This study investigates the effect of community factors on the development and diversification of rural Japan. Diversification is a matter of concern in rural communities as a means of revitalizing regional socio-economies. To establish new diversified activities, cooperation between rural...

The research objective is to shed light on the structural adjustment process of farming enterprises in Switzerland. To this end, an analytical tool is developed which allows us to identify the most important influencing factors and to estimate in advance their effects on the structural...

This paper describes a methodology to assess the impact of the decoupling of payments on Irish farms at a regional level. The methodology is based on a farm level dynamic linear programming model which optimises regional gross margin under a set of constraints. Regionally representative farms...

Drought is a recurring reality in many parts of the Sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture continues to be a major sector of most economies, and being predominantly rain-fed, is highly prone to drought. Drought thus gives challenges to economic management at all levels, from households, to...

The consideration of environmental matters in trade liberalization agreements has become an issue since they were included in NAFTA and recognized Uruguay round agreement that created the WTO. Many WTO members, especially the less developed countries, remain opposed to including environmental...

More than one billion adults are overweight worldwide, and more than 300 million of them clinically obese, raising the risk of many serious diseases. Only 3.6 percent of Japanese have a body mass index (BMI) over 30, which is the international standard for obesity, whereas 32.0 percent of...

With changes in the consumption pattern of meat, increases in urban population and underdeveloped distribution system after the collapse of the planned economy, there are increasing problems in meat supply and distribution in Mongolia, particularly in the capital city Ulaanbaatar. This paper...

Moral hazard is widely reported as a problem in credit and insurance markets, mainly arising from information asymmetry. Although theorists have attempted to explain the success of Joint Liability Lending (JLL) schemes in mitigating moral hazard, empirical studies are rare. This paper...

Farm-level analysis of trade-offs between soil fertility management alternatives is required to improve understanding of complex biophysical and socio-economic factors influencing decision making in smallholder farming systems and to identify opportunities for improving resource use efficiency....