This paper deals with the social implications of ethanol expansion in Brazil. The evolution of the labor market in sugar cane production in the country is analyzed together with its regional patterns of expansion, to illustrate how the changes in the recent expansion are modifying the...

Roughly 4.9% of the German utilized agricultural area is located on organic soils (fens and bogs). Nevertheless, the drainage of these areas in order to allow their agricultural utilization causes roughly a third of the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of the German agricultural sector, being...

Using linear programming data envelope analysis (DEA) I studied the impact that high temperatures have over the agricultural performance of counties in Nebraska. I have found that the incidence of high temperatures is no uniform for all the counties. There is an important negative incidence of...

Many national governments around the world applied export restrictions for achieving domestic market stabilization during the 2007/8 world food price crisis. However, current literature says little about how these export restrictions interact with existing domestic support measures in jointly...

Globally, land use changes and deforestation contribute with around 20% of the green house gases emissions. Payments for Environmental Services (PES) schemes constitute a way to cope with these problems and promote the conservation of natural resources using market-based incentives. Through...

Crop residue use for soil mulch and animal feed are the two major competing purposes and the basic source of fundamental challenge in conservation agriculture (CA) where residue retention on farm plots is one of the three CA principles. Using survey data from Kenya and applying bivariate ordered...

This paper analyses the complex battle between RED and REDD policies and the resulting global consequences on land use, agricultural production, international trade flows and world food prices. A key methodological challenge is the representation of land use and the possibility to convert...

The Brazilian government has announced volunteer targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during the 2009 COP meeting in Copenhagen. In this paper we estimate the economic impacts from alternative policies to achieve such targets, including actions to cut emissions from deforestation and...

The Kyoto protocol and the EU Directive 2009/28/EC focus their attention on the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. The use of biofuels in the transport sector is one of the main measures proposed. This paper evaluates the environmental impact, in terms of GHG emissions, of the...