The temporal and spatial evaluation on China's agricultural policy output since 1978

Since reform and opening up, how much contribution has China's implementation of new agricultural policy made to agricultural output? This paper is trying to establish an agricultural policy output econometric model for doing a quantitative analysis of China's new agricultural policy. The results show that China's agricultural policies on agricultural output have an average contribution rate of about 7% since 1978, which is consistent with the OECD's basic forecast. There are obvious temporal and spatial differences. Generally speaking, we can divide the contribution of agricultural policy into three periods, which are the start-up phase from 1978 to 1991 (14 years), the stationary phase from 1992 to 2002 (11 years) and the rising phase from 2003 to 2008 (6 years). In space, the contribution of agricultural policy underwent a process from the all-low in the start-up phase, the gradual increase in the stationary phase to the all-high in the rising phase. Northern and western regions are more sensitive to policies. There are three major factors that can affect the contribution of regional agricultural policies, which are the process of national industrialization strategy, terrain and the level of local finance.

Gender mainstreaming and the Common Agricultural Policy

While there are many case studies looking at gender mainstreaming in national contexts, this article offers a pan-European perspective to examine how a stated commitment to gender equality at this meta-level works in practice. The European Union’s (EU) stated commitment to gender mainstreaming the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is critically reviewed. The article reviews theoretical literature on gender mainstreaming, considers the position of women in agriculture across Europe, and examines efforts by the EU to gender mainstream the CAP. It argues that at best, gender mainstreaming focuses on the symptoms of gender inequality in agriculture rather than the causes. Because of this, gender mainstreaming cannot be transformative in this context. Little thought has been given to the practical difficulties of actually gender mainstreaming a policy such as the CAP. The EU’s priority for the CAP focuses on the mainstream business goal of a viable agricultural industry and does not pay any heed to gender inequalities in agriculture. In short, the stated commitment to gender mainstreaming is empty rhetoric

The economic effects of common agricultural policy on Mediterranean montado/dehesa ecosystem

The decoupling of CAP payments leads production decisions and resources allocation to be more dependent on market prices and competitive advantages. The objective of this paper is to assess the effects of CAP trends on the montado/dehesa traditional ecosystem of Mediterranean regions in terms of farm income, land, labour and capital. A positive mathematical supply model disaggregated by the montado agro-forestry production systems of the Alentejo region in southern Portugal is developed. The results show that decoupling payments of CAP have negative economic effects on agricultural activities and resource use. Agricultural income increases with single farm payments but the foreseen increases in prices do not compensate the loss of the Agenda 2000 area payments in terms of competitiveness. These results reinforce the need to promote alternative agricultural and non-agricultural activities and policies in Mediterranean rural European areas and regions. (C) 2011 Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Is agricultural policy promoting a new role for farmers?: a case study

European Agenda 2000 considers the integration of environment in CAP and the role farmers can play on natural resources management. Alternative tillage technologies to seed cereals play an important economic and environmental role on the development of a sustainable agriculture and its adoption may depend on the agricultural policy, particularly policies on income support. The results obtained clearly show that the use of alternative soil tillage technologies would be promoted by the change of supports from the first to the second pillar of CAP and we can conclude that, in general, this change will encourage a faster technological adoption. (c) 2006 Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Poverty impacts of agricultural policy adjustments in an opening economy: the case of Colombia

We aim to contribute to the assessment of poverty impacts on the rural sector arising from agricultural policy adjustments in Colombia. For this we use an agriculture specialized static CGE model, jointly (sequentially) with a microsimulation model that allows for effective job relocation. Results indicate that the sectoral impact of the program implemented tends to be small and has considerable variability across crops. They also show that the highest impacts come from the irrigation and land improvements component of the program. Lastly, although it reduces poverty, poverty impacts are small and tend to concentrate in rural households toward the middle of the income distribution ladder.