To contribute to contemporary rural development debates, the present thesis conducts a contextual analysis of rural development using Kenya as a case study from the colonial era to today. To perform the analysis, two critical trends in rural Africa are focused on: socioeconomic differentiation...

Rural development policy addresses the welfare of rural households and communities. With a majority of the world's poor located in rural areas, the resilience of rural poverty in industrialized countries, and a significant share of environmental degradation the byproduct of rural poverty, the...

Nucleus-outgrower schemes (NOSs) are supposed to be a particularly effective private-sector mechanism to support smallholder farmers and contribute towards mitigating the problematic aspects of pure large-scale agricultural investments. This discussion paper uses panel household survey data...

The paper discusses the decisions on the CAP in the context of the Berlin summit. In a rather broad perspective the agricultural sectoral and related objectives are analyzed for their consistency and compatability with higher ranking societal objectives. The policies' allocational and...

This study for DG Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) aims at measur-ing the administrative burdens for farmers arising from the 2003 Common Agricul-ture Policy (CAP) reform. The study provides an assessment of the administrative costs for selected CAP-related measures, especially the...

The introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in EU agriculture may have economic implications that result from incomplete segregation of GM and traditional crop production. In particular, the presence of GMOs could not be ruled out in non-GM agricultural products. Due to...

Globalization is not a purely contemporary phenomenon. According to Chanda (2007) it has “worked silently for millennia without being given a name.” Indeed, globalization processes are continuously evolving, driven by the economic aspirations of millions around the globe— the more people...

Climate change is already happening. Regardless of international progress to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, the climate system will continue to adjust for the next few decades to past and present emissions. This will bring unavoidable impacts on natural and...