Quand les greniers se remplissent: Les bénéfices du partenariat entre la recherche agronomique, la vulgarisation agricole et des organisations paysannes au Mali

This publication is a collation and summary of the major achievements of the Agricultural Research Station of Cinzana (SRAC) and the Capacity Building for Sustainable Agriculture Project (PRECAD). Both projects, created in 1983 and 2006, respectively, have been developed through close collaboration between the Rural Economy Institute (IER) responsible for agricultural research in Mali and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), formerly the Ciba-Geigy Foundation. The publication covers the period from 1979 to 2009 and includes, where available, some key information for the year 2010. It is aimed at a wide audience and provides an overview of the work carried out in Mali by an agricultural research station and an extension project. It highlights the obstacles and opportunities encountered by the SRAC and PRECAD, as well as the successes and difficulties arising from their work.

Nursing the fatherland? Hohenzollern statebuilding and the hidden transcript of political resistance in Hanoverian female charity during the Second German Empire

In summer 1866 the Austro-Prussian struggle for supremacy in Germany erupted into open conflict. King Georg V of Hanover sided with other governments loyal to the German Confederation against Prussia, but after initially defeating Prussian forces at Langensalza, he was forced to capitulate. Two days after the battle, on June 29, 1866, the widow of the Hanoverian general Sir Georg Julius von Hartmann told her daughter in no uncertain terms how she felt about the Prussian government and its allies. In her opinion they were nothing more than “robber states” that cloaked their disregard for the Ten Commandments in sanctimonious public displays of piety. “These Protestant Jesuits,” she continued, “offend me more than the Catholic ones. You know that I am German with all my heart and love my Germany, but I cannot consider them genuine Germans anymore because they only want to make Germany Prussian.”

CAP Reform vs WTO: Crop Diversification or Crop Rotation? : Legal opinion prepared by Dr. Christian Häberli at the request of APRODEV, the Association of World Council of Churches related Development Organisations in Europe

The European Commission’s proposals for the Legislative Framework of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the period 2014-2020 include, inter alia, the introduction of a “strong greening component”. For the first time, all EU farmers in receipt of support are to “go beyond the requirements of cross compliance and deliver environmental and climate benefits as part of their everyday activities crop diversification as a contribution to all EU farmers in receipt of support go beyond the requirements of cross compliance and deliver environmental and climate benefits as part of their everyday activities.” In a legal opinion prepared at the request of APRODEV, the Association of World Council of Churches related Development Organisations in Europe (www.aprodev.eu), Christian Häberli examines the WTO implications of this proposal, as compared with an alternative proposal to rather link direct payments to crop rotation. The conclusions are twofold: 1. Crop rotation is at least as likely to be found Green Box-compatible as crop diversification. Moreover, it will be more difficult to argue that crop diversification is “not more than minimally production-distorting” because it entails for most farmers less cost and work. 2. Even if (either of the two cropping schemes) were to be found “amber”, the EU would not have to relinquish this conditionality. This is because the direct payments involved would in all likelihood not, together with the other price support instruments, exceed the amount available under the presently scheduled maximum.