Download or read book The Intended and Unintended Effects of U S Agricultural and Biotechnology Policies written by Joshua S. Graff Zivin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using economic models and empirical analysis, this volume examines a wide range of agricultural and biofuel policy issues and their effects on American agricultural and related agrarian insurance markets. Beginning with a look at the distribution of funds by insurance programs—created to support farmers but often benefiting crop processors instead—the book then examines the demand for biofuel and the effects of biofuel policies on agricultural price uncertainty. Also discussed are genetically engineered crops, which are assuming an increasingly important role in arbitrating tensions between energy production, environmental protection, and the global food supply. Other contributions discuss the major effects of genetic engineering on worldwide food markets. By addressing some of the most challenging topics at the intersection of agriculture and biotechnology, this volume informs crucial debates.

Download or read book Agricultural Input Subsidies written by Ephraim Chirwa and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-09-26 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes forward our understanding of agricultural input subsidies in low income countries.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Economics written by Gail L. Cramer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 806 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook offers an up-to-date collection of research on agricultural economics. Drawing together scholarship from experts at the top of their profession and from around the world, this collection provides new insights into the area of agricultural economics. The Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Economics explores a broad variety of topics including welfare economics, econometrics, agribusiness, and consumer economics. This wide range reflects the way in which agricultural economics encompasses a large sector of any economy, and the chapters present both an introduction to the subjects as well as the methodology, statistical background, and operations research techniques needed to solve practical economic problems. In addition, food economics is given a special focus in the Handbook due to the recent emphasis on health and feeding the world population a quality diet. Furthermore, through examining these diverse topics, the authors seek to provide some indication of the direction of research in these areas and where future research endeavors may be productive. Acting as a comprehensive, up-to-date, and definitive work of reference, this Handbook will be of use to researchers, faculty, and graduate students looking to deepen their understanding of agricultural economics, agribusiness, and applied economics, and the interrelationship of those areas.

Download or read book A Big Fat Crisis written by Deborah Cohen and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2013-12-24 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Obesity is the public health crisis of the twenty-first century. Over 150 million Americans are overweight or obese, and across the globe an estimated 1.5 billion are affected. In A Big Fat Crisis, Dr. Deborah A. Cohen has created a major new work that will transform the conversation surrounding the modern weight crisis. Based on her own extensive research, as well as the latest insights from behavioral economics and cognitive science, Cohen reveals what drives the obesity epidemic and how we, as a nation, can overcome it. Cohen argues that the massive increase in obesity is the product of two forces. One is the immutable aspect of human nature, namely the fundamental limits of self-control and the unconscious ways we are hard-wired to eat. And second is the completely transformed modern food environment, including lower prices, larger portion sizes, and the outsized influence of food advertising. We live in a food swamp, where food is cheap, ubiquitous, and insidiously marketed. This, rather than the much-discussed "food deserts," is the source of the epidemic. The conventional wisdom is that overeating is the expression of individual weakness and a lack of self-control. But that would mean that people in this country had more willpower thirty years ago, when the rate of obesity was half of what it is today! The truth is that our capacity for self-control has not shrunk; instead, the changing conditions of our modern world have pushed our limits to such an extent that more and more of us are simply no longer up to the challenge. Ending this public health crisis will require solutions that transcend the advice found in diet books. Simply urging people to eat less sugar, salt, and fat has not worked. A Big Fat Crisis offers concrete recommendations and sweeping policy changes-including implementing smart and effective regulations and constructing a more balanced food environment-that represent nothing less than a blueprint for defeating the obesity epidemic once and for all.

Download or read book Reforming agricultural support for improved environmental outcomes written by Mamun, Abdullah and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2019-12-18 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural support has changed substantially in both rich and poor countries in recent years. In rich countries, there has been a strong move to decoupled subsidies and a fall in average rates of protection. In developing countries, market price support remains the dominant form of protection and average rates of support have risen—breaking the traditional pattern of taxing agriculture. Emissions from agriculture and land use change have contributed up to a third of total greenhouse gas emissions, with beef, milk and rice production accounting for more than 80 percent of agricultural emissions. Agricultural support was biased against emission-intensive goods until recent years and is now only slightly biased towards them. Although emission intensities are relatively higher in the developing countries, they have fallen far more rapidly in developing countries than in the rich countries in the past quarter-century, as agricultural productivity has grown in developing countries. Policy reform will be challenging given the strong political-economy support for the current structure of protection. Increasing investments in research and development to raise productivity and lower the emissions intensity of agricultural output would help agriculture and the environment.

Download or read book Land Justice Re imagining Land Food and the Commons written by Justine M. Williams and published by Food First Books. This book was released on 2017-06-22 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, the various strands of the food movement have made enormous strides in calling attention the many shortcomings and injustices of our food and agricultural system. Farmers, activists, scholars, and everyday citizens have also worked creatively to rebuild local food economies, advocate for food justice, and promote more sustainable, agroecological farming practices. However, the movement for fairer, healthier, and more autonomous food is continually blocked by one obstacle: land access. As long as land remains unaffordable and inaccessible to most people, we cannot truly transform the food system. The term land-grabbing is most commonly used to refer to the large-scale acquisition of agricultural land in Asian, African, or Latin American countries by foreign investors. However, land has and continues to be “grabbed” in North America, as well, through discrimination, real estate speculation, gentrification, financialization, extractive energy production, and tourism. This edited volume, with chapters from a wide range of activists and scholars, explores the history of land theft, dispossession, and consolidation in the United States. It also looks at alternative ways forward toward democratized, land justice, based on redistributive policies and cooperative ownership models. With prefaces from leaders in the food justice and family farming movements, the book opens with a look at the legacies of white-settler colonialism in the southwestern United States. From there, it moves into a collectively-authored section on Black Agrarianism, which details the long history of land dispossession among Black farmers in the southeastern US, as well as the creative acts of resistance they have used to acquire land and collectively farm it. The next section, on gender, explores structural and cultural discrimination against women landowners in the Midwest and also role of “womanism” in land-based struggles. Next, a section on the cross-border implications of land enclosures and consolidations includes a consideration of what land justice could mean for farm workers in the US, followed by an essay on the challenges facing young and aspiring farmers. Finally, the book explores the urban dimensions of land justice and their implications for locally-autonomous food systems, and lessons from previous struggles for democratized land access. Ultimately, the book makes the case that to move forward to a more equitable, just, sustainable, and sovereign agriculture system, the various strands of the food movement must come together for land justice.

Download or read book Concentration and Power in the Food System written by Philip H. Howard and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who controls what we eat? This book reveals how dominant corporations, from the supermarket to the seed industry, exert control over contemporary food systems. It analyzes the strategies these firms are using to reshape society in order to further increase their power, particularly in terms of their bearing upon the more vulnerable sections of society, such as recent immigrants, ethnic minorities and those of lower socioeconomic status. Yet this study also shows that these trends are not inevitable. Opposed by numerous efforts, from microbreweries to seed saving networks, it explores how opposition to this has encouraged even the most powerful firms to make small but positive changes. This revised edition has been updated to reflect recent developments in the food system, as well as the broad political economic forces that shape them. It also examines the rapidly changing technologies, such as Big Data and automation, which have the potential to reinforce, as well as to challenge, the power of the largest firms.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Land Economics written by Joshua M. Duke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-05 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Land use change is one of the most pervasive socioeconomic forces affecting ecological systems, economic systems, and human wellbeing. This Oxford Handbook draws on recent advances in several economic fields that investigate land use behavior, making this a must-read for those who want to understand the frontier of land economics.

Download or read book The Economics of Food Price Volatility written by Jean-Paul Chavas and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The conference was organized by the three editors of this book and took place on August 15-16, 2012 in Seattle."--Preface.

Download or read book Lectures In Production And Supply written by Barry Goodwin and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2024-09-20 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Production and supply analysis are core components of applied microeconomics. Taken together with considerations of demand and marketing, production and supply complete the nexus of what comprises modern applied economics.Lectures in Production and Supply presents the core components of modern theories of production and market conditions from the supply side. Analysis under conditions of perfect information is initially considered to demonstrate key concepts in production. The focus is on applied empirical models of production within an economic context. Production under conditions of uncertainty and risk aversion is then considered in a comprehensive manner. Mechanisms for the management of production risk, particularly to insurance, are then developed in detail.Household production is also a key consideration in production analysis. Most purchased goods undergo additional production at the household level prior to consumption and this production complicates the analysis of market relationships. The demand for leisure and the concomitant supply of labor and allocation of time are key considerations in household models.Finally, the multitude of policies that impact market relationships are important to any analytical consideration of market relationships. A particular focus is given to agricultural policies and related markets. The coupling of support mechanisms to production decisions is a key consideration in any policy deliberation. Hence, these mechanisms are given careful consideration within the context of policy analysis.

Download or read book Rural Wealth Creation written by John L. Pender and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-05 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the role of wealth in achieving sustainable rural economic development. The authors define wealth as all assets net of liabilities that can contribute to well-being, and they provide examples of many forms of capital – physical, financial, human, natural, social, and others. They propose a conceptual framework for rural wealth creation that considers how multiple forms of wealth provide opportunities for rural development, and how development strategies affect the dynamics of wealth. They also provide a new accounting framework for measuring wealth stocks and flows. These conceptual frameworks are employed in case study chapters on measuring rural wealth and on rural wealth creation strategies. Rural Wealth Creation makes numerous contributions to research on sustainable rural development. Important distinctions are drawn to help guide wealth measurement, such as the difference between the wealth located within a region and the wealth owned by residents of a region, and privately owned versus publicly owned wealth. Case study chapters illustrate these distinctions and demonstrate how different forms of wealth can be measured. Several key hypotheses are proposed about the process of rural wealth creation, and these are investigated by case study chapters assessing common rural development strategies, such as promoting rural energy industries and amenity-based development. Based on these case studies, a typology of rural wealth creation strategies is proposed and an approach to mapping the potential of such strategies in different contexts is demonstrated. This book will be relevant to students, researchers, and policy makers looking at rural community development, sustainable economic development, and wealth measurement.

Download or read book WRONG written by Richard S. Grossman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, the world has been rocked by major economic crises, most notably the devastating collapse of Lehman Brothers, the largest bankruptcy in American history, which triggered the breathtakingly destructive sub-prime disaster. What sparks these vast economic calamities? Why do our economic policy makers fail to protect us from such upheavals? In Wrong, economist Richard Grossman addresses such questions, shining a light on the poor thinking behind nine of the worst economic policy mistakes of the past 200 years, missteps whose outcomes ranged from appalling to tragic. Grossman tells the story behind each misconceived economic move, explaining why the policy was adopted, how it was implemented, and its short- and long-term consequences. In each case, he shows that the main culprits were policy makers who were guided by ideology rather than economics. For instance, Wrong looks at how America's unfounded fear of a centralized monetary authority caused them to reject two central banks, condemning the nation to wave after wave of financial panics. He describes how Britain's blind commitment to free markets, rather than to assisting the starving in Ireland, led to one of the nineteenth century's worst humanitarian tragedies- the Irish famine. And he shows how Britain's reestablishment of the gold standard after World War I, fuelled largely by a desire to recapture its pre-war dominance, helped to turn what would otherwise have been a normal recession into the Great Depression. Grossman also explores the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, Japan's lost decade of the 1990s, the American subprime crisis, and the present European sovereign debt crisis. Economic policy should be based on cold, hard economic analysis, Grossman concludes, not on an unquestioning commitment to a particular ideology. Wrong shows what happens when this sensible advice is ignored.

Download or read book The Rice Economy of Asia written by Randolph Barker and published by Int. Rice Res. Inst.. This book was released on 1985 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this book is to present a comprehensive picture of the role of rice in the food and agricultural sectors of Asian nations.

Download or read book Agriculture Investment Sourcebook written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005-04-08 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investing to promote agricultural growth and poverty reduction is a central pillar of the World Bank's current rural strategy, 'Reaching the Rural Poor' (2003). This 'Sourcebook' addresses how to implement the rural strategy, by sharing information on investment options and identifying innovative approaches that will aid the design of future lending programs for agriculture. It provides generic good practices and many examples that demonstrate investment in agriculture can provide rewarding and sustainable returns to development efforts. It is divided into eleven self-contained modules. Each module contains three different types of subunits that can also be stand-alone documents: I. Module Overview II. Agricultural Investment Notes III. Innovative Activity Profiles. The stand-alone nature of the subunits allows flexibility and adaptability of the material. Selected readings and web links are also provided for readers who seek more in-depth information. The 'Sourcebook' draws on a wide range of experiences from donor agencies, governments, institutions, and other groups active in agricultural development. It is an invaluable reference tool for policy makers, professionals, academics and students, and anyone with an interest in agricultural investments.

Download or read book Agricultural Finance Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty in the Americas written by Avery Cohn and published by IIED. This book was released on 2006 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Agricultural Development and Economic Transformation written by John W. Mellor and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role of agriculture in the economic transformation of developing low- and middle-income countries and explores means for accelerating agricultural growth and poverty reduction. In this volume, Mellor measures by household class the employment impact of alternative agricultural growth rates and land tenure systems, and impact on cereal consumption and food security. The book provides detailed analysis of each element of agricultural modernization, emphasizing the central role of government in accelerated growth in private sector dominated agriculture. The book differs from the bulk of current conventional wisdom in its placement of the non-poor small commercial farmer at the center of growth, and explains how growth translates into poverty reduction. This new book is a follow up to Mellor’s classic, prize-winning text, The Economics of Agricultural Development. Listed as a Best Books of 2017: Economics by Financial Times.