AgEcon Search: Research in Agricultural and Applied Economics collects, indexes, and electronically distributes full text copies of scholarly research in the broadly defined field of agricultural economics including sub disciplines such as agribusiness, food supply, natural resource economics, environmental economics, policy issues, agricultural trade, and economic development.
The majority of items in AgEcon Search are working papers, conference papers, and journal articles, although other types such as books chapters and government documents are included. AgEcon Search will serve as the permanent archive for this literature and encourages authors and organizations to use this electronic library as the storehouse for additional appropriate scholarly electronic works.
AgEcon Search is co-sponsored by the Department of Applied Economics and the University Libraries at University of Minnesota and the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
The site has received encouragement and financial support from:
Agricultural Economics Reference Organization
Agricultural and Applied Economics Association
European Association of Agricultural Economists
Farm Foundation
International Association of Agricultural Economists
USDA Economic Research Service
AgEcon Search is part of the University of Minnesota's Digital Conservancy, which provides stewardship, reliable long-term access, and broad dissemination of the digital scholarly and administrative works of the University of Minnesota faculty, departments, centers and offices.
Papers and articles downloaded from AgEcon Search may be used for non-commercial purposes and personal study only. No other use, including posting to another Internet site, is permitted without permission from the copyright owner, or as allowed under the provisions of Fair Use, U.S. Copyright Act, Title 17 U.S.C.
AgEcon Search does not hold the copyright to articles, working papers, conference papers, or other materials available in the database. Copyrights may be held by any of the following: individual authors, multiple authors, organizations, institutions, or publishers.
History
AgEcon Search began in 1995 as an experiment to see if it were possible to use the internet to archive, index and deliver on demand, full text working papers produced by university agricultural economics departments. The first papers were from agricultural economics departments at Minnesota and Wisconsin. These early papers predated the World Wide Web and were mounted on a GOPHER server in WordPerfect format. The project was (and still is) a cooperative project of the University of Minnesota Libraries, the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota and the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). The Farm Foundation and the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture provided financial support in the beginning of the project. Patricia Rodkewich and Louise Letnes managed AgEcon Search until Patricia's retirement in 2001, when Julie Kelly joined the AgEcon Search team. Erik Biever also served on the original AgEcon Search team, providing valued technical services and guidance. The members of the Agricultural Economics Reference Organization endorsed the efforts of AgEcon Search early on and have been instrumental in expanding the use of AgEcon Search in their respective institutions.
Since its inception AgEcon Search has operated as a distributed network, with each institution designating a member of their organization to submit papers on their behalf. With this model, costs for maintaining the system were kept low and institutions do not have to pay membership fees for participation. In the cases where an institution had no central person to act as the network member, a fee has been charged for AgEcon Search staff to submit papers. The first organization to choose this option was the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, which since 1997 has been contracting with AgEcon Search to post its annual conference papers.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 6 - 10 of 376Multifunctional land use: is it a key factor for rural development?
The sustainable development of rural areas nowadays faces the challenges of global changes. This paper aims to review the concept of land use and landscape multi-functionality in order to help adapting land and landscape use to the new social, economic and ecological demands. In this respect, the paper utilises the findings of a case study conducted in Bulgaria.The authors illustrate that multi-functionality as a qualitative characteristic combines economic with ecological principles in production and improves the end economic results in the given rural area.
The effects of biofuels policies on global commodity trade flows
Trade in ethanol is increasing, and raises the need for the classification of various biofuels within frameworks such as the WTO. With that being said, this paper wonders how do biofuels policies and programs fit within the WTO’s stated goals of liberalisation. In addition, it examines the effects of the rapid biofuels expansion on the prices of grains, and the effects triggered in the livestock industries. The paper indicates that the biofuels industry affects and is affected by government policies in countries around the globe.
Land Reform and Development: Evaluating South Africa’s Restitution and Redistribution Programmes
At the first conference on land redistribution in South Africa, held in Johannesburg in 1993, Cyril Ramaphosa, the then secretary general of the ANC, noted that South Africa is not unique in its unequal land distribution but rather in the policy measures that have led to this situation (ANC, 1993). In contrast to most other countries with unequal land distribution, South Africa has a history of specific racial policies with clear implications for land distribution and ownership.
Do farmers provide agri-environmental services efficiently? An economic analysis
Agricultural land use does not only concern farmers, but also has a large number of social and environmental effects. Consequently, it is to be assumed that farmers have to use financial resources as well as labour in order to provide these services. Using the nonparametric method of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), we calculated the economic as well as the ecological efficiencies of farms and examined whether farms are able to succeed in combining ecological and economic efficiency. In addition to this analysis, we studied the driving factors of the respective efficiencies.
Exploring natural resource management tradeoffs in an agricultural landscape - an application of the MOSAIC model.
We describe a landscape scale non-linear discrete choice spatial optimisation model for identifying cost-effective strategies for achieving environmental goals. Spatial heterogeneity and configuration issues such as fencing costs, patch sizes and network linkages are explicitly accounted for and quasi-optimal allocations are determined using simulated annealing. Applications of the model being developed with New South Wales Catchment Management Authorities are discussed.