Thirteen papers addressing current issues in international environmental economics. They analyze the relationship between trade liberalization and environmental policy; the impact of trade liberalization on environmental quality; investigate problems of commitment faced by regulating authorities; provide new insights into the Porter hypothesis; present empirical research related to international competitiveness and location of polluting plants; address international environmental agreements, with a special focus on income distribution and the political-economy dimension, tradable emission reductions, and the quantitative impact of trade liberalization and the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol on carbon leakage.

The papers in this volume show that even after ten years of intense research both on trade and the environment, and on transfrontier pollution and international environmental agreements, research in this area still produces new, relevant, and thought-provoking ideas and results.

This report is a unique source of up-to-date estimates of support to agriculture. It provides an overview of agricultural support in the OECD area, complemented by individual chapters on agricultural policy developments in all OECD countries. This edition finds that overall support to farmers in OECD countries has been declining. It shows that the decline has largely been due to a narrowing of the gap between domestic and world agricultural commodity prices.

The report also focuses on the impacts of the current financial and economic crisis on agriculture, and the policy responses. Agriculture is expected to fare better than many other sectors. It has a relatively smaller financial exposure, demand is less sensitive to income falls, and the existing set of support policies in many countries can dampen the impact of the crisis. Governments are facing tighter fiscal conditions, which is likely to prompt further review of support policies, including for agriculture.

The 2008 United States Farm Act, the Health Check of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy and the new Growing Forward policy framework in Canada are also reviewed in the report. A special feature in the report focuses on agri-environmental policies in OECD countries.

Latest research results and new perspectives for human health policies

Despite the enormous interest in discovering longevity genes in humans, the results have been elusive, while the effects of physical activity in delaying aging are promising and the importance of caloric restriction is now being systematically investigated. At present, there is enough evidence to define the components of a healthy diet and physical activity lifestyle at the population level and it is clear that lack of exercise is associated with increased risk of premature chronic disease and death.

Currently, research aims at defining the type and frequency of genetic variation and its influence on dietary response as well as the impact of diet and exercise on gene expression. The book also provides detailed critical reviews of the relationship between mood changes and the amount of protein, amino acids, carbohydrates and polyunsaturated fatty acids, and the effects of genetic and environmental factors in bone turnover and bone density.

This publication will be of great interest to researchers, physicians, exercise physiologists, geneticists, dietitians, food scientists, policy makers in government, private industry and international organizations, and public health workers worldwide.

Adaptive management is the recommended means for continuing ecosystem management and use of natural resources, especially in the context of ‘integrated natural resource management’. Conceptually, adaptive management is simply learning from past management actions to improve future planning and management. However, adaptive management has proved difficult to achieve in practice. With a view to facilitating better practice, this new book presents lessons learned from case studies, to provide managers with ready access to relevant information. Cases are drawn from a number of disciplinary fields, including management of protected areas, watersheds and farms, rivers, forests, biodiversity and pests. Examples from Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, the UK and Europe are presented at a variety of scales, from individual farms, through regional projects, to state-wide planning. While the book is designed primarily for practitioners and policy advisors in the fields of environmental and natural resource management, it will also provide a valuable reference for students and researchers with interests in environmental, natural resource and conservation management.

The purpose of this book is to investigate and develop alternate methodological approaches to understand urban environments and urban change. In particular, the study demonstrates the application of remote-sensing data and geographic information systems to the exploration of issues often ignored by the mainstream community of geo-technical specialists such as urban forestry, urban traffic, migration or quality of life in urban areas. Case studies show how disciplines like environmental science and planning, sociology, landscape ecology and architecture, regional science and policy design, and assessment can benefit from employing remote-sensing data and GIS.

The research in this book on the geographical context of drug addiction contributes to better understanding the etiology of addiction, its diffusion, its interaction with geographically variable environmental, social, and economic factors, and the strategies for its treatment and prevention. This book explores links between geography and drug abuse and identifies research ideas, connections, and research pathways which point to some promising avenues for future work in this area. 

The topics explored in Geography and Drug Addiction include: (1) Spatial patterns of drug use and addiction. (2) Linking spatial models with drug abuse research. (3) Interaction of social and environmental factors with biochemical processes of addiction. (4) Locational analyses of drug addiction treatment and service delivery facilities. (5) Neighborhood scale studies of geographic factors (including the built environment) and their interaction with drug addiction, treatment, or prevention. (6) Use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to better understanding and respond to drug addiction. (7) Spatial diffusion modeling of addictive drug usage and its changing characteristics, including also predictive modeling. (8) Social epidemiology and GIS. This book is an outcome of the jointly sponsored AAG/NIDA Geography and Drug Symposium. It will serve as an excellent resource to geographers and drug abuse researchers, including sociologists, epidemiologists, social scientists in general and public health researchers, both in policy and academia.

Since 1998, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Food Quality (LNV) promotes development-orientated agricultural and environmental research and strengthening of North-South partnerships through its International Cooperation (DLO-IC) research programme. By 2005, some 70 collaborative North-South projects had been carried out. 

All science groups in Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR) were involved in the implementation of the programme and at least half the projects and activities undertaken were directly related to Rural Development and Sustainable Agriculture (RDSA). Facing new challenges with respect to sustainable development strategies for low-income countries, related to global environmental change and globalization of markets, an interdisciplinary Wageningen research group set out to draw lessons from the DLO-IC projects of the last eight years, stimulate discussion and support identification of a future research agenda for RDSA. In that process, special emphasis was given to lessons for future thinking about the contribution of agriculture to: 1) poverty alleviation and rural livelihoods, 2)food security, human nutrition and health, 3) environmental sustainability and natural resource management. 

In discussing the way ahead, a number of major research challenges, as well as policy questions are outlined. These include the interrelations between climate change and food security and environmental degradation, increased demand for biofuels and animal feed, and competing claims on natural resources, and rural development and livelihood strategies in low-income countries.

Consumers’ attention to food safety issues and environmental issues has increased overwhelmingly in recent decades because of their increased concern about their own health, the environment’s health, and the crises and emergencies reported worldwide. Once the only option, organic agriculture has always been a production option followed by at least a few farmers all over the world. These farmers were prompted by ethical and environmental motivations, as well as by committed consumers who supported organic agriculture thanks to a separate but fairly elitist distribution channel. 

Organic food now has become a viable alternative for an increasing number of consumers that are worried about the presence of chemicals residues and the negative consequences on the environment caused by intensive production methods. Many farmers also now see organic farming as a way to stabilize or even increase their income due to public policy support and growing market demand. 

Organic Food: Consumers Choices and Farmers Opportunities gives an overview of the organic sector, both in Italy and in the United States, and demonstrates how agricultural economists are performing analyses dealing with organic produce on different points in the supply chain. It discusses economic issues raised by organic farming and takes into account both the consumers needs and the managerial and budget constraints experienced by the farmers. Also farm management methodologies and marketing analyses are used with specific research topics involving several industries in the agri-food sector.

These proceedings examine the nature and strength of jointness between agricultural commodity production and non-commodity outputs from the perspective of three areas important to the agricultural sector: rural development, environmental externalities and food security. This workshop also examined whether the relationships among these non-commodity outputs were complementary or competing. Finally, the policy implications that could be derived from the findings of this workshop were also a key element in the discussions and are summarised in the Rapporteur’s summary.

Sustainable development, climate policy, and biodiversity conservation are examples of issues on the current political agenda in many countries. These themes are also subject to economic research, and economic insights are increasingly finding their way into the design of environmental policy. Still, the reception of academic findings by policy makers as well as the timely identification of policy-relevant questions by economic researchers often seem to be problematic. This volume attempts to vitalise the exchange between policy makers and academics. It offers a snapshot of environmental economic research on a range of policy-relevant problems. Academic contributions are complemented by views of policy makers on priority fields in environmental policy, the usefulness of academic research for decision making, and requirements to applied research in the future.

Written for:
Researchers in Environmental Economics

Keywords:
Energy Economics
Environmental Economics
Environmental Policy
Environmental Regulation
Sustainability Assessment
Trade and Resource Use
Transport Economics