Das Projekt "E 4.1: Quality and food safety issues in markets for high-value products in Thailand and Vietnam" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Agrar- und Sozialökonomie in den Tropen und Subtropen durchgeführt. The production and marketing of high-value agricultural commodities - such as fruits, vegetables, and livestock products - has been an important source of cash income for small-scale farmers in the northern mountainous regions of Thailand and Vietnam. However, against the background of recent free trade agreements and market liberalization, there is increasing national and international competition, partly leading to significant price decreases. Given structural disadvantages of farmers in northern Thailand and Vietnam, it will be very difficult for them to achieve and maintain a competitive position in markets for undifferentiated high-value products. Therefore, product differentiation - in terms of health attributes (e.g., low-pesticide residues, free from diseases and pathogens), taste (e.g., indigenous livestock breeds), time (e.g., off-season production), or processing characteristics (e.g., packaging, drying, canning) - could be a promising alternative. Quality and safety attributes play an increasing role in domestic and international food trade. The additional value generated could lead to sustainable income growth in the small farm sector, but this potential will only materialize when appropriate institutional mechanisms help reduce transaction costs and allow a fair distribution of benefits. This subproject seeks to analyze how the production and marketing of high-value agricultural products with quality and safety attributes can contribute to pro-poor development in northern Thailand and Vietnam. Quality and safety attributes can only generate value when they directly respond to consumer demand. Furthermore, since they are often credence attributes, the product identity has to be preserved from farm to fork. Therefore, the analysis will cover the whole supply chain, from agricultural production to final household consumption. Interview-based surveys of farmers, intermediate agents, and consumers will be carried out in Thailand, and to a limited extent also in Vietnam. The data will be analyzed econometrically with regard to the structure of high-value markets, trends and their determinants, and efficiency and equity implications of different institutional arrangements (e.g., contract agriculture, supermarket procurement). Since in northern Vietnam, the marketing of high-value products is a relatively recent activity, markets for more traditional crops will be analyzed as well, to better understand the linkages between different cash-earning activities in the semi-subsistent farm households. Apart from their direct policy relevance, the results will contribute to the broader research direction of the economics of high-value agricultural markets in developing countries. Moreover, they will generate useful information for other subprojects of the Uplands Program.
Das Projekt "Winderosion auf leichten Boeden in Europa" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Bodenforschung, Bodentechnologisches Institut durchgeführt. General Information: Wind erosion creates many problems on European light soils: loss of crops, pollution and jeopardised sustainability. The problems have been known for millennia, and can be recognised, for example, in the 17th-century 'Sand Boards' of the Veluwe in the Netherlands, the persistent efforts by the Danish Hedesaellskabet and the much more recent German Soil Protection Law. Mechanisation, increases in field size and contract farming are probably exacerbating the rate of soil loss. Despite extensive research in control methods, there are few good data on either damage or the economic efficiency of the control measures, let alone criteria for applying laws and codes. Yet what data there are do suggest a major problem. For example, the direct cost only for the resowing after one single storm in May 1984 was estimated to be approximately 1.5 million ECU for sugar beet fields in Scania alone. WEELS builds a studies for Supersite I, where wind erosion is a 'High Hazard', and where a GIS has been developed specifically for wind erosion research and combined with data from a portable wind tunnel and an instrumented field site. WEELS considerably expands on this study, adding two more sites and five new methods: (1) Estimates of wind erosivity based on climatic records, ground data, the European Wind Atlas Project and roughness estimates from remote sensing, developed in the REMCI study of the EC HCM programme; (2) Analysis of the frequency of erosive winds and their relation to climatic variability using long station records, synoptic weather typing and large-scale pressure patterns, allowing forecasting for climate-change scenarios and evaluation of long-term variability (in conjunction with the ADVICE study in the EC E and C programme); (3) Measurement of erosion over 30 years using 137Cs, related in a geostatistical analysis with soil and site characteristics; (4) Advanced systems of trapping for the analysis of sediment quantity and character (built on the WELSONS project of the EC, E and C programme) and related to field histories (process models); (5) A system for estimating the overall costs of wind erosion and its policy framework. The Cs-based erosion measurements and the geostatistical analysis will yield a first-stage statistical erosion model for each study area. This will be brought to a finer scale of explanation by field and wind tunnel measurements to produce a process-based model, relating erosion to the dynamic pattern of soil texture, clay mineralogy, organic matter and structure, roughness (at various scales), field shape, cultivation history and meteorological history (building on USDA WEQ, RWEQ and WEPS experience). Costs will be estimated using this model and data gathered from farmers and other actors, both at the field and overall area scales. ... Prime Contractor: University College London, Department of Geography, London; UK.
Das Projekt "An innovative bio-economy solution to valorise livestock manure into a range of stabilised soil improving materials for environmental sustainability and economic benefit for European agriculture (BIOECOSIM)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Fraunhofer-Institut für Optronik, Systemtechnik und Bildauswertung durchgeführt. Objective: BioEcoSIM comprises R&D and demonstration of an integrated approach and business model that has wide EU27 applicability in the agriculture sector. The new European Bio-economy Strategy aims to increase the use of bio-based raw materials. Thus, large quantities of fertilisers will be required. Therefore, this project targets to produce sustainable soil improving products that can be easily handled, transported, and applied. BioEcoSIM will valorise livestock manure as an important example of valuable bio-waste into 1) pathogen-free, P-rich organic soil amendment (P-rich biochar), 2) slow releasing mineral fertilisers and 3) reclaimed water. By doing this, we will i) reduce negative environmental impacts (eutrophication of water bodies, and NH3 and N2O emissions) in intensive livestock regions, ii) help to decrease NH3 produced by the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process, (iii) mitigate EUs dependency on the depleting mineral sources for P-fertilisers, (iv) increase water efficiency use in agriculture and (v) support European Strategies and Directives, while generating economic benefits in the agriculture and bio-economy sector. The project will combine three innovative technologies 1) superheated steam drying and non-catalytic pyrolysis to convert carbon in manure into P-rich biochar and syngas, 2) electrolytic precipitation of struvite and calcium phosphate and 3) selective separation and recovery of NH3 by gas-permeable membrane. Energy required in-process will be generated through combustion of syngas, thus reducing the pressure on finite fossil fuel. Water reclaimed from manure will be utilised for livestock production and/or irrigation. The sustainability of this approach will be validated against standards ISO14040 and ISO14044. Implementation of the R&D results will help fulfil the need for economically viable and environmentally benign practices in European agriculture to move towards a more resource-efficient and circular economy.
Das Projekt "Eine zukunftsfähige Landwirtschaft für Alle: Regionale Dialogverfahren und der Agrarkongress 2020 als erster Schritt in der Erarbeitung von Elementen des Gesellschaftsvertrages für eine zukunftsfähige Landwirtschaft" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von TMG ThinkTank for Sustainability durchgeführt. Die zunehmenden Konflikte innerhalb der deutschen Landwirtschaft unterstreichen die Dringlichkeit der Frage, welche Lösungswege erarbeitet werden können, die die Bedürfnisse der sehr unterschiedlich positionierten Akteursgruppen widerspiegeln. Der Agrarkongress, der gemeinsam vom Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit (BMU), Umweltbundesamt (UBA), Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BfN) und TMG Thinktank for Sustainability (TMG Research) organisiert wird, etablierte im Jahr 2017 die Idee des Gesellschaftsvertrages. Ein Gesellschaftsvertrag hat das Ziel, eine von verschiedenen Akteursgruppen gemeinsam getragene Zukunftsversion zu entwickeln. Im Zuge dessen veranstaltete TMG Research im Oktober 2019 mit Betrieben und Initiativen aus Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Baden-Württemberg Dialogveranstaltungen (Regionaldialoge), um gemeinsam zu erkunden, wie Gesellschaftsverträge im â€ÌKleinenâ€Ì bereits umgesetzt werden. Der vorliegende Bericht hebt die Notwendigkeit eines Gesellschaftsvertrages für die inklusive Gestaltung von Anpassungsprozessen hervor und fasst die Erkenntnisse der Regionaldialoge hinsichtlich der Gestaltung eines Gesellschaftsvertrages zusammen. Die Regionaldialoge haben maßgebliche Hinweise für die Prozessgestaltung eines Gesellschaftsvertrages und Einblicke in die für einen Gesellschaftsvertrag notwendigen Themenfelder gegeben. Dazu zählen unter anderem die Stärkung regionaler Wertschöpfungsketten und von Anpassungs- und Innovationsprozessen in Betrieben. Gleichzeitig betont der Bericht, dass auch politische Rahmenbedingungen auf nationaler und europäischer Ebene notwendig sind, damit der Gesellschaftsvertrag Teil eines heuristischen Politikansatzes sein kann, welcher Synergien zwischen relevanten Politikfeldern kreiert.