Small farms,smaller plots: land size,fragmentation, and productivity in Ethiopia

African agriculture is often dominated by smallholder farms composed of multiple plots. In policy circles it is often assumed that fragmentation coupled with small farm size is an impediment to increasing yields and thus decreasing poverty and food insecurity. There also exists an influential literature that explores the inverse relationship between farm size and yield. While there are many studies internationally, few have been conducted in Africa. Using an Ethiopian national survey, we explore the relationship between yield, farm size and fragmentation. We find an inverse relationship between farm size and yield, and a positive association between yield and land fragmentation.     

Globalisation, Peasant Agriculture and Reconversion

Abstract — The agrarian issue in Chile is largely defined by the problematic impact, particularly on the peasantry, of the country's continuing integration into the world market. This paper focuses on the shift from a market-led to a state-mediated process of 'reconversion' of agriculture's pattern of production and land use. Although the 'Concertación' governments have designed specific and novel policies aimed at enhancing the productive and transformative capacity of peasant farmers these have not yet been able to reduce the widening technological and economic disparity between capitalist and peasant farming. Thus the future of the peasant economy is far from being assured in an increasingly globalised and competitive environment.     

我国农地产权分析及制度重构

我国农地产权制度由于产权界定不合理和农民土地产权的缺失,导致违法征地现象严重.土地交易成本昂贵,农民的合法权益得不到保护.文章引入产权理论,特别是从农地的使用权和处置权方面,论述了农地问题造成的原因,提出合理界定农地产权,建立允许农地承包经营权流转的机制,让农民分享产权增值的成果.     

博弈视角下农地流转与农民利益保障机制探析

农地流转制度在巩固存量利益的同时,也带来了可观的增量利益,各个利益主体为分配新增利益势必会展开激烈的竞争和角逐.运用博弈论系统分析利益主体之间的博弈关系,透视现实制度实行中其他利益主体对农民利益的侵害.在策略选择上从宏观、中观和微观角度着力构建三位一体利益保障机制,矫正农地流转利益博弈中的力量失衡状态,促使农民的存量利益能够得到对价支付,确保农民能够公平参与增量利益的分配.     

论农村妇女土地产权的安全性

安全地权由相对权利强度、权利持有持续时间和权利保证性几方面所决定。农民地权常常是不安全的,与农村男性相比,妇女地权更不安全。妇女的土地产权不安全体现在家庭继承、村集体分配和市场交易等三种获得土地途径中。妇女土地产权的安全性一般意义上取决于,在土地产权交易不发达的情况下土地资源位置的固定性和妇女的婚姻流动性、集体土地产权拥挤性与妇女群体的弱势地位、以及影响村社土地制度安排的宏观因素及村社集体特征。     

探索征地制度改革 确保农民合法权益

征地工作事关国家经济建设和农民切身利益。随着工业化和城市化进程的加快,大量土地被征用。目前土地还是农民生存保障之本,征地过程中如何确保农民合法权益已成为迫在眉睫的问题题。该文通过分析中国征地制度存住的问题,从保护失地农民权益的角度,提出了要严格规范土地征用、完善补偿机制及规范土地交易市场等建议。     

Resettling Refugees in Rural and Regional Australia: Learning from Recent Policy and Program Initiatives

Conscious policy and program support for the resettlement of refugees in regional and rural areas is a relatively recent trend in Australia. Resettlement is a complex process that hinges on the establishment of viable communities. This review suggests that its outcomes, especially for refugee communities, are potentially mixed. However, an appropriately resourced, well managed and well planned refugee resettlement program can potentially provide beneficial outcomes for refugees and host communities. This article draws on existing empirical data and contributions made at a VicHealth Roundtable in late 2007 to thematically explore the challenges facing rural and regional resettlement programs. Given that settlement is a dynamic process and the approaches to rural and regional settlement are evolving, this article provides 12 propositions for a more effective and integrated approach to policy and practice.     

农村社会保障面临的困境、挑战与对策

建立和完善农村社会保障体系,让农民能够得到比较可靠的社会基本保障,不仅是现实的农村经济和社会现状以及农村人口结构变化的需要,更是维护农村大局稳定和建设和谐社会的需要。我国农村传统的土地养老保障和家庭养老方式,已经不适应经济社会转型时期的农民需求,要积极探索和建立新型农村社会保障体系。     

Developing the meat grab

‘Meat grabbing’ describes actually existing land deals undertaken for industrial meat production, either directly in the form of animal housing and stocking (confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs), or indirectly in the form of monocrop grain and oilseed production for livestock feed. Meat grabbing is also a concept for analyzing the relationships between industrial meat regimes, food security politics and the global land rush, relationships which have not yet been sufficiently considered in research or in policy. Using China's reform-era meat revolution as an analytical case, this paper proposes meat grabbing as a concept with three broad goals: (1) to show how industrial meat complicates notions of food security and of food security land grabs, (2) to incorporate social inequalities and environmental injustices into the conceptualization and measurement of land deals and (3) to expand dispossession's domain to include relationships between people and agroecosystems. This is an initial exploration of the content and framing of meat grabs, intended to synthesize its core features and raise questions for further study.     

The peasants in turmoil: Khmer Rouge,state formation and the control of land in northwest Cambodia

Over the past 15 years, northwest Cambodia has seen dramatic agrarian expansion away from the central rice plain into the peripheral uplands fuelled by peasant in-migration. Against this background, we examine the nature of relations between the peasantry and the state. We first show the historical continuities of land control processes and how the use of violence in a post-conflict neoliberal context has legitimised ex-Khmer Rouge in controlling land distribution. Three case studies show the heterogeneity of local level sovereignties, which engage the peasants in different relations with authority. We examine how these processes result in the construction of different rural territories along the agricultural frontier and argue that, in this region of Cambodia, the struggles between Khmer Rouge and neoliberal modes of land control are central to state formation processes.