome-wide associations between liver iron variants and 770 anthropometric traits and diseases. Results: We identified three independent genetic variants (rs1800562 (C282Y) and rs1799945 (H63D) in HFE and rs855791 (V736A) in TMPRSS6) associated with liver iron content that reached the GWAS significance threshold (p<5x10-8). The two HFE variants account for ~85% of all cases of hereditary haemochromatosis. Mendelian randomisation analysis provided evidence that higher central obesity plays a causal role in increased liver iron content. Phenome-wide association analysis demonstrated shared aetiopathogenic mechanisms for elevated liver iron, high blood pressure, cirrhosis, malignancies, neuropsychiatric and rheumatological conditions, while also highlighting inverse associations with anaemias, lipidaemias and ischaemic heart disease. Conclusion: Our study provides genetic evidence that mechanisms underlying higher liver iron content are likely systemic rather than organ specific, that higher central obesity is causally associated with higher liver iron, and that liver iron shares common aetiology with multiple metabolic and non-metabolic diseases