Suchergebnisse

The article examines the effects of land reform on agricultural production and the income of rural households in Tajikistan. Official government statistics are used to analyze trends of agricultural output at the national level and the results of three extensive surveys conducted in 2007–2008 and in 2003 by international organizations identify household-level changes. The article also reviews the legislative framework for agrarian reform in the country; examines national-level trends in farm structure and organization, livestock production, farm productivity, and cropping patterns; and analyzes shifts in size of land holdings and rural family incomes at the household level.

The system of surveillance and control of food safety and animal and plant health is a vital building block of the single market in both the European Union (EU) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The free movement of goods (the first of the four fundamental freedoms of the EU and the EAEU) throughout the union depends on the proper functioning of a union-wide system of assessment and control of food safety and animal and plant health risks. Sanitary and phytosanitary measures taken in response to a food safety threat, while they are a necessary part of the system for food safety control, are barriers to the free movement of goods within the union. They can be avoided only by ensuring an effective system of preventative control. While food safety is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, it is important to recognize that it is also an indispensable "pillar" upon which the free movement of goods rests. [.] The present analysis of the "architecture" of food safety control systems in the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union is designed to assess the degree to which the present systems in the two unions can ensure effective food safety control, thus ensuring the free movement of goods within the single market. It is a comparative analysis of the EU and EAEU systems for ensuring food safety through sanitary and phytosanitary measures (Box 1). The analysis spans both central and country level institutions for ensuring food safety in the countries of these two economic unions. We first compare laws, institutions and the governance of food safety issues in the two unions at the supranational level. Second, we describe and compare the food safety systems at the country level in both unions. Last, we provide a synthetic conclusion that reports our findings about the key differences between food safety control in the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union. We conclude that there are cardinal differences between the food safety systems in the two unions both at the central and country levels. The overhaul of the EU food safety control system in the 2000s led to a significant transfer of decision making authority to EU institutions. Very little, if any, of the EU-type central edifice exists in the Eurasian Economic Union. In fact, despite the existence of the Eurasian Economic Commission, the Eurasian Economic Union operates an extremely decentralized system of food safety control. At the country level the roles and responsibilities of institutions, while relatively clear in the EU countries, are not well defined or well understood in the countries of the EAEU. There are also major differences in the accession process within the two unions. While in the EU this is a long and transformative process, it is more a political process in the EAEU. Finally, while the EU seems to have a relatively effective system of food safety control, we find that in the EU the lack of Union-wide rules concerning the system of national controls means that there is no guarantee of coherence or comprehensiveness.

AbstractChinese farmers are actively engaged in the economy of the Russian Far East. We used an econometric model to analyze panel data on the socioeconomic impact on local residents of Chinese farmers and workers in the Russian Far East (RFE). Proximity to Chinese farms and sales to Chinese retailers increases the well‐being, the farm income, and the food costs of Russian rural households. The same factors raise land prices through increased competition, reduce the wages of Russian workers and the number of family members working on Russian farms, increase the number of full‐time jobs for farm workers, lower yields of corn and wheat, and raise yields of potatoes and rice. Thus, the effects of the Chinese presence on rural Russian households varies with the makeup of the household, the amount of land it owns and leases, and the number of household members who work on other farms. Cooperation with Chinese farmers and retailers plays an important role in determining the ability of the rural areas of the RFE to develop sustainably.

Die russische Agrarreform schreitet schneller voran, als generell wahrgenommen wird. Wenngleich im institutionellen Bereich, beispielsweise bei der Privatisierung, bislang kaum Reformfortschritte zu verzeichnen sind, so hat der ökonomische Umstrukturierungsprozeß dennoch in größerem Maßstab bereits begonnen. Zwar erweckt die negative Entwicklung wichtiger ökonomischer Indikatoren auch bei westlichen Beobachtern den Eindruck eines allgemeinen Niedergangs der russischen Landwirtschaft. Diese Entwicklung stellt jedoch nach Meinung der Autoren einen notwendigen und integralen Bestandteil des Transformationsprozesses dar. (BIOst-Mrk)

Purpose
Quantifying the burden of war (BOW) beyond battle deaths is often impossible in ongoing conflicts. Consequently, indirect consequences of war can be overlooked in public BOW discussions. This paper aims to introduce a simulation model to estimate indirect child mortality attributable to war. Yemen was chosen as the example case because indirect child mortality from war likely outpaces direct casualties in the Yemen conflict.


Design/methodology/approach
A fixed effects panel regression was used to estimate elasticities between child mortality rate (CMR) (the rate of deaths among children under five years of age, per 1,000 live births) and two effects of war assumed to have the greatest explanatory power toward CMR: economic deterioration (measured by changes GDP per capita) and conflict magnitude (via the Major Episodes of Political Violence dataset). These elasticities were then used in a model to estimate the CMR in Yemen up to the year 2020.


Findings
Regression results suggest that Yemen's CMR increased by more than 50 per cent from 54.2 in 2010 to 83.9 in 2017. If this trend continues, the mean CMR will almost double from its 2010 value to 102.9 in 2020. By 2020, the model estimates cumulative child deaths at over 185,000.


Originality/value
Lack of information about the indirect consequences of war biases the tradeoff between humanitarian and military objectives toward the latter. This information asymmetry can prolong conflicts. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to more informed debate and humanitarian programming by making vital information accessible to the public and decision-makers.