Organization of land use in a market economy

The influence of the forms of ownership of land and organizational and legal forms of management on the system of on-farm organization of land use is considered. The unified and isolated systems of land use organization and its influence on the solution of individual land management problems are substantiated. The content of the stages of land management is shown depending on the organization of the land and property complex in agricultural organizations.

Farmer views on climate change—a longitudinal study of threats, opportunities and action

Any new policy measure aiming to mitigate climate change and support adaptation in agriculture is implemented at the farm scale. This makes a farmer the key actor. This study aimed to understand farmers’ climate change views and reveal how farmers see their role, responsibilities and possibilities to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Furthermore, this study aimed to assess how various background variables and values associate with farmers’ views in order to have novel and comprehensive on farmers’ perspectives on climate change. Short-term changes in views were studied with a longitudinal framework. In total, 4401 farmers in Finland answered a standardized e-mail survey in spring 2018. A total of 2000 of them responded again in spring 2020. The respondents differed in gender, age, education, farming system, farm type, farm organization, farm size, revenue and region. The farmers were not a uniform group of citizens, and their views on climate change varied widely. For a Nordic, boreal zone country like Finland, climate change will bring not only challenges but also opportunities that may even strengthen the agricultural production. Such a “two-sided coin” causes confusion for farmers as indicated by this study. Climate change–induced risks often dominate the public dialogue with farmers. This study emphasizes the need for better balance between risks and opportunities not only in the dialogue with farmers but also with policy makers and all public discussion. Acknowledging farmers’ views in planning the future climate policies for agricultural sector is elemental to ensure success in farm-scale implementation.

LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION IN METROPOLITAN AREAS – CHANGES IN SCALE AND STRUCTURE

The main aim of the studies was to identify and assess the changes in the organisation and scale of livestock production of farms operating within varying distance from the cores of metropolitan areas (MA). The studies covered production units specializing in animal production and mixed farms that participated in the FADN system over an uninterrupted period between 2004 and 2016. The results show that, in the study group of commercial farms operating in areas bordering MA cores, there is a clear reduction of both the numbers of herds and the scale of livestock production. The group of farms located outside metropolitan areas was characterised by a relatively high share of permanent crops and high density of pigs. The intensity of agricultural production organisation increased as the distance from the cores of metropolitan areas grew. It confirms the concept of reversed Thȕnen rings formulated by Sinclair and known in the theory of economics, according to which production results and productivity per unit area increases with the distance from city centres. The conducted analyses confirm the general trend of withdrawal of farmers operating near cities from animal production and a clear extensification of farm organization.

Is the Livonian peasant rich or poor?

For a long time, the dominant opinion in the historiography was that the situation of the peasants in Livonia and later in Vidzeme in the 17th-18th centuries was steadily worsening year by year. But analysis of the information on the peasant households in the so called Hackenrevision of the 17th and 18th century. It shows that the situation was more complicated. If we compare the data of 1624, 1730, 1750–1751 we can see the following tendencies. There is a quantitative growth of all indicators of prosperity of the peasantry. The number of cattle, horses and workers per household increased several times (from one or four in 1624 to 12 at the maximum in the 18th century). A horse was important for field work, and the more horses in a farm, the more effectively the work was organized, the easier it was to allocate resources to carrying the barch, the horses could rest after hard work. In addition, a large number of horses on a farm already indicated a certain well-being, when they were kept not only for work, but also for prestige and representation. Increased numbers of cows helped to improve the diet of families and servants (increasing the proportion of meat and dairy products in it) as well as raising the sales of dairy products in the market. A larger number of cows enabled more abundant fertilisation of the fields, thereby increasing their productivity. The increase in the number of able-bodied people on the farms indicates an increase in the demographic indicators. The farm could provide a normal life for more people. The bigger the labour force, the higher the economic potential of the farm. More land could be farmed, more livestock could be kept, more food could be provided, and it was easier to fulfil one’s obligations to the landowner. All this shows that the thesis about the worsening of the situation of the livonian peasants in the 17th–18th centuries is not supported by the sources. On the contrary, growing prosperity meant that the farmstead owner could afford to do less physical work and pay more attention to farm organization. This developed his mental capacities.

Assessing sustainability of different forms of farm organization: adaptation of IDEA method to rubber family farms in Thailand

Description of the subject. With increasing concerns on the sustainability of agricultural systems, many tools have been developed to assess farm sustainability. Objectives. The main objective of this study was to assess and compare the sustainability of different forms of family farm organization. A second objective was to test the relevance of the IDEA method (Indicateurs de Durabilité des Exploitations Agricoles or Farm Sustainability Indicators) to compare tree-crop-based family farms in tropical areas. Method. Percentages of sustainability were calculated based on individual interviews conducted with 25 rubber farmers representing three different types of farm (typology based on the labor used for farming activities), using three scales and 10 components. Results. The socio-territorial scale was the weak point of the rubber farms. In contrast, the economic scale was relatively the best asset on all farms. The factor that most differentiated the three types of farm was the agro-ecological scale followed by the socio-territorial scale. The economic scale did not discriminate. Moreover, only the diversity of production and efficiency components showed a notable difference between the different types of farm. Conclusions. Overall, the three types of farm with contrasting forms of farm organization were not much different in terms of sustainability performance. Family business farms with managerial family labor appeared to be the least sustainable. Thus, as family business farms are becoming more and more important in Thai agriculture, if these results are confirmed on a broader scale, this represents an issue for the sustainability of the Thai rubber sector that would require government intervention.

Of Climate and Weather: Examining Canadian Farm and Livestock Organization Discourses from 2010 to 2015

Producer organizations representing Canada’s farm and livestock sectors are powerful change agents and advocates for their industries, particularly during challenging times such as climate- or weather-related hardships. Such organizations have a complex role: engaging with policy-makers, as well as their memberships and the public, to pursue the interests of their specific communities. This paper includes an examination of how farm producer organizations communicate about climate and weather to these various audiences, and the specific needs and recommendations they advance. Of particular interest are commodities related to pasture-based grazing, which is underrepresented in the climate adaptation literature. A collection of 95 publicly available documents is analyzed, representing a snapshot of climate- and weather-related public and policy engagement of Canadian and Albertan farm and livestock producer organizations from 2010 to 2015. Qualitative coding by scale, commodity, and audience revealed three significant patterns within this exploratory study. First, while national “umbrella” organizations speak climate to government, Alberta-based livestock/forage organizations speak to their members with a focus on weather. Second, while the two national umbrella organizations examined are politically divergent, they appear to be united on the topic of climate change. Third, common ground was also found between climate and weather discourses around on-farm management, specifically rotational grazing. These three patterns reveal a disjointed dialogue within the Canadian farm and livestock sectors on topics of climate adaptation and mitigation, as well as opportunities for future cooperation, and the need for further research on farm organization beliefs and their capacity to create/manage climate knowledge.