Farmers’ Risk‐Based Decision Making Under Pervasive Uncertainty: Cognitive Thresholds and Hazy Hedging

Researchers in judgment and decision making have long debunked the idea that we are economically rational optimizers. However, problematic assumptions of rationality remain common in studies of agricultural economics and climate change adaptation, especially those that involve quantitative models. Recent movement toward more complex agent‐based modeling provides an opportunity to reconsider the empirical basis for farmer decision making. Here, we reconceptualize farmer decision making from the ground up, using an in situ mental models approach to analyze weather and climate risk management. We assess how large‐scale commercial grain farmers in South Africa (n = 90) coordinate decisions about weather, climate variability, and climate change with those around other environmental, agronomic, economic, political, and personal risks that they manage every day. Contrary to common simplifying assumptions, we show that these farmers tend to satisfice rather than optimize as they face intractable and multifaceted uncertainty; they make imperfect use of limited information; they are differently averse to different risks; they make decisions on multiple time horizons; they are cautious in responding to changing conditions; and their diverse risk perceptions contribute to important differences in individual behaviors. We find that they use two important nonoptimizing strategies, which we call cognitive thresholds and hazy hedging, to make practical decisions under pervasive uncertainty. These strategies, evident in farmers' simultaneous use of conservation agriculture and livestock to manage weather risks, are the messy in situ performance of naturalistic decision‐making techniques. These results may inform continued research on such behavioral tendencies in narrower lab‐ and modeling‐based studies.     

西北地区农业产业结构演变及其发展研究

区域农业经济的发展与其产业结构有密切关系。目前,针对西北地区农业产业的研究多针对农业产业集群发展的讨论,而将西北地区的农业产业整合起来的研究尚不多见。通过对西北地区各省区农业产业结构演变过程进行分析,对各省区的农业优势部门做出选择,并尝试对西北各省区农、林、牧、渔和服务业之间如何协同发展给出一定参考意见。     

层次分析与改革实践:课程思政切入点设计的三个维度

课程思政作为一种教育理念、工作路径和制度安排,是构建各类专业课程与思想政治理论课程同向机制的必然选择。在课程思政建设实践中,高校应从目标、制度与要素出发,对政治性指标进行层次分析来设计课程思政切入点,从课程、教材、党支部三个关键因子出发不断推进课程思政教育教学改革。河北农业大学按照“学校整体设计—学院主体责任—党支部(教研室)主导—教师具体落实—教学督导和专家协同参与”的工作思路,做到把政策要求与学校实际、模范带动与全员跟进、经验传承与方式创新、精准设计与发散用力相结合,建立贯通于学科体系、教学体系、教材体系以及管理体系的工作体系。同时,注重对课程思政建设进行价值引领力量、思辨能力培养、学生参与热情、示范带动效果的全方位评价,从而使课程思政建设达到“全员全程全方位育人”的良好效果。     

国立西北农学院的合组经过与历史意义——基于历史档案的考察和述评

基于抗战时期的历史档案,梳理了国立西北农学院(西北农林科技大学前身)合组成立的历史经过。地处后稷教民稼穑之地武功的国立西北农林专科学校与抗日战争期间西迁的国立北平大学农学院合组是现代农业文明的一次重要融汇。在强大的师资力量支撑下,国立西北农学院办学水平和科学研究方面表现卓越,成为当时国内惟一的独立农学院,并在合组后逐步形成扎根西北、融汇世界的教育思想和办学抱负,成为当代兴学强国的宝贵精神财富。     

全球农机装备专利技术信息分析及启示

采用Innography专利检索与分析工具,从专利授权年度趋势、专利布局、主要创新机构竞争态势、技术研究热点、核心专利挖掘等维度进行专利信息分析.分析结果表明,美国、德国、法国在农机装备领域的技术实力较强,拥有各自独特的核心专利,并在全球进行广泛的策略性布局.中国虽然是该领域最大的技术来源国,但核心专利拥有量不多,海外专利申请也相对缺乏.目前农机装备领域技术研发集中在A01C7、A01B49、A01B33等IPC类别.法国库恩、美国迪尔、美国凯斯纽荷兰等大型跨国公司掌握了产业发展的制高点,中国农大、东北农大等单位技术实力强,但并不是该领域的领跑者.     

基层民主自治进程中乡村计划生育政策落实的困境及出路——基于基层治理中“不出事逻辑”的分析视角

本文对基层民主自治进程中乡村计划生育政策落实的困境及出路进行了探讨。基层民主自治是我国的一项基本政治制度,实行基层民主自治是发展中国特色社会主义民主政治的重要内容。但是在乡村推行基层民主自治的过程中,乡村计划生育政策的落实陷入一些困境,这些困境集中表现为计生政策与村民生育愿望、与村委会选举、与社会保障体系、与利益导向机制及与其它相关部门和政策的冲突与矛盾。鉴于此,本文相对应地提出了加强宣传教育、完善村民自治、健全社会保障体系、健全舆论导向机制以及加强政策的同向性与协调度等对策建议,以期推动计划生育政策在乡村进一步落实。     

“Empowerment” as efficiency and participation: gender in responsible agricultural investment principles

Amidst global concern over the state of transnational large-scale agricultural investments, several efforts have been made to set global standards for “responsible agricultural investment.” While these efforts have received mixed reviews from the international community, very little attention has been paid to the gendered language of these principles. Through examining two separate sets of agricultural investment principles – one created by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank, and the other by the United Nations Committee on World Food Security – this article finds that, despite different processes and participants in the creation of these principles, they nonetheless share a language of “empowerment” targeted at women and marginalized groups. However, in contrast to early feminist discourses of empowerment, these principles instead perpetuate the notion that empowerment is to be found through efficiency, productivity and participation in land and labor markets. This article takes a critical look at this language of economic empowerment in each set of principles, and points to the dangers of equating efficiency, productivity and participation with feminist empowerment. By not acknowledging the broader gender dynamics of agricultural governance and markets, these discourses risk deepening existing inequalities rather than moving toward meaningful social change.     

There is an app for that? The impact of community knowledge workers in Uganda

Rapidly expanding mobile network coverage in developing countries offers new ways to reach poor farmers in isolated places. This article explores the potential for Information and Communication Technology to provide agricultural information and extension services to smallholder farmers, and links this to empirical insights of an intervention in Uganda, where community knowledge workers rely on mobile devices to deliver context- and time-sensitive data to farmers. Consistent with theoretical insights related to information inefficiencies, we find that the intervention leads farmers to move away from low-risk low-return crops toward more commercially oriented commodities. Our analysis also suggests that, for the case of maize, the intervention causes farmers to sell less on the market, but at significantly higher prices.     

Building ‘cowshed cultures’: A cultural perspective on the promotion of stockmanship and animal welfare on dairy farms

Improving animal welfare is an important part of the development of the agricultural industry, particularly at a time when intensification and the encroachment of factory-style production systems is making the maintenance of human-animal relations increasingly difficult. Animal science deals with the issue of improving stockmanship by focusing on the relationships between attitudes and behaviour, under the premise that improved attitudes will lead to improved behaviour. From an analysis of 42 interviews with owners, sharemilkers and workers on dairy farms in New Zealand we present a different view, seeing behaviour instead as part of a self-reinforcing culture in which animals, humans and the physical structure all contribute to the development of farm specific ways of doing and being. We further suggest that changing one stockperson's attitude alone is insufficient to ensure a change in the culture as other actors – including animals and non-human actors – reinforce any existing culture that has developed, making both attitudinal and behavioural change difficult. We conclude by discussing the key importance of designing farm systems and structures that promote positive interactions between animals and humans and suggest that this, rather than simply promoting knowledge and attitudinal change, is likely to be the most effective way of maintaining stockmanship in the face of an industrialising agriculture.     

战后菲律宾土地改革、政策变迁与农业发展

纵观战后菲律宾农业发展过程,其劳动生产率和土地生产率均增长缓慢。土地结构倾斜、土地改革进程缓慢,经济政策的扭曲是阻碍菲律宾农业长期增长和发展的两大主要原因。菲律宾要摆脱农业发展的困境,以下几个方面需要重视:逐步取消对农业生产的投入产出部门的扭曲管制;减少在贸易、价格方面的管制;加强基础设施建设投入、加强农村地区的人力资源训练、加强农业技术的研发与推广。