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Following in the footsteps of local-to-global advocacy led by international agrarian movements, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) marks significant departures from the established human rights canon. This chapter discusses the right to land, which features prominently in the Declaration and was a major concern in the advocacy that led to its adoption. The right to land correlates with the important place of land in supporting rural livelihoods and, more generally, in constituting agriculture and food systems. The close relation between land and human rights has long been recognised, but it has often been mediated by the ways in which land sustains food, housing or the foundations of culture. The right to land, instead, establishes a more direct relationship, affirming peasants’ connection to land as a defining feature of their identity; defending this bond in the face of encroachment and dispossession; and fulfilling it by providing the normative basis for redistributive reforms inspired by principles of social justice. The central role of agrarian movements in shaping the right to land provides insights for wider struggles to rethink human rights from the bottom up. The normative configuration of that right has far-reaching implications for reforming national policies, laws and institutions and for reconsidering the theory and practice of human rights.

A notable aspect of Africa’s struggle with its colonial legacies is the co-existence of indigenous laws that emerged in agrarian settings with state laws that emerged in industrial settings. Given the dissonance in their origins, clashes frequently occur between traditionalists and change agents, especially over the property and succession rights of women, girls, and younger male children. Spurred by the judicial handling of these clashes, scholars categorise African customary laws into ‘official’ and ‘living’ versions. However, this categorisation does not account properly for the influence of globalisation on the normative behaviour of Africans. Based on multi-country field research, this article introduces adaptive legal pluralism as the framework for managing the co-existence of indigenous laws and state laws in sub-Saharan Africa. By explaining the influence of globalisation on the behaviour of people subject to indigenous laws, the article draws attention to the imitative character of normative interaction in this region. It presents adaptive legal pluralism as not only a crystal bowl for charting the future of indigenous family laws, but also the theoretical pathway to integrated state and indigenous laws.

Around 10000 years ago, the proto-agricultural practices of our intelligent ancestors developed into the primary fixed agrarian settlements. The planning of labor changed radically at this time. Labor on the land became organized around collective tasks linked with the cycles of the seasons — agriculture and animal husbandry — and around tasks related to the establishment, maintenance, and growth of fixed settlements. However, it's within the nineteenth century within the ranks of the military first, and therefore the offices needed to manage large empires and kingdoms, that a replacement concept starts appearing on the scene. It’s challenging to search out a precise moment when Work became a job. Change is the only constant. The identical thing is applicable to jobs, especially within the coming years. Over centuries, immeasurable job opportunities have inherent existence and countless jobs have faded into nothingness. In 2020, pandemic -Millions of people across the world have suffered and their jobs have been taken away. And now, everyone seems to be worried about the long run, especially the upcoming generation. The pandemic has changed the face of schools, colleges, institutions, the employment sector, restaurants, and other businesses. Many more business in the list which has shut down completely, most popular jobs have become redundant, and what not! Technology and intelligence have become more focused. In this light, new career opportunities are supposed to rise in the future. In this article, I will speak about the seven most profitable jobs in 2022. Be careful of them so you will be able to earn more money than you have ever imagined.

Russian Abstract:В исследовании изучаются изменения в увеличении производства продукции растениеводства в регионах России и экологические последствия в виде увеличения эмиссий парниковых газов (ПГ). English Abstract: The study examines the changes in the increase in crop production in the regions of Russia and the environmental consequences in the form of increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery (MAFF) in Japan launched direct payment for hilly and mountainous areas considered as less-favored areas in 2000 with aim of preventing further farmland abandonment in the areas, compensating the farmers working in such disadvantaged regions for their costly production, and enhance agricultural multi-functionality through community cooperation. This review examines the effect of direct payments on continuous land use, prevention of farmland, agrarian structural change, environmental dimension, and income inequality through both quantitative and qualitative methods. Also, I connected the empirical results to theoretical economics using simple profit functions.

The rise of agricultural global value chains (AGVCs) has transformed the nature of food production around the world. This paper provides evidence on the job creation effects in response to the expansion of AGVCs in agrarian economies. By using a constructed panel data set of 155 countries for the period 1991-2015, we find that a greater AGVC participation is associated with an increase in agricultural employment growth. We uncover evidence that the positive job creation impact is mainly driven by the processed food sector downstream of global value chains (GVCs) rather than the raw commodity sector upstream of GVCs. We find substantial heterogeneity of impacts that are more pronounced in lower-middle and high-income countries than in low-income countries.

The importance of “good governance” for achieving agrarian sustainability has been increasingly studied in the last two decades. What has been a recent development is the inclusion of governance into (agrarian) sustainability as a new “fourth” pillar. Still there is no consensus on: what is governance sustainability; how to measure governance sustainability; how to integrate governance into the overall sustainability; what are critical factors determining sustainability levels, etc. The goal of this article is to present a holistic framework for defining and assessing the governance sustainability in agriculture and assess the level of governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture at national, sub-sectoral, regional, ecosystem, and farming organization levels. The study has demonstrated that it is possible and important to assess the “missing” Governance Pillar of agrarian sustainability. Governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture is at a good but close to the inferior level. There is a considerable variation in the level of governance sustainability and application of the principles for good governance in different subsectors, agro-ecosystems, administrative regions, and types of farming organizations. At the current stage, most critical for improving the governance sustainability are progressive changes in: farmers' participation in decision-making, agrarian administration efficiency, administrative services digitalization, the possibility for lands extension, management board external control, level of informal system efficiency, subsidies in income, the extent of CAP implementation, acceptability of legal payments, and land concentration. Suggested and other similar frameworks have to be further discussed, tested, improved and adapted to the specific conditions of agricultural systems and the needs of decision-makers. Accuracy has to be improved through the inclusion of appropriate indicators, improvement of precision of the information, increasing representation of surveyed farms, and experimenting with diverse types of agro-systems.

The paper discusses about the inter-state circular migration and emerging issues during the pandemic. The circular migrants are worst hit population for COVID-19. Seize of economic activities due to prolong lockdown made these migrants jobless and forced to lead a life in anxiety and distress. Their temporary relocation to the urban areas made them vulnerable in accessing the health services as well as deprived them from social security schemes during the period. The feeling of insecurity made them panic and induced for return journey to their native villages by any means. Managing the returnee migrants in terms of health, safety and livelihood emerged as a challenge for the receiving governments. But the most crucial issue is to absorb a huge influx in already saturated agrarian set-up. MGNREGS is identified as one strategy for ensuring the employment of returnee migrants but it may not solve the problem. On the other hand withdrawals of workers in the destination states may also impact the production cycle of different micro-and macro industrial set-ups. By and large pandemics are socio-political issues which need response from all stake holders. Therefore, suggestions are made that when designing the road map the government needs to adopt a transformative approach for tapping of the human capital taking community as foundation. Preparedness and response architecture with multi-stage strategic planning is required in a shrinking economic condition to balance with the national interest and humanitarian responsibility.

Jammu & Kashmir is an agrarian state, nearly about 65% of its population directly or indirectly depends upon agriculture and more than 70% people lives in rural areas, being an agrarian state, it cannot provide food grains to whole of its population. The climatic conditions of state are not favourable and mostly depend upon rainfall. There are various challenges and issues in agriculture production, productivity, climatic conditions, hilly region, lack of rural transport, infrastructure and marketing facilities. The objective of paper is to emphasis on challenges in agriculture in Jammu & Kashmir state. The nature of the paper is theoretical in nature and based on secondary data, the finding of paper shows that in Jammu & Kashmir agriculture is still narrow, backward and less productive.

Property law’s roots are rural. America pursued an early agrarian vision that understood real property rights as instrumental to achieving a country of free, engaged citizens who cared for their communities and stewarded their physical place in it. But we have drifted far from this ideal. Today, American agriculture is industrialized, and rural communities are in decline. The fee simple ownership form has failed every agrarian objective but one: the maintenance of white landownership. For it was also embedded in the original American experiment that land ownership would be racialized for the benefit of its white citizens, through acts of colonialism, slavery, and explicit race-based exclusion in property law. Today, rather than undoing this racialized legacy, modern property rules only further concentrate and homogenize rural landownership. Agricultural landownership remains almost entirely— 98 percent—white. This is a critical racial justice issue that converges directly with our impending environmental crisis and the decline of rural communities more generally. This Article builds on work of rural sociologists and farm advocates who demonstrate, again and again, that despite a pervasive narrative of rural places dying for want of population and agricultural systems too far gone for reform, the reality is a crowd of emerging farmers—and farmers of color in particular— clamoring for access. Existing policy efforts to support beginning farmers have focused primarily on supporting a few private land transactions within existing systems. This Article brings property theory to the table for the first time, arguing that property law itself is not only responsible for the original racialized distributions of agricultural land but also actively perpetuates both ongoing racialized disparities and the currently industrialized and depopulated rural landscape. This Article deconstructs our most fundamental land-tenure choice—the fee simple itself—and calls on our collective legal imagination to develop more adaptive, inclusive, and dynamic land-tenure designs rooted in these otherwise overlooked rural places.

Russian Abstract: Цель работы – обозначить основные российские и зарубежные альтернативные направления сельского развития в XX веке, связанные с трансформацией таких его базисных элементов, как крупное (корпоративное/коллективное) и мелкое (семейное) аграрное производство, сельскохозяйственная и несельскохозяйственная деятельность на сельских территориях, государственные и самоуправленческие органы власти на сельских территориях, а также долговременные демографические и социально-экономические показатели сельского развития. Необходимость ретроспективного и футурологического изучения взаимодействия социально-экономических институтов сельского развития обусловлена, во-первых, проблемами многополярной сельской дифференциации, которая характерна сегодня для всех стран БРИКС в большей или меньшей степени; во-вторых, очевидными стратегическими и взаимосвязанными направлениями аграрной политики стран БРИКС. English Abstract: The research aims at identifying the key Russian and foreign alternative directions of rural development in the 20th century related to the transformation of its basic elements such as large (corporate/collective) and small (family) agricultural production, agricultural and non-agricultural activities in rural areas, state administration and self-government in rural areas, and long-term demographic and social-economic trends of rural development. The retrospective and futurological study of the interaction of social-economic institutions of rural development allows, first, to reveal the challenges of multipolar rural differentiation typical for all BRICS countries to a greater or lesser extent; second, to identify the obvious strategic and interconnected directions of the agrarian policies of the BRICS countries.

Today is the world of technology and social media plays a very important role in developing the rural area of our country. Media is undoubtedly very vast and powerful mode of communication. Social media plays a key role in the development of the rural youth in India. Rural areas are the most important part of India whose 70 percent of the population lives in villages. “The true India is to be found not in its few cities, but in its seven hundred thousand villages. If the villages perish, India will perish too.” -M.K.Gandhi. Social Media refers to the web-based tolls and media that allow users to personally and informally interact, create, share, retrieve and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media includes social networking sites, blogs, micro-blogs, online forums, discussion boards and groups, Wikipedia, socially integrated text messaging. The youth are not matured enough to differentiate between fantasy and real life. Apart from this, over utilization of social media decreases the amount of time available for pursuing other activities which are useful for their physical and mental health and spending time with their family members. The revolution of communication in India over the last decade is astonishing. Technology has been growing at a rapid rate to accommodate the needs and desires of people in obtaining a simpler and more efficient lifestyle. One of the greatest technologies to hit this 21st century is the cellphone. At present, India is moving from an agrarian based economy to service-based economy. Consequently, the youth of India has turned tech savvy with the new electronic media channels, eg., radio, satellites, television channels, mobile phones, laptops and computers with mobile internet. This has proved to be a powerful force in the social transformation of urban as well as rural youth of India. The present electronic era has both its pros and cons. The electronic era not only provided better, faster and improved working ability of young people but also an emergence and new form of disorder in Indian youth. Since the last decade, the over utilization of social media is an ongoing activity which is increasing at an alarming rate and leading to addiction form among the Indian youth which is a serious concern. Problems arising from over utilization of social media have been documented worldwide including in India, where the use of social media has increased noticeably. Social media refers to websites and applications that are designed to allow people to share content quickly, efficiently and in real time. Social media are interactive computer mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interest and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. The variety of stand-alone and built in social media services currently available introduces challenges of definitions. The definition of social media has changed over a period of time, has been broadened and explained by many scholars through various perspectives. There is no precise definition of social media, however, speaking on a majority scale, believe that social media network is linked heavily with social networking sites, micro-blogging, various internet forums etc.

Countries, developing as well as developed are emphasising environment sustainability of agricultural production, methods and practices. The traditional wisdom of farmers on indigenous agrarian practices increasingly being called into question owing to a host of factors. This paper tries to examine the impact of financial services especially institutional credit on the organic farming practices of tribes in Kerala. It uses primary data of 384 respondents from Kuruchya tribes in Wayanad district of Kerala. It found that the extension of formal credit is one of the chief determinants of organic farming. We observed that, majority of tribes, who have access to formal credit continue their traditional or organic farming practices. The tribes being dependent on informal/non institutional credit are mostly practicing inorganic farming methods. The determinants and predictors of organic farming differ from those of inorganic farming. In our country a large number of institutions and agencies are constituted to strengthen the credit delivery system, especially in the rural areas, but still they are not germane to meet the variety of financial needs of rural agriculture sector. This study therefore contains findings which will be helpful in formulating financial inclusion policies with more stress on credit delivery system to foster organic farming practices in rural India.

A need to include “the fourth” Governance pillar in the concept for understanding and the assessment system of (overall and) agrarian sustainability is increasingly justified in academic literature and finds a place in the frameworks of government, international, private, etc. organizations In Bulgaria, like in many other countries, practically there are no comprehensive assessments of the governance sustainability of agriculture and its importance for the overall agrarian development. This study tries to fill the gap and suggests a holistic framework for understanding and assessing the governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture. The newly elaborated approach is “tested” in a large-scale study for assessing the governance sustainability of the country’s agriculture at national, sectoral, regional, eco-system and farm levels. The study has proved that it is important to include the “missing” Governance Pillar in the assessment of the Integral sustainability of agriculture and sustainability of agro-systems of various types. Multiple Principles, Criteria and Indicators assessment of the Governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture indicates that the Overall Governance Sustainability is at a “Good” but very close to the “Satisfactory” level. Besides, there is considerable differentiation in the level of Integral Governance sustainability of different agro-systems in the country. What is more, the individual indicators with the highest and lowest sustainability values determine the “critical” factors enhancing and deterring the particular and integral Governance sustainability of evaluated agro-system. Last but not least important, results on the integral agrarian sustainability assessment based on micro (farm) and macro (statistical, etc.) data show some discrepancies which have to be taken into consideration in the analysis and interpretation, while assessment indicators, methods and data sources further improved. Having in mind the importance of holistic assessments of this kind for improving the agrarian sustainability in general, and the Governance sustainability of agriculture in particular, they are to be expended and their precision and representation increased.

The origins of White Supremacy are described in this paper along with the elements of European agrarian history that produced the structure of its ideology. A review of who has been considered White is presented as well as a discussion of the changes in ideology that have accommodated such change. The idea of good and evil, of power and submission as well as the nature of legitimacy are all fundamental to the basis of slavery, ethnic discrimination and religious persecution. The definition of social membership and the processes of pollution and guilt, punishment and debt are the means of understanding how White Supremacy has been couched and maintained for 5 centuries. How such groups have adapted to contemporary events is covered.

Despite its big theoretical and practical importance in Bulgaria there are no comprehensive analysis of the state and evolution of digitalization in agriculture and rural areas. The goal of this study is to analyze the state, development and efficiency of digitalization in the agrarian sphere in Bulgaria, specify major trends in that area, compare the situation with other EU countries, identify main problems, and make recommendation for improving policies in the next programing period. Analysis has found out that in recent years there is considerable improvement of the access of Bulgarian households to internet as well as a significant increase in the persons using internet for relations with public institutions and trading goods and services. Nevertheless, Bulgaria is quite behind from other EU members in regards to introduction of digital technologies in the economy and society taking one of the last places in EU in terms of Integral Index for Introduction of Digital Technologies in the Economy and Society – DESI. There is a great variation on the extent of digitalization in different subsectors of agriculture, farms of different juridical type and size, and different regions of the country. Most agricultural holdings are not aware with the content of digital agriculture as 14% apply modern digital technologies. Major obstacles for introduction of digital technologies are qualification of employees, amount of required investment, unclear economic benefits, and data security. Main areas where state administration actions are required are: support of measures for supplementary training of labor, tax preferences in planning of actions and digitalization of activity, stimulation of young specialists, introduction of internationally recognized processes of standardization and certification, adaptation of legislation in the area of data protection, and securing reliable and high speed networks.

Anthropological research has shown that vast amounts of traditional knowledge can remain embedded in verbal discourse of indigenous communities. This knowledge is usually unrecorded. Instead, it is preserved by oral transmission from one generation to another. Hence, it has a fragile existence which is closely interlinked with the equally fragile existence of the community itself. Understanding and preservation of this knowledge is critical for a complete understanding of the life of people in the community. In the Indian context, one such collection of indigenous knowledge are the aphorisms of Ghaagh. Since the medieval times, these aphorisms have been quite popular among the traditional agrarian communities in the Gangetic plains of the northern part of India. The aphorisms were quite important and widespread once upon a time, and they continue to leave an indelible mark on the lives of people in these communities even today. However, quite unfortunately, in the last few decades, the aphorisms are dying a slow death, becoming victim to a local version of the increasingly global and worrying phenomenon, namely that of rapid disappearance of traditional ways of life . We have translated the aphorisms of Ghaagh compiled by respected scholars like Ram Naresh Tripathi, Dev Narayan Dwivedi, and others. The aphorisms are an excellent introduction to the traditional way of life in the north Indian villages since medieval times, along with the prevalent belief systems, social structure and occupational demography. They also bring out hitherto unrecorded knowledge locked up in the vast collective experience of the Indo-Gangetic civilisation that has lived on since thousands of years.

The paper examined the inclusiveness of strategies for increasing farmers’ incomes in Telangana from the last two decades by using various government reports and statistical abstracts of the Telangana state. Telangana agricultural sector is in a transition from cereal based cropping systems to commercial crops based cropping systems with larger contribution from fruits and vegetables and commercial crops like cotton and soybean. The commercialization of agriculture resulted in high input-high output-high risk agriculture, where in small and marginal farmers are not able to cope with and ultimately end up in huge debt with higher cost of production. Further, faster farm mechanization in the recent years, resulted in increased scale economies with small farmers getting less profit compared to large farmers per unit area. The tenant farmers are especially at risk in the event of yield loss or output price reduction, as they have to pay tenancy fee of about 30% of the average farm returns, even though their yields are lower than average. Remedy is livestock sector, now its contribution is equal to crop sector to gross state domestic product. If an average agricultural household to cross poverty line, he has to have 4.41 hectare of land in Telanagana.

Agriculture and agrarian sectors have been gone through the serious transformation process since the collapse of the Soviet Union in Azerbaijan. An ever-growing body of academic literature body investigated the resource curse and Dutch disease theories to conceptualize non-oil sectors in Azerbaijan starting from the late 1990s; however, the unanimous conclusion about the status of agriculture, agrarian sectors or manufacturing is still highly anticipated. Modern statistical techniques and accumulated data on the crucial economic indicators allow us to conceptualize the main trends and dynamics of agriculture and agrarian sectors in the context of resource-richness in Azerbaijan. This paper aims to descriptively investigate the collected data related to agriculture and agrarian sectors. Special emphasis has been put on the theoretical relevance of Dutch disease and resource curse to operationalize the research interest and research question. The findings of the correlation analysis show that there is a positive, significant, and strong association between the real effective exchange rate of Azerbaijan and international oil prices. The other findings demonstrate that mainly agriculture-related variables decreased their role in the Azerbaijan economy since 1991 but only value-added per worker gradually rose, also correlating negatively with value-added in agriculture and investments in agriculture.

In many other countries, there are no comprehensive systems for assessment of the governance sustainability of agriculture and its importance for the overall agrarian development. This study tries to fill the gap and suggests a holistic framework for understanding and assessing governance sustainability. The newly elaborated approach is “tested” in a large-scale study for assessing the governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture. The study has proved that it is important to include the “missing” Governance Pillar in the assessment of the Integral sustainability of agriculture and sustainability of agro-systems of various types. Assessment of the Governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture indicates that the Overall Governance Sustainability is at a “Good” but close to the “Satisfactory” level. There is considerable differentiation in the level of Integral Governance sustainability of different agro-systems in the country. Results on the integral agrarian sustainability assessment based on micro (farm) and macro (statistical, etc.) data show some discrepancies which have to be taken into consideration, while assessment indicators, methods and data sources improved.

This paper is motivated by the consistent portrayal, within current policy discourse, of agriculture and the broader rural economy in Africa as domains of opportunity for rural youth. It presents a new conceptualization of landscapes of rural youth opportunity, where these landscapes reflect an individual’s reading of the complex interplay between economic geography; local history, agrarian relations, institutions and politics; social and cultural norms; family influences; education and experience; aspirations and preferences; and access to resources. The argument is that it is essential to acknowledge the importance of opportunity structures, and avoid anything that suggests that individual characteristics, such as agency, aspirations, skills, entrepreneurial behaviour and “good choices” should be the primary considerations in relation to an “investing in youth” strategy. The paper also presents new empirical analysis of young people’s engagement with the rural economy using LSMS data from six African countries.

The Indian state of Punjab, which initially benefited greatly from the Green Revolution, has suffered from a dramatic rise in agrarian suicides for several decades. We use a carefully constructed sample of over one thousand farmers in the epicenter, and build a three-stage model of agricultural production decisions across multiple input and multiple output choices, indebtedness from multiple sources, and suicide via an IPWRA (inverse probability weighted regression adjustment) treatment model to trace the potential roots of the situation. Results show that the use of informal credit from commission agents by farmers accounts for ten percentage points (or twenty percent) of all suicides in our sample, regardless of other household factors and choices.

The economic significance and benefits of foreign trade also known as international trade to the economies of developing countries cannot be overemphasized. Its role and contributions to the gross domestic earnings, employment generation, economic development, and poverty reduction in these underdeveloped countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Benin Republic, and others have been too glaring especially in agrarian economies with fertile arable land. The main aim of this paper was to examine in-depth the contributions and relationship between international trade and the economic development of developing African countries. Furthermore, this paper recommended stringent macroeconomic policies that when formulated would encourage and increase the multiplier effect of these (foreign) trades. Part of these policies is targeted towards exchange rates, tariffs, import and export duties, subsidies, and actions that promote international trade. The research further concluded that international trade is a key macroeconomic driver that must be encouraged in developing African countries as its multiplier effects have the potentials of driving the needed development goals of these nations. And for this to be achieved, these nations (developing countries) must formulate workable localized macroeconomic policies that suit and drive their interest as against borrowed economic policies from the developed European and Asian nations. Some of the recommendations proffered include adoption of friendly and pro-active export promotion policies, availability of grants, aids, subsidies, and loans, mechanization of the agrarian sector, adoption of flexible exchange rate, etc. This study made use of time series secondary data obtained from the World Development Indicators (WDI) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) of developing African countries for a period between 2000 and 2019. A forecast of 15 years was also initiated using these data to provide a long-term insight into the benefits of these trading activities on the GDP of developing countries.

The study was carried out since 9th ,Feb. 2020. The major objective of the study was to examine the agrarian reforms impact on the agriculture production in the world. Total thirteen articles were downloaded from the net and 10 times were reviewed and draw the conclusion of the study. The study indicates that in all era of the world agrarian reforms were settled for the development of agriculture but here the main factors among was land reform for the development of agriculture but the real objective here every government was political motive. They want how to abolish the big landlord and feudalism in the world to squeeze their power and weaken their position in the country because they have big share of land in the country which was not cultivated by them. The tenants cultivate the land and the big landlord takes a big share which they used for their power in the country. No one ask from them and they governed always on the country in different form. The production per acre was less. Their children get high education and get high facilities of the hospital for health services. The poor people work at their farms and get fewer shares from the lot while due to reforms now they get lot of share from their output. Good fertilizers were provided to them on low price at the market for their crop. Through this way their crops now give more production. Now very easily they did not eject them from their land and they have more power than before after land reforms. Different agrarian reforms were implemented in different era in the world for the development of agriculture. Few countries are mentioned here:- Pakistan, India, Sirilanka, Japan, Militia, Latin America, China, Iraq etc. Few people in the countries were benefited from these reforms while poor people have no access to these reforms in the world. During reforms many hurdles were faced to tenant. Those land lords did not want to implement these reforms in the country and they always resist of these reform. Through this way large numbers of litigation have been started in the world and in this tussle many people were killed. Every time they won the election and no one compete with them. They never made the school and colleges in the rural area because they want if they get the high education then who will work on their farm and who will service for them in their Hujara, so they keep those people under their supervision while few people at last think and come on the front line and won the election and then they work for the poor communities and raised a slogan for their problems solution. Every development program main objective is that how to reduce the poverty from the country while here few get the benefits and the poor have no access to these programs and reforms. So the world is still try how to developed the world but due to good leaders this objective is still not achieved. So on the basis of problems study recommended that to select good leader for their countries who are honest and patriotic to world community and they consider everyone their brother and they work on humanitarian basis. They help the poor and always take a start from the poor and love the world and never fight with anyone in the world. So, good leader selection is required, for good reforms formulation in the world for agriculture development.

This paper gives insight on organization, financing and productivity of agricultural research in Bulgaria during the period after country’s accession to EU. The analysis is predominately based on the research carried out in the Agricultural Academy – the main institutions responsible for the organization of agricultural research in the country. Our analysis has found out that some of the Academy institutes and stations manage significant land and other resources, but the material and technical endowments of the majority of them is outdated, while some have no "critical" mass of human, financial and material resources needed for carrying effective modern research. The number of researchers and experts employed in the Academy is constantly decreasing due to insufficient budget funding, regulatory constraints, restructuring and layoffs, lack of acceptable pay and working conditions, insufficiently qualified candidates in some areas, etc. Since country’s accession to the EU, there has been a significant reduction in the overall expenditure and budget subsidies for agrarian research institutes and centers. Despite multiple "reforms" of the agrarian research system, the country still does not have an effective structure for organization of R&D and public funding systems, coordination and evaluation of research, evaluation and stimulation of researchers and teams, and protection of intellectual agricultural property rights. The trends and problems in the development of agricultural research in universities and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences are similar to those in the Agricultural Academy. There is no aggregated information about the nature and volume of agricultural research conducted by the Bulgarian universities, institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and in the private sector which requires the collection of similar information in the future in order to improve analysis and management.

Azerbaijani abstract: Kənd təsərrufati və aqrar sahələrin milli iqtisadiyyata inteqrasiya olunmasinda və səmərəliliyinin artirilmasinda dovlətin yuksək rolu dunya olkələri arasinda kifayət qədər musahidə olunan təcrubədir. Lakin inhisar yaradan dovlət qurumlarinin milli iqtisadiyyata olan təsiri tətbiq olunan strategiyalar, institusional amillər, idarəetmə və bazar mexanizmlərinə təsir noqteyi-nəzərdən hec də birmənali xarakter dasimir. Cari tədqiqat Azərbaycanda yeni yaradilan Aqrar Tədaruk və Təchizat (ATT) ASC-nin iqtisadiyyata cari və potensial təsirlərini beynəlxalq təcrubə ilə muqayisə edir. Muqayisə ucun Cin Xalq Respublikasi (CXR), Tayland və Yaponiya kimi olkələrin kənd təsərrufati sektorunda qəbul etdiyi inhisarlasma və təskilati-burokratik təcrubə istifadə olunub. Tədqiqatin əsas metodu kimi kənd təsərrufati və aqrar fəaliyyətlərin olkə iqtisadiyyatinda konkret usul və vasitələrlə inteqrasiyasini təmin edən CXR, Tayland və Yaponiya kimi olkələrin istifadə etdiyi konseptual yanasma və institusional mexanizmlər nəzərdən kecirilir. Umumi nəticələr ondan ibarətdir ki, Azərbaycanda ATT ASC-nin timsalinda tətbiq olunan layihələr və tədbirlər plani milli iqtisadiyyatlarda saquli inteqrasiyani hədəfləyən formada deyil. Halbuki, ozunu dogruldan təcrubələr əsasən bazar mexanizmlərini stimullasdiran, fermer və kicik sahibkarlari dəstəkləyən, rəqabət muhiti yaradan, ozəl sektor və dovlət ilə maraqlarin munaqisəsini azaldan institusional tədbirləri icra edən və markalsmani mikro səviyyədə aparan yanasma və tədbirlər planini əhatə edir. English abstract: The significant role of the state in the integration of agriculture and agrarian sectors into the national economy and constant endeavor to increase their efficiency is a well-observed experience among the countries of the world. However, the impact of monopolies on the national economy is far from unambiguous in terms of the impact of the strategies, institutional factors, governance, and market mechanisms applied. The current study compares the prevailing and potential impacts of the newly established Agro Procurement and Supply (APS) OJSC on the economy with international experience. For comparison, the monopolies and organizational-bureaucratic practices adopted by the People's Republic of China (PRC), Thailand, and Japan in the agricultural sector were used. The primary research method considers the conceptual approach and institutional mechanisms used by countries such as China, Thailand, and Japan, which ensure the integration of agricultural and agrarian activities in the country's economy by specific methods and means. The overall result is that the project and an action plan implemented in Azerbaijan on the example of APS OJSC are not in the form of targeting vertical integration in the national economy. However, proven practices around the case countries studies on this research mainly involve approaches and action plans that stimulate market mechanisms, support farmers and small entrepreneurs, create a competitive environment, implement institutional measures to reduce conflicts of interest with the private sector and the state, and conduct branding at the micro-level.

Unlike in many other countries, in Bulgaria there are no comprehensive analysis of the state and evolution of the system of knowledge sharing, innovation and digitalization in agriculture (AKIS). The goal of this paper is to fill the gap and analyze the state, efficiency and factors of the agricultural knowledge sharing, innovation and digitalization in Bulgaria at current stage of development. Analysis is based on 2019 expert assessment with 32 leading experts from research institutes of the Agricultural Academy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, agrarian and other universities, National Agricultural Advisory Service, and major professional associations of agricultural producers. The study has found out that AKIS of the country consists of diverse and numerous organizations, for which activities and complex relations have no sufficient official or other reliable information. The expert assessments in that study let us identify the state, and major achievements and challenges in development in of that complex system. The lack of data however, only partially can be compensated by experts’ assessments of these type. It is also necessary to carry out in-depth and representative surveys of individual components and the AKIS as a whole. Furthermore, it is necessary to institutionalize and regulate collection of official statistical, report, etc. information for the state and efficiency of that important system.

Understanding the microeconomic details of technological catch-up processes offers great potential for informing both innovation economics and development policy. We study the economic transition of the PR China from an agrarian country to a high-tech economy as one example for such a case. It is clear from past literature that rapidly rising productivity levels played a crucial role. However, the distribution of labor productivity in Chinese firms has not been comprehensively investigated and it remains an open question if this can be used to guide economic development. We analyze labor productivity and the dynamic change of labor productivity in firm-level data for the years 1998-2013 from the Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database. We demonstrate that both variables are conveniently modeled as Levy alpha-stable distributions, provide parameter estimates and analyze dynamic changes to this distribution. We find that the productivity gains were not due to super-star firms, but due to a systematic shift of the entire distribution with otherwise mostly unchanged characteristics. We also found an emerging right-skew in the distribution of labor productivity change. While there are significant differences between the 31 provinces and autonomous regions of the P.R. China, we also show that there are systematic relations between micro-level and province-level variables. We conclude with some implications of these findings for development policy.

The study examined the causal linkages between land tenure security and food security in Osun, Nigeria. The targeted population for the study comprised 16,762 agrarian households in Ede, Ile-Ife, Ilesha, Ikire, Ikirun and Egbedore towns. Sample size for the study comprised 3, 600 households. Random sampling technique was adopted in administering questionnaire to household heads in the study area. Descriptive and inferential statistical tools such as frequency counts, averages, percentages and Granger Causality test were used for data analysis. Findings from the study revealed that there was a uni-directional causality between land tenure security and food security in the study area. The study concluded that for agrarian households to have sustainable food security in the study area in particular and similar developing economies in general, farmers need to have secured land tenure as this encourages investments in the secured land which consequently improves access to food for such households.

One of the normative promises of Indian urbanization is the potential breaking down of the rigidities that characterize traditional caste hierarchies in an agrarian regime. In particular, urbanization holds the promise of breaking down spatial barriers between traditional caste groups. Using a unique census-scale dataset from urban Karnataka containing detailed caste and religion data, we present a contemporary snapshot of the relationship between urbanization and patterns of residential segregation. Our analysis shows that urban wards (the extant elementary spatial unit used in the literature) are heterogeneous and segregation within the wards at census-block scales account for a significant part of the overall patterns of city scale segregation. In particular, we show how intra-ward segregation is a central driver of ghettoization of the most spatially marginalized groups in urban India – Muslims and Dalits. We provide the first census-scale evidence in independent India that corroborates anecdotal accounts of urban ghettoization. The cross-section snapshot presented in this paper suggests that degree of residential segregation is uncorrelated with levels of urbanization. We report high levels of segregation across a diverse set of urban centers that include semi-urban settlements to arguably India’s most globalized metropolis of over ten million residents, Bengaluru.

On March 11, 2011 the strongest ever recorded in Japan earthquake occurred which triggered a powerful tsunami and caused a nuclear accident in Fukushima nuclear plant. The later was a “man-made” disaster having immense impacts on people’s life, health and property, infrastructure, supply chains, economy, policies, natural and institutional environment, etc. This paper assesses preparedness for and agri-food impacts of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, identifies challenges in post-disaster recovery, and withdraws lessons for improving disaster risk management. Japan was not well prepared for such huge disaster while agri-food sector and consumption have been among the worst hit areas. The triple disaster was a rare but a high impact event, therefore, it is necessary to “prepare for unexpected”. Risk assessment is to include diverse hazards and multiple effects of a likely disaster, it is to be discussed with all stakeholders, and measures taken to educate and train all for complex disasters. It is necessary to modernize property rights, regulations, safety standards, and norms, enhance capability of responsible public authorities and improve coordination between divers actors. It is important to set up mechanisms for effective public resource allocation and reduction of agents’ costs. Different elements of agri-food chain have dissimilar capability requiring differential public support. There is a strong “regional” interdependency of agrarian, food and rural assets (and damages), and it is important to properly locate risk and take prevention and recover measures. Disaster response demonstrated the important role of small scale farms and food organizations, and high efficiency of private, market and collective governance. Before, during and after a disaster all available information from all sources is to be immediately publicized in understandable form through all possible means. Disaster provides opportunity to discuss, introduce and implement fundamental changes in agricultural, economic, regional, energy, disaster management, etc. policies. It is important to learn from the past experiences and make sure that “lessons learned” are not forgotten.

Precision farming is the latest trends in the agriculture sector which makes use of information technology to integrate all the procedures of farming from analyzing the soil-moisture, weather forecasting, and the quality of seed to predicting the real-time of harvesting. Basically, it focuses on the important aspect of inter-field and intra-field variability for growing crops. India is an agrarian country where agriculture is the backbone of the economy and precision farming could be quite useful. In the present article through a systematic literature review the vital role of precision farming was outlined. Also, the article identifies various challenges associated with the adoption of precision farming in India. For the same in-depth interviews with twenty farmers of the villages located near the Hyderabad city were conducted. The article is among the first preliminary study to explore the awareness, usages, and challenges behind the adoption of precision farming in India. The findings of the study will aid the policy makers in designing strategies for promoting precision farming in the emerging markets of India.

Redistributive agrarian reforms have been pursued throughout the twentieth century, for social justice and agricultural growth, with varying levels of success. The rise of neoliberal policies, however, raises doubts about their political feasibility and utility of in the twenty-first century, especially with respect to meeting its erstwhile objectives. This essay will demonstrate how renewed calls for land reforms, absent a class analysis, tend to ignore the complex processes of rural transformation, that are witnessing increasing peasant differentiation and land-use change through links to domestic and global capital, affected in turn by national government policies. In assessing whether redistributive agrarian reforms are possible or even necessary, a political economy approach must be deployed to investigate the area-specific enablers and constraints to accumulation in the transition to capitalism.

In Bulgaria, like in most countries, the comprehensive assessments on agrarian sustainability are mostly at sectoral or farm levels while there is practically no in-depth study on sustainability at sub-sector (industry) level. This paper tries to fill the gap and assess the sustainability of different sub-sectors in Bulgarian agriculture. First a holistic hierarchical framework for assessing integral, economic, social and ecological sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture is suggested including 17 principles, 35 criteria, and 46 indicators and reference values. After that, an assessment is made on the overall and aspects sustainability of major crop, livestock and mixed subsectors of Bulgarian agriculture. The assessment is based on first-hand information collected though in-depth interviews with the managers of “typical” farms in analysed industries. The study has found out that there is a considerable differentiation in the level of integral and aspects sustainability in individual sub-sectors in Bulgaria, with mixed livestock-breeding, mixed crop-growing, and perennial crops sub-sectors having the highest integral sustainability, while pigs, poultry and rabbits; vegetables, flowers and mushrooms, and mixed livestock-crops subsectors the lowest one. There are also substantial variations in the levels of economic, social and ecological sustainability of different agricultural sub-sectors and individual indicators with the highest and lowest values showing (critical) factors enhancing and deterring particular or overall sustainability of evaluated agro-industries. Results on the integral agrarian sustainability level of this study based on the micro sub-sector (farm) data are similar to the previous assessment based on the aggregate sectoral (statistical, etc.) data.

Women’s land rights feature prominently in contemporary policy debates on agrarian change and gender transformation in Africa, although often accompanied by a certain weary skepticism about what this prominence signifies. On the one hand, policy-makers invoke women as an important category for attention, while on the other hand, analysts and activists regularly denounce the gap between high-level policy commitments and implementation. The basis of this paper is to establish the dynamics of women's land rights, agrarian change and gender transformation in Zimbabwe's fast track land reform programme. Using a qualitative method of inquiry based on interviews, focus group discussions and observations with study participants in Bubi district, an empirical material is constructed and interpreted. Using constructivist grounded theory, dynamics of women’s social goals and strategies in production and reproduction are identified, mapped out and analysed. Drawing on gender theory and new institutional theory, which recognise power and discursive signs of institutional change in rules, norms and values, it uncovers layers of social complexity in the dynamics of female and male land rights as well as between male land rights and female labour in the gender regime. In so doing, it shows how power relations emerging from unequal land and labour rights are enacted in cooperation, competition and conflict, between spouses and between co-wives. The findings show how land, besides being a natural resource for food production, is an important social, cultural and intergenerational symbol in Bubi district. This has implications for women and for their position and room of manoeuvre in food production. It also shows how the gender regime is subject to incremental institutional change through gendered agency, mainly from within the regime but accelerated by land scarcity as an external process. To conclude, the gender regime of land and labour rights has implications for how gender is enacted in everyday strategies, constructed in terms of female and male identities and configured in terms of masculinity and femininity. In the end, it is argued, these conditions affect food production and, in its extension, also food security and gender transformation. This study recommends on the importance of disaggregating women and designing policies that recognise class and other differences among them, and cater for women’s interests in land.

Despite the great theoretical and practical significance, in Bulgaria there are no comprehensive analysis of the state and evolution of the system of agricultural information, training and advices in Bulgaria. The goal of this paper is to analyze the state and evolution of the system of agricultural information, training and advices in Bulgaria during the period after country’s EU accession, identify major trends in that area, make a comparison with other EU states, specify main problems, and suggest conclusions for improvement of policies during next programing period. The analysis has found out that in years after accession of the country to EU the number of the farm managers who undertook full agricultural training increases, but despite that almost 93% of them are still with practical experiences and without any agricultural training. The extent of participation of rural areas rests weak and constantly decreasing, and Bulgaria is among the last in EU in hours of formal and informal education and training. In years of EU membership the number of provided consultations is doubled and in recent years 17% of all registered agricultural producers and each tenth farmer in the country are consulted while the subjects of provided consultation widened. Also hundreds of events associated with knowledge and innovation transfer and sharing are organized as most of them are jointly organized by the National Advisory Service with the institutes of Agricultural Academy, agrarian and other universities, research and development organizations. The number of organized events, the overall number of participants, and the average number of participant per event tend to decrease.

Agriculture in Arunachal Pradesh, a state located in the eastern Himalayas, used to be primarily need-based. Slash and burn agriculture, locally called jhum, was the foundation of the traditional economy. In the past decades, agriculture in the mountain areas has undergone significant change. This shift from need-based to commercial agriculture has been accompanied by a shift from collective to private rights over land. This paper argues that such changes in the mountain agriculture systems are better understood as a gendered process of social and economic transformation. Agrarian change has affected men and women in Arunachal Pradesh in different ways. Women farmers continue to work in agriculture, but their rights are gradually getting eroded as a result of the commercialisation of the economy.

Based on local archival documents and fieldwork conducted in Shaanxi Province’s Baishui County, this article examines how large-scale water and soil conservation campaigns launched in Northwest China’s Loess Plateau region during the Mao era (1949–76) affected agrarian environments and how rural communities experienced and responded to these transformations. By mobilizing rural communities to combat water and soil loss, China’s leaders expected conservation to limit sedimentation along the Yellow River’s lower reaches and increase agricultural yields to support their vigorous program of industrialization. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, local opposition to these efforts to alter human interactions with the land centered on contradictions between the long-term objectives of conservation campaigns and the priority that the rural populace placed on ensuring subsistence. With residents called on to attend to conservation work instead of other production activities, divergent imperatives translated into intense competition over how to use the land and allocate labor power. Even if conservation programs in Baishui, as in other parts of China, drew on lay knowledge and practice, these environmental management polices consistently privi-leged the state’s developmentalist agenda over the welfare of rural communities. In this manner, Mao-era water and soil conservation supported, and was inseparable from, an extractive political economy that intensified contradictions between the rural and urban, agriculture and industry. Rather than giving voice to vulnerable populations and equitably distributing costs and benefits, Mao-era water and soil conservation exacerbated the burdens placed on mar-ginalized rural communities.

Despite the great theoretical and practical significance, in Bulgaria there are no comprehensive analysis of the state and evolution of agrarian research and development (ARD) activities. The goal of this paper is to analyze the state and evolution of ARD in Bulgaria during the period after country’s EU accession in 2007, identify major trends in that area, make a comparison with other EU states, specify main problems, and suggest conclusions for improvement of policies during next programing period. The analysis has found out that in years of EU membership the expenditures for ARD significantly decreased absolutely and relatively as a share in the total expenditures for R&D, which indicates diminishing importance, and deteriorating financial, personnel and material potential of agrarian knowledge and innovation sector. The most important sector for ARD in the country is the government in which more than 80% of overall expenditures for ARD are invested, as distribution of expenditures and organization of R&D in major sectors differ considerably from other EU member states. ARD in the country mainly are funded by the state budget, and the importance of budget financing relatedly increases during the period, unlike trends in other EU countries.

In communities highly dependent on rainfed agriculture for their livelihoods, the common occurrence of climatic shocks such as droughts can lower the opportunity cost of having children, and raise fertility. Using longitudinal household data from Madagascar, we estimate the causal effect of drought occurrences on fertility, and explore the nature of potential mechanisms driving this effect. We exploit exogenous within-district year-to-year variation in rainfall deficits, and find that droughts occurring during the agricultural season significantly increase the number of children born to women living in agrarian communities. This effect is long lasting, as it is not reversed within four years following the drought occurrence. Analyzing the mechanism, we find that droughts have no effect on common underlying factors of high fertility such as marriage timing and child mortality. Furthermore, droughts have no significant effect on fertility if they occur during the non-agricultural season or in non-agrarian communities, and their positive effect in agrarian communities is mitigated by irrigation. These findings provide evidence that a low opportunity cost of having children is the main channel driving the fertility effect of drought in agrarian communities.

India a largely agrarian economy has got majority of population in rural area. It is now transforming to industrial and service economy. As in most countries, India’s towns and cities also make a major contribution to the country’s economy. With less than 1/3rd of India’s people, its urban areas generate over 2/3rd of the country’s GDP and account for 90% of government revenues. This probably is the outcome of Urbanization in India which is expanding rapidly as better as increasing numbers of people migrate to towns and cities in search of privileged social and economic services such as education, health care, sanitation, housing, transportation and business opportunities when compared with rural infrastructure services in India. It marks disparity in demand and supply of urban infrastructure and difficulty in management of infrastructure as a development resource. Distribution of socio economic activities in urban and rural India proportionately may result in terms of balance in infrastructure development planning and management in India. The paper marks the discussion for assessment of Urban and Rural Infrastructure development in context of agrarian India towards sustainability planning and management.

Russian Abstract: В последние годы внимание аграрных исследований смещается с сугубо крестьяноведческих сюжетов на аграрно-экологические практики, что позволяет устранить зазор между макроэкономическими постулатами и микроэкономическими реалиями сельской жизни и снизить накал борьбы конкурирующих идеологий (либеральной, популистской, марксистской, постмодернистской и пр.), переводя изучение сельскохозяйственных практик из политико-экономической плоскости в сферу историографического теоретизирования и экономического моделирования. Для подтверждения этого тезиса в работе охарактеризованы общие тенденции развития ключевых аграрных теорий и идеологий современности, обозначены теоретико-методологические основания компаративистского аграрного анализа, и рассмотрен кейс бразильского социально-экономического бума, достигнутого благодаря сложному сочетанию локальных и региональных стратегий аграрного и сельского развития. English Abstract: In recent years, the focus of agrarian research has shifted from peasant studies to agrarian and environmental practices, which eliminates the gap between macroeconomic programs and microeconomic realities of rural life and reduces the intensity of the struggle of competing ideologies (liberal, populist, marxist, postmodern, etc.) by withdrawing the study of agricultural practices from political-economic domain into historiographical theorizing and economic modeling. To confirm this thesis, the preprint identifies general trends in the development of key modern agrarian theories and ideologies and theoretical-methodological foundations of the comparative agrarian analysis, and presents the case of the Brazilian social-economic boom as determined by a complex combination of local and regional agrarian and rural development strategies.

The development of property right to land, in its historical trajectory, has shown a fairly dynamic development. In the Indonesian context, the dynamics, at least seen in the diverse conceptions of the state’s rights of control over the land from the colonial era with its Domein Verklaring up to the national era with its State’s Right of Control. This paper aims to examine issues of legitimacy and authority of state control over land. By using socio-anthropological approach and Islamic law perspective, this study shows that although the logic of the state authority in land tenure takes place dynamically, the existence of indigenous peoples with their customary law and ulayat rights basically has not experienced significant process of change, even though the ruler and political law are different. Both of these concepts in the realm of practice appear to equally place the indigenous peoples following their customary rights in marginalized positions.

The present study evaluate the contribution of Industrial Policies On Agriculture Sector In Tanzania. On that perspective, Simple Regression model has been applied to evaluate the contribution of Industrial Policies on Agriculture Macro Economic Variables. In Tanzania The Industrial Policy initiated, constructed and started to be implemented in the year of 1996. With this regards, The Contribution of Industrial Policies analyzed in the Third Government Presidential Term (1996-2005), the Fourth Government Presidential Term (2006-2015), and the whole period of the year 1996 to 2015.The results shows that there is significant Positive relationship between Economic Openness and Agriculture Sector, Specifically Agriculture Economic Variables such as Agriculture GDP and Agriculture Food Production in the whole period of 1996 - 2015. It is not advisable to analyse industrial policy and its effects on industrialization and structural change in isolation from economy dynamics and specifically from trend in agrarian change.

The goal of this study is to unpack sustainability in terms of understanding and evaluation using as a case Bulgarian agriculture. A hierarchical system for assessing agrarian sustainability in Bulgaria at national, regional, sub-sectoral, ecosystem and farm level is proposed. It includes 3 aspects(pillars), 17 principles, 35 criteria, and 46 indicators and reference values for evaluating sustainability as well as approach for their integration and interpretation. Assessment is made of agrarian sustainability in the country at various level using aggregate macro and farm level micro data. The assessment has found out that there is a considerable differentiation in the level of integral and aspects sustainability of different type of farms, ecosystems, subsectors and regions. Nevertheless, results on the integral agrarian sustainability based on macro aggregate and micro farm data are quite similar. The later indicates that both approaches are reliable and could be simultaneously used according to the level of analysis, needs of decision makers, and available data. Major factors encouraging improving economic sustainability are market demand and price; direct state subsidies; market competition; financial capability; participation in public support programs; possibility of benefitting immediately; possibility of benefitting in the near future; tax preferences; possibility of benefitting in the long term; and integration with buyers of farm products. Main factors encouraging the enhancement of social sustainability are personal convictions and satisfaction; social recognition of individual contribution; immediate benefits for other people and groups; regional community initiatives and pressure; access to advisory services; European Union policy; and existing regional problems and risks. Important factors encouraging environmental sustainability are problems and risks existing at the global scale; official regulations, standards, and norms; existing regional problems and risks; and European Union policies. Public policies and instruments that improve economic sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture include: direct area-based payments; national top-ups for products and livestock; modernization of agricultural holdings; green payments; support for semi-market farms. At the same time the impact of national and European policies on social and environmental sustainability is relatively weak. Having in mind the importance of holistic assessments of this kind for improving agrarian sustainability, farm management and agrarian policies, they are to be expended and their precision and representation increased. The latter requires a closer cooperation between and participation of all interested parties as well as improvement of the precision through enlargement of collected statistical data, number of surveyed farms, and incorporating more “objective” data from field tests and surveys, monitoring, expertise of professionals in the area, etc.

In communities highly dependent on rainfed agriculture for their livelihoods, the common oc-currence of climatic shocks such as droughts can lower the opportunity cost of having children, and raise fertility. Using longitudinal household data from Madagascar, we estimate the causal effect of drought occurrences on fertility, and explore the nature of potential mechanisms driving this effect. We exploit exogenous within-district year-to-year variation in rainfall deficits, and find that droughts occurring during the agricultural season significantly increase the number of children born to women living in agrarian communities. This effect is long lasting, as it is not reversed within four years following the drought occurrence. Analyzing the mechanism, we find that droughts have no effect on common underlying factors of high fertility such as marriage timing and child mortality. Furthermore, droughts have no significant effect on fertility if they occur during the non-agricultural season or in non-agrarian communities, and their positive effect in agrarian communities is mitigated by irrigation. These findings provide evidence that a low opportunity cost of having children is the main channel driving the fertility effect of drought in agrarian communities.

Ecosystem approach has been increasingly incorporated in the management and evaluation of sustainability levels. Despite huge progress in the theory and practice of this new area, still there is no consensus on how to assess the sustainability of agro-ecosystems due to diverse understandings, approaches, methods, employed data, etc. In Bulgaria there are practically no deep studies on sustainability level of diverse agro-eco-systems. This paper tries to fill the blank and assesses the sustainability level of agro-ecosystems of different type in Bulgaria. First a holistic hierarchical framework for assessing integral, economic, social and ecological sustainability of agro-ecosystems in Bulgaria is suggested including 17 principles, 35 criteria, and 46 indicators and reference values. After that, an assessment is made on overall and aspects sustainability of large (agro)ecosystems in North-Central, South-Eastern, South-Central and South-Western geographic regions, and particular main and specific types of agro-ecosystems of the country - mountainous, plain-mountainous, plain, riparian (Struma, Maritza, Yantra), southern Black Sea, mountainous area with natural constraints, non-mountainous area with natural constraints, protected areas and reserves, Western Thracian Plain, Middle Danube Plain, Dupnitsa and Sandansko-Petrich Valley, Sredna Gora Mountains and Western Rila Mountains. The assessment is based on first-hand information collected though in-depth interviews with the managers of “typical” farms in the respective ago-ecosystems. The study has found out that there is a considerable differentiation in the level of integral sustainability in agricultural ecosystems of different types. Furthermore, there are substantial variations in the levels of economic, social and ecological sustainability of agro-ecosystems of different type, and the critical indicators enhancing or deterring overall and particular sustainability of individual agro-ecosystems. Results of the integral agrarian sustainability level of this study, based on the micro agro-ecosystem (farm) data, are similar to the previous assessment based on the aggregate sectoral (statistical, etc.) data. There are large differences in the impact of socio-economic, institutional, behavioral, international, natural, etc. factors and individual public policy instruments on the sustainability of farming enterprises of different types and agro-ecosystems. Having in mind the importance of holistic assessments of this kind for improving agrarian sustainability, farm management and agrarian policies, they are to be expended and their precision and representation increased.

We examine the different functions of the government and of local elites in eighteenth-century China by considering their responses to grain price fluctuations, which were the largest shocks to traditional agrarian society. Descriptive evidence has indicated that both the government and the local elites provided public goods that mitigated high grain prices and maintained social stability. However, few studies to date have quantitatively compared the importance of these two types of service. We construct a prefecture-level set of panel data from 1742 to 1795 to compare the effects of government-managed granary with the effects of community services provided by local elites, and we show how these effects varied by region. The results show that although higher grain prices commonly led to increased conflict across China, this pattern did not apply in the most prosperous regions, namely the North and the Lower Yangzi. This set of findings suggests the existence of effective interventions to deal with food-supply crises. Further investigations show that although the government played a dominant role in the North, the local elites were more effective for reducing price fluctuations in the Lower Yangzi. We also provide several explanations for the different patterns of crisis relief found in the two examined regions.

Russian Abstract: Данная работа представляет собой первый шаг в разработке модели систематического сопоставительного анализа траекторий аграрной трансформации регионов стран БРИКС и ЕС. Эта модель призвана, с одной стороны, совместить характерную для современных экономических исследований макро-оптику государственного планирования и статистических оценок с микро-оптикой эмпирических проектов, отслеживающих реальные локальные практики аграрного развития конкретных сельских территорий и регионов по целому ряду ключевых показателей; с другой стороны, показать степень преемственности реализуемых сегодня региональных и страновых сценариев аграрных трансформаций по отношению к прежним (недавним или исторически отдаленным) принципам экономического реформирования. English Abstract: This work represents the first step in developing a model for a systematic comparative analysis of the trajectories of the agrarian transformation of the regions of the BRICS countries and the EU. This model is intended, on the one hand, to combine the macro-optics of state planning, characteristic for modern economic research and statistical assessments with micro-optics of empirical projects, that track real local practices of agrarian development of specific rural territories and regions for a number of key indicators; on the other hand, to show the degree of continuity of the current regional and country scenarios of agrarian transformations in relation to the former (or historically distant) principles of economic reform.

Bulgarian Abstract: В проектът се прилага интердисциплинарен подход и се прави оценка на системата за управление, както и на равнището на аграрната устойчивост в България и Китай. В първата част се предлага практически приложим, за съвременните условия на развитие на българското и китайско селско стопанство, холистичен подход за оценка на системата за управление и равнището на аграрната устойчивост. Във втора част се анализира системата за управление на аграрната устойчивост в България, като се оценява ефективността на институционалната среда и многообразните пазарни, частни, колективни, обществени и хибридни форми. В третата част се прави оценка на икономическата, социалната, екологическата и интегралната устойчивост на българското селско стопанство на национално, отраслово, регионално, екосистемно и стопанско ниво. Идентифицират се и факторите за повишаване на аграрната устойчивост и се оценява иновационната активност в отрасъла и устойчивостта на алтернативното земеделие. В четвъртата част се анализира управлението и устойчивостта на китайското селското стопанство на национално и локално ниво и се сравнява системата на управление и равнището на аграрна устойчивост в България и Китай. Най-накрая се обобщава опитът и предизвикателствата в управлението и оценката на аграрната устойчивост в двете страни и се очертават насоките за подобряване на изследователската, управленческата и оценителната практика. English Abstract: This paper applies interdisciplinary approach and assesses the system of governance and the level of agrarian sustainability in Bulgaria and China. The first part presents a holistic and practically applicable for the contemporary conditions of development of Bulgarian and Chinese agriculture framework for assessing the system of governance and the level of agrarian sustainability. The suggested approach is broadly experimented in Bulgaria for assessing the governance system of agrarian sustainability and the sustainability level of Bulgarian agriculture. In the second part the system of governance of agrarian sustainability in Bulgaria is analyzed and the efficiency of institutional environment and diverse market, private, collective, public and hybrid modes are evaluated. In the third part an assessment is made on the economic, social, environmental and integral sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture at national, sectoral, regional, ecosystem and farm levels. Factors for improving agrarian sustainability are also identified and the innovation activity and sustainability of alternative agriculture estimated. In the fourth part the governance and sustainability in Chinese agriculture at national, regional and local levels is analyzed, and results of a number of in-depth studies from Shanghai area are presented. Comparative study is also made on the systems of governance and the levels of agrarian sustainability in Bulgaria and China. Finally, the experiences and challenges in the governance and assessment of agrarian sustainability in Bulgaria and China are summarized and directions for improvement of research, management and assessment practices suggested.