Through investigating the reactions of commercial farmers to land and water reforms in the Trichardtsdal-Ofcolaco area, Limpopo Province, Olifants Basin, South Africa, from 1997 to 2006, it is shown that water claims are key to land redistribution processes, and that commercial farmers make strategic use of arguments for nature conservation and ecological stewardship to defend their claims to water.

The dominant corporate structure of South Africa's agro-food system has led many to suggest there is limited value in redistributing land as a scarce economic resource, or in providing support to black small-scale farmers when large agribusinesses are capable of meeting food needs. Agrarian reform (land reform plus black small-scale farmer support) is not a necessary component of the existing economic system in South Africa. Yet it has tremendous political importance, especially in the context of a stagnant or declining job market.

This study evaluates the socioeconomic impacts of the 1997 Brazilian Program of Land Solidarity Reform on two rural communities in Ceará Brazil. To accomplish this, we contrasted job and income data collected from 1996, before the Programs inception, with similar data from 1998 and 1999. We also calculated a Human Development Index (Índice de Desenvolvimento Humano--HDI) and a Life Condition Index (Índice de Condição de Vida - ICV) for the two communities for the period between July 1998 and June 1999. Primary data were gathered by a survey applied to the sample communities.

Current practices in intensive animal production increasingly raise questions with respect to animal ethics both among the public in Europe and in political circles. This paper integrates three areas of philosophical views in order to formulate a general ethical position with respect to animal husbandry. The first area regards the question to what type of beings animals are. Secondly, an evaluative model of agrarian practices is employed in order to obtain a better perception on the place of animals in animal husbandry.

The purpose of this article is to gain a perspective on the land reforms in the Central and Eastern European countries to show the extent to which the structure of agricultural production left by the socialist period has influenced the restructuring dynamics. In this context, the observed dual agricultural structure is seen as the result of a sticking point exacerbated by the agricultural transition’s land component.

National parks are often places where people have previously lived and worked-they have been formed by a combination of natural and human processes that embody an identifiable history of cultural and political values. Conservation of protected areas is primarily about how we perceive such landscapes, how we place differential values on different landscape components, and who gets to decide on these values. Thus, conservation has been and still is very much about issues of power and environmental justice.

Runoff in Haihe River Catchment of China is steadily declining due to climate change and human activity. Determining abrupt changes in runoff could enhance identification of the main driving factors for the sudden changes. In this study, the sequential Mann-Kendall test analysis is used to determine abrupt changes in runoff in eight sub-catchments of Haihe River Catchment, while trend analysis via the traditional Mann-Kendall test for the period 1960-1999 is used to identify the basic trend of precipitation and runoff.

John Steinbeck's 1939 novel can be given a reading that links events and the mentality of characters to mainstream schools of liberal and neo-liberal political theory: libertarianism, egalitarianism, and utilitarianism. Each of these schools is sketched in outline and applied to topics in rural political culture.

This essay employs contemporary peasant mobilizing discourses and practices to evaluate the terms in which we understand agrarian movements today, through an exercise of historical specification. First, it considers why the terms of the original agrarian question no longer apply to agrarian change today. The shift in the terms corresponds to the movement from the late-nineteenth century and twentieth century, when states were the organizing principle of political-economy, to the twenty-first century, when capital has become the organizing principle.

Objectives of this research were to determine the socio-economic condition, opinion level and factors related to opinions on the reform land use pattern of the villagers of Ruamthai Demonstration Cooperative Village, Kui Buri District, Prachuap Khiri Khan province. A designed questionnaire was used as a tool for gathering the data by interviewing 260 respondents from Ruam Thai village (Mue 7), Pu Bon village (Mue 8) and Yan Sue village (Mue 9).