Agriculture And The State

Farming for Our Future examines the policies and legal reforms necessary to accelerate the adoption of practices that can make agriculture in the United States climate-neutral or better. These proven practices will also make our food system more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Agriculture's contribution to climate change is substantial--much more so than official figures suggest--and we will not be able to achieve our overall mitigation goals unless agricultural emissions sharply decline. Fortunately, farms and ranches can be a major part of the climate solution, while protecting biodiversity, strengthening rural communities, and improving the lives of the workers who cultivate our crops and rear our animals. The importance of agricultural climate solutions can not be underestimated; it is a critical element both in ensuring our food security and limiting climate change. This book provides essential solutions to address the greatest crises of our time.

A dozen papers from an August 1989 international conference near Zurich explore the role of governments in improving the agriculture of developing countries, and how that affects overall industrial development. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture is FAO's first flagship publication on the global status of land and water resources. It is an 'advocacy' report, to be published every three to five years, and targeted at senior level decision makers in agriculture as well as in other sectors. SOLAW is aimed at sensitizing its target audience on the status of land resources at global and regional levels and FAO's viewpoint on appropriate recommendations for policy formulation. SOLAW focuses on these key dimensions of analysis: (i) quantity, quality of land and water resources, (ii) the rate of use and sustainable management of these resources in the context of relevant socio-economic driving factors and concerns, including food security and poverty, and climate change. This is the first time that a global, baseline status report on land and water resources has been made. It is based on several global spatial databases (e.g. land suitability for agriculture, land use and management, land and water degradation and depletion) for which FAO is the world-recognized data source. Topical and emerging issues on land and water are dealt with in an integrated rather than sectoral manner. The implications of the status and trends are used to advocate remedial interventions which are tailored to major farming systems within different geographic regions.

A long-dominant reading of American politics holds that public policy in the United States is easily captured by special interest groups. Countering this view, Adam Sheingate traces the development of government intervention in agriculture from its nineteenth-century origins to contemporary struggles over farm subsidies. His considered conclusion is that American institutions have not given agricultural interest groups any particular advantages in the policy process, in part because opposing lobbies also enjoy access to policymakers. In fact, the high degree of conflict and pluralism maintained by American institutions made possible substantial retrenchment of the agricultural welfare state during the 1980s and 1990s. In Japan and France--two countries with markedly different institutional characters than the United States--powerful agricultural interests and a historically close relationship between farmers, bureaucrats, and politicians continue to preclude a roll-back of farm subsidies. This well-crafted study not only puts a new spin on agricultural policy, but also makes a strong case for the broader claim that the relatively decentralized American political system is actually less prone to capture and rule by subgovernments than the more centralized political systems found in France and Japan. Sheingate's historical, comparative approach also demonstrates, in a widely useful way, how past institutional developments shape current policies and options.

"Explores the sustainability of American Agriculture, and possibilities for social, environmental, and economic change that practical, dialogic agriculture presents"--

This volume is the first ever English translation of Part III of von Thünen`s famous 'Isolated State'. It deals with the optimum rotation period of woods – a central problem of capital theory which has been studied by many famous economists. Thünen's early approach to the problem compares very well with most of the later attempts.

This year's special section (Part 3) entitled 'Economic impacts of transboundary plant pests and animal diseases'.