坚持三个结合 做好新时期农村思想政治工作

党的十七届五中全会和中央经济会议把推进农业现代化作为"十二五"时期的一项重大任务,把解决好农业、农村、农民问题作为全党工作的重中之重。做好新时期农村思想政治工作也是解决好三农工作重要任务之一,思想政治工作,是我们党的优良传统。在新时期要使思想政治工作适应新形势、新任务的要求,必须在继承和发扬优良传统的基础上加以创新和改进,增强时代感,与时俱进。     

Contribution of agriculture in economic growth: A case study of West Bengal (India)

Economists have argued that role of agriculture is pivotal for economic development of the nation. Worldwide studies have shown that agriculture sector is more effective in reducing hunger and poverty than other sectors. This study is an attempt to ascertain the importance of agriculture in the economic growth of West Bengal. Agriculture, being the source of livelihood and supplier of raw material to various industries, triggers economic growth of the nation. This paper exhibits how agriculture has contributed to West Bengal's economic excellence using empirical data and a cointegration analysis. The role of agriculture is examined on four contributions: (a) product contribution (forward linkage), (b) market contribution (backward linkage), (c) factor contribution, and (d) foreign exchange contribution. The composition and growth of the sectors and its association with other sectors is analyzed using time series analysis. Findings of the study revealed that agriculture sector has appeared as an important contributor to drive West Bengal economic growth even after declining share in gross state domestic product over the years. Empirical analysis reveals that agriculture is having long run causal linkages with industry, services, and overall economic growth in West Bengal.     

Agricultural Retrenchment Revisited: Issue Definition and Venue Change in the United States and European Union

The case of agriculture in the United States and the European Union indicates that retrenchment opportunities wax and wane. In the first half of the 1990s, both the U.S. and the EU instituted significant farm policy reforms. But as the 1990s came to an end, subsidies in both countries increased as policymakers became less enthusiastic about reducing benefits for farmers. This variability highlights the shortcomings of current political science explanations of retrenchment: the literature has yet to explain why policy change occurs in some circumstances but not others. In this paper, I employ the concepts of issue definition and venue change in order to explain why the United States and the European Union fluctuate in their capacity to reduce farm subsidies. I argue that, in agriculture, retrenchment advocates must redefine the issue of subsidies in a manner that highlights the negative externalities associated with farm policy. Second, retrenchment advocates must also exploit opportunities for strategic venue change so that policy decisions in agriculture do not rest solely with those who benefit from the status quo. By adding the concepts of issue definition and venue change to studies of retrenchment, we gain a better understanding of the conditions that make policy change possible, as well as an account of the mechanism through which retrenchment takes place.     

Impact of COVID-19 on Bangladesh's agriculture sector and the ways forward to recovery: An overview

The COVID-19 outbreak has left an indelible effect on Bangladesh's agriculture sector, like that of most developing countries. Considering that agriculture is the cornerstone of Bangladesh's economy, we made an effort to compile a detailed scenario of COVID-19's effect on it through a relevant literature review. Since no significant studies outlined a complete picture of the pandemic's impact on agriculture, our study ventured to reveal the circumstances of each sub-sector of agriculture. During the early phases of the pandemic, farmers engaged in agriculture production got poor prices, with the majority of them incurring losses. Labor shortages and input scarcity were the most prevailing hindrances across all the sub-sectors. The export volume seemed to shrink hugely, hurting the country's GDP. The supply chain for agricultural commodities was disrupted as a result of the lockdown and mobility restrictions, which resulted in the elimination of the majority of intermediaries. Unprecedented challenges occurred in the input and output markets, as well as in the agro-industries, exacerbating the situation. However, while the vegetables and poultry sub-sectors recovered utterly and the dairy sub-sector somehow managed to stabilize, other sub-sectors are still grieving. This study highlighted some policies that can mitigate the miseries of the agriculture sector and overcome further potential threats in Bangladesh and other agriculture-led developing countries.     

对三农问题的几点思考

近些年来,三农问题已成为全党及全社会越来越关注的热点问题,三农问题关系国民经济的健康稳定发展和国家的长治久安,关系到我国现代化建设和全面小康的实现,三农问题不仅是一个重大的经济问题,也是一个重大的政治问题。从三农问题的突出表现以及形成的复杂原因进行分析,探讨解决三农问题的途径。     

Feeding finance: a critical account of the shifting relationships between finance,food and farming

Abstract

Whether in the form of commodity index funds, farmland investment funds or commodities trading by agri-food companies, there is evidence of an increasingly close relationship between finance, food and agriculture. While these developments have received some critical attention of late, existing accounts of the ‘financialization of food’ are limited to the extent that they view finance as an external force with emphasis placed on the unnaturalness of its relationship with agriculture and its distortive effects on agricultural markets. Recognizing that finance and agriculture have a long history, this paper offers a more nuanced account of the place of financialization in the agricultural sector. Specifically, it examines how agriculture's emergence as an investment opportunity has reconfigured the terrain of agricultural interests and logics while creating new knowledge demands and agricultural visibilities. These dynamics are explored through a case study of the role of finance and processes of financialization in the recent demise of the Canadian Wheat Board as a state marketing agency. Through this discussion, the paper offers valuable insights into not only the reworking of agriculture as a particular type of financial space, but also the nature and limits of financialization itself as a way of engaging with the world beyond urban financial centres.     

A review of literature on climate change and its impacts on agriculture productivity

This paper provides a comprehensive review of various reports, articles documents and papers literature related to the assessment of climate change impacts on crop productivity, and will focus on how climate change and affects agriculture productivity. Agricultural practice is affected by climate changes because of its direct dependence on climatic changes. There are two methods of relationships between agriculture and climate change and has huge significance especially for developing and underdeveloped or low‐income countries, who are largely dependent on agriculture for subsistence and their lack of infrastructure for adaptation as compared with developed countries. Geographically high‐latitude areas with already existence of low temperature, by virtue of increasing temperature due to climate changes, could allow for the longer growing season. Agricultural fields are affected by the emission of GHG such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. Gasses have an effect on climate through the discharge of greenhouse gasses. Emissions mostly come from the tillage practices, fossil fuels, fertilized agricultural soils, and farm animal's manure in a huge amount and affected the agriculture sector. On the contrary, agriculture could be a solution for climate change by reducing emission and implementation of mitigation and adaptation actions widely. It will happen with the assistance of best management practices such as agroforestry practice, organic farming, rainwater harvesting, irrigation planning, and manure management.     

论城郊农业向都市型农业转变

文章分析了城郊农业的现状与问题,提出都市型农业是城市化与可持续发展的必然选择,探讨了发展都市型农业的对策。     

Structural Adjustment and Political Adaptation: The Politics of Neoliberal Reform in Mexican Agriculture

Through a study of recent policy change in Mexico, this article shows that even a strong state, implementing a radical reform via purportedly neutral policy changes, inevitably must adapt to a context shaped by previous policy choices and outstanding political imperatives. In this case, the prior organization of commercial export growers in the fresh fruit and vegetable subsector, the strength of an independent peasant movement, and the state's long-term commitment to a rhetoric of development and social welfare significantly qualify the reform effort. In the export sector, Mexican production is largely shaped by the still powerful Confederation of Growers of Fruits and Vegetables. In regard to peasant agriculture, the government has had to make significant concessions to independent peasant organizations in an effort to regain political support. The neoliberal program has thus been qualified and to some extent reshaped by both immediate political considerations and the longer-term institutional and political structures of Mexican society. In this sense, economic forces remain "embedded" in prior social structures and political choices.     

Creating resilience or private sector dependence? Shifting constructions of the farmer in Australian policy discourses

The Australian Government’s Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper aims to create a profitable and resilient Australian agriculture sector. In doing so, the White Paper emphasises farmers’ individual responses to the structural problems which have undermined farmers’ profitability, such as consolidated commodities markets. In particular, the White Paper recommends that farmers shape their farming practice to make their farms more attractive to private investors. This is presented as a normal response to farm profitability concerns. Farms are portrayed as investment targets and securing investment is framed as an essential skill of the modern farmer. To understand how this discursive construction has been made possible, this article develops a genealogical analysis of changing constructions of farmers, farming and of the role of the State. This research reveals the subtle discursive shifts which have helped shift responsibility for farming, from the State, to the self-reliant individual, and most recently, towards the private sector. Whereas the construct of the self-reliant, independent farmer has been used to facilitate deregulation of agricultural industries, this recent shift in power towards the private sector may potentially undermine farmers’ autonomy and increase dependence on private sector investment.     

Development and legitimacy of Chinese informal finance

Abstract

Cambodia is facing the familiar problem of achieving sustained rates of economic growth that could help it alleviate widespread poverty. Against the background of some encouraging developments, and quite a few that are not equally reassuring, we argue that any push for development needs to consider both agriculture and industry. This is so as both labour absorption, primarily in secondary sector activities, and productivity growth in agriculture are necessary to lift large segments of the population out of the poverty associated with subsistence agriculture, landlessness and informal sector activities. Given that the major success story of the past decade – the garment and textile industry – is under threat, we conclude that Cambodia is yet to achieve an economic take-off.     

THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY AND WORLD FOOD TRADE

Despite i t s internal differences, the European Economic Community seems to be moving toward an established and permanent position as agricultural exporter. European nations have moved irreversibly from being an import market to bejng a self-sufficient and large-scale producer. An established and politically entrenched agriculture in the European Economic Community has widespread support and their general economic needs elevate agriculture to promirience in attacking trade deficits.     

Vladimir Iowa Lenin,Part 1: A Bolshevik Studies American Agriculture

A busy year for Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, 1917 also marked the publication of his study of American agriculture. The report reads as more than a historical curiosity, offering insights, however era-bounded, on a variety of topics of substantive and epistemological interest today. Lenin writes of the history of American agriculture, its dynamic regionalism, and its sector-specific class conflicts. Along the way, despite his obvious structural tendencies, we meet an anti-foundational author who, while upbraiding bourgeois economists for their expedient technicism, often in scathing terms, also warns that sweeping conclusions about the sizes of farm and capitalization are problematic in the face of historically dependent and contradictory trends. Here, in the first of the paper’s two parts, we begin to place Lenin’s project in the broader stream of critical agrarian studies, including the classic contrast with agricultural economist Alexander Chayanov, but also the diseconomies of modern agriculture, the biological limits on industrializing food production, and Stalin’s “dekulakization” campaign. Our aims here are more than academic. The exploration is framed by the roles the structure of agriculture and its impacts on its participants play in political change, from elections to revolution.     

Complexity, Coupling, and the Future of European Integration

Why is there more integration in some areas of the European Union than others? Analyzing the dynamics of the integration process at the “normal politics” level, I specify two conditions, complexity and coupling, that make integration in Europe more likely in specific policy domains. Integration is more likely under conditions of low complexity and tight coupling. Using these two hypotheses, I probe tendencies toward more integration in four areas: competition policy, social policy, agriculture, and foreign and security policy. Integration need not be just a matter of conscious design or bargain, but also the perhaps unintended consequence of interaction between the various actors at the EU level. I conclude that European integration is segmented and that a more integrated Europe is necessarily a more expensive Europe.     

La Grande Nation and Agriculture: The Power of French Farmers Demystified

France is considered a strong state, but French governments have always fiercely defended the interests of French farmers in European and global negotiations. Why would a ‘strong state’ be unable to resist farm lobby pressure? Is agriculture an exception to the French ‘strong state’ rule? This article offers a structural model of varying state sensitivity to interest group pressure, and argues that farm lobby pressure cannot fully explain French foreign policy on agriculture, as governments often go against farmers' preferences and as the level of pressure varies more than the continuity of governmental preferences. From an analysis of the negotiations on the CAP and the GATT in the 1960s and in the 1990s it emerges that ideational constraints played a major role in French obstinacy. The defence of French identity as La Grande Nation, necessitating a presence in world agricultural markets, and the defence of a strong Europe under French leadership as a counterweight to the United States, have guided French preferences without regard to the farmers' positions.     

Adapting Danish Interests to European Integration

When Denmark became a member of the European Community in 1973, political institutions as well as private business had to and did in fact make adaptations to the new and unaccustomed political environment. With the exception of the Common Market Committee of Folkelinget , however, the Danish polity did not change much with regard to the EC until the late 1980s when the Community gained new momentum. Now, traditionally corporatist patterns of decision-making are adapting to a European polity much more complex and pluralist by nature. Political and administrative institutions are developing new ways of influencing EC policies, though their lobbying activities still remain basically ad hoc and reactive. As to private interests, agriculture occupies a unique position with its long tradition of aggressive lobbying, while lobbying by manufacturing companies is still in the making. However, an overall weakening of national corporatist patterns of decision-making in response to the integration process, which one might perhaps have expected, has not taken place. Rather, we observe a strengthening. Thus, our case poses questions as to the relevance of existing corporatist notions for an understanding of the general nature of the policy-making process in the Community and the prospects for interest organizational centralization at the European level.     

Climate Change and its impacts on Indian agriculture: An Econometric analysis

This study assessed the climate change impacts on land productivity for major food and nonfood grain crops in India. We compiled data for 50 years (1967–2016) using 15 crops across India to estimate the variation of agriculture production for each crop by different variables such as temperature and rainfall estimation. Our results indicate that land productivity decreases with an increase in annual average temperature in most of the crops. The adverse impact of climate change on agricultural production indicates food security threat to small and marginal farming households and adversely affected due to climatic fluctuations. Results show that a rise in temperature would reduce agricultural productivity and assessed sensitivity of Indian agriculture to climate change.     

先行先试 促进闽台农业合作大有可为

福建与台湾一水之隔,独特的区位优势让闽台农业合作如火如荼发展。本文通过阐述闽台农业合作意义之所在,介绍闽台农业合作已取得的成效,从而进一步提出闽台农业先行先试,走向精深合作的几点看法。     

Sustainable intensification and ecosystem services: new directions in agricultural governance

Reconciling environmental objectives for land use with the need to produce more food is a prominent concern of scientific and policy discourses on sustainable agriculture. The idea of sustainable intensification has emerged as one prominent framing of this challenge. In this paper we elaborate this idea from an ecosystem services perspective to natural resource management, with particular reference to developments in the UK. The paper considers the general origins and attributes of the perspective and how the challenge of sustainable intensification would be conceptualized and approached through it. While efforts to link analysis of ecosystem services to policy development and delivery in the UK are revealed as consistent with prevailing, and often long standing, approaches to sustainable agriculture, the marketization of environmental assets is highlighted as a distinguishing feature of current policy applications. The character and limitations of this facet of the ecosystem services agenda are discussed. The need to animate ecological issues of sustainable intensification through frames of reference other than those of economic valuation is emphasized.     

THE INFORMATION AGE: IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. AGRICULTURE

The U.S. agricultural system is on the verge of a technological revolution that will involve biotechnology and computer-based information technology. As the U.S. economy is being transformed through the growing computerelectronics industry, agricultural applications of computer technology, which include the microcomputer and videotex information retrieval networks, are becoming established agricultural inputs. The emergence of agriculture into the Information Age promises to have significant impacts on the economic and social welfare of the farmer as well as rural banking and postal systems, and agrimarketing and agriinput firms. A development which will shape the impact of information technology is the growing trend toward privatizing information which could result in agricultural information being transformed into a purchased agricultural input. This promises to undermine many public agricultural service activities. The penetration of information technology in agriculture along with the privatization of agricultural information has the potential of accelerating the forces which are consolidating farms and changing the face of agriculture.