In this article, we analyze the impact of land fragmentation, farm size, land ownership and crop diversity on farm profit and efficiency of 90 groundwater irrigated farms in the hard rock areas of South India. As we hypothesize that these variables may impact both, farm profit and efficiency in alternative ways, we develop four different stochastic frontier and inefficiency effect models by shifting some of these variables from the inefficiency model into the profit function.

The unequal distribution of agricultural land is often cited as a source of inefficiency in agriculture. Previous cross-country studies of agricultural productivity differences, though, have not considered land inequality. This article addresses this issue by using cross-country data on inequality in operational holdings of agricultural land from Deininger and Squire (1998) . In an estimation of an agricultural production function, the Gini coefficient for land holdings is found to have a significant negative relationship with productivity.

Part of the abandoned cropland in Mediterranean landscapes is being subjected to afforestation dominated by pines. Here we simultaneously evaluate the effect of three categories of factors as predictors of the interspecific variation in bird habitat occupancy of fragmented afforestations, namely regional distribution, habitat preferences, and life-history traits of species. We use the “natural experiment” that highly fragmented pine plantations of central Spain represent due to the prevailing pattern of land ownership of small properties.

The common use of pesticide is a major challenge in trying to accomplish sustainable agriculture. Farming systems based on integrated pest management (IPM) technologies can reduce the use of pesticides to a great extent without causing harm to the yield. Therefore, Bangladesh, like many developing countries, launched IPM technologies to reduce the adverse effects of pesticides in social, economic and environmental aspects. This study made an attempt to analyze the level of IPM adoption and the intensity of IPM practices by vegetable farmers of Narsingdi district, Bangladesh.

Substantial differences in the size of landholdings among cocoa farmers in the Western Region – the last cocoa “frontier” in Ghana – are primarily a result of inheritance practices and the purchase of vast tracts of land by migrants in the initial period of the cocoa boom. Individual accumulation of land over the last decade has mainly taken place via inheritance (among indigenous farmers) without takeovers of land and dispossession of small-scale farmers outside the extended family. Land accumulation among migrant farmers is rare beyond the initial acquisition.

Restoring altered forest landscapes toward their ranges of natural variability (RNV) may enhance ecosystem sustainability and resiliency, but such efforts can be hampered by complex land ownership and management patterns.

This paper discusses the role of energy provision in influencing the social aspirations of people living in slums. We examine factors that influence the shift in aspirations in five slum settlements using data from 500 interviews conducted in serviced and non-serviced slums from the state of Gujarat in India. The non-serviced slums did not have access to basic services namely water, sanitation, energy, roads, solid waste and rainwater management.

Társadalmunk gazdasági fejlődése a természeti erőforrások használatára épül. A földtulajdon és a földhasználati rendszer hatékonysága hazánkban és az EU-ban is a figyelem középpontjában áll. A birtokstruktúra és a földhasználat döntően befolyásolják a gazdálkodás eredményességét. A Kormány a Nemzeti Földalap létrehozásával gátat kíván szabni a földspekulációnak. Vidéken a föld racionális használata megkerülhetetlen. A kritikus gazdasági helyzetű térségekben a mezőgazdasági tevékenység – mint a megélhetés egyetlen forrása – felértékelődik.

This article discusses some emerging models of Indigenous engagement in environmental management in New South Wales and urges expansion of such engagement. NSW Aboriginal people own only around one per cent of the state's land, which suggests that land ownership and rights-based approaches to Aboriginal participation in environmental management are insufficient in NSW. Alternative approaches that recognise Aboriginal responsibilities to ‘care for country’ are needed.

Surveying end-users about their use of technologies and preferences provides information for researchers and educators to develop relevant research and educational programs. A mail survey was sent to Corn Belt farmers during 2006 to quantify cover crop management and preferences. Results indicated that the dominant cereal cover crops in Indiana and Illinois are winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and cereal rye (Secale cereale L.), cereal rye and oat (Avena sativa L.) in Iowa, and oat in Minnesota.