In this study of factors affecting Iraqi agricultural production and productivity, it has been found essential to deal both with socioeconomic and technical factors on the one hand and environmental conditons on the other. The ultimate objective of this study is to assess the impact of selected climatic factors on the production and productivity of some principal crops. Such assessment, however, cannot be achieved in isolation from the influence of the socio-economic and technical factors. Considerable variability over time of the latter factors, caused by specific institutional changes such as the land reform of 1958, resulted in changes in agricultural conditions as a whole. Therefore, in Chapters Two to Nine are examined the national and regional conditions of Iraqi agriculture during the 1950-1975 period, i.e. planning and investment, land utilization, land tenure system and land reform, agricultural cooperatives and other organizations, new input factors including farm machinery and, finally, water resources and irrigation methods. The inescapable conclusion of this section of the study is that there were no significant medium or long-term improvement trends in the yields of principal crops despite varying but considerable additional inputs and planning attention. Moreover, the controls exerted by climate and weather appear crucial factors in both the irrigated and rainfed area. In Chapters Ten and Eleven we therefore turn to a direct examination of climatic and weather factors. In Chapters Twelve and Thirteen a study is made of the relationship between selected weather variables, i.e. rainfall, temperature and relative humidity, and wheat and barley yield. These two crops were chosen because of their importance to Iraqi agriculture as a whole, and in particular to the rainfed area of northern Iraq where environmental modifications by man are least strong. The first point appearing from this analysis shows that yields of these two crops are significantly affected by climatic and weather factors during specific periods within the growing season. The significance of statistical correlations between yields and certain critical climatic factors appear sufficiently valid for crop forecasting with a certain degree of accuracy. As a by-product of this analysis, it appears that there was a significant dislocation period following the implementation of land reform measures. In conclusion, it is clear that agricultural production and productivity must be dealt with in the context of a whole set of factors, socio-economic, technical and environmental, if significant developments in agriculture and rural welfare are to be achieved.

This thesis examines the transformation of traditional agriculture in Western Saudi Arabia. Particular emphasis has been placed on illustrating the way in which certain environmental and spatial constraints affect the development of traditional agriculture. National and international issues pertaining to the structural transformation of traditional agriculture have been systematically reviewed. The thesis consists of two parts. Part One considers the transitionary nature of Western Saudi Arabia agriculture in four chapters: some environmental problems and Islamic institutions regarding land, labour constraints and agricultural change, the role of capital in transforming traditional agriculture and Ibn Khaldoun's geographic model and view of traditional co-operation. Part Two examines the process of agricultural transformation in three chapters dealing with three phases of transformation. The hijra as a point of departure: Phase I; the national policy for agricultural transformation Phase II, and International transfer of technology and structural transformation: Phase III. The thesis ends by summing up the general findings of the study and indicates potential areas for possible solutions to development issues.

No description available.

Major changes are taking place in all sectors of the livestock and meat producing industries from farm to consumer which impinge on the processes and pattems of livestock distribution from farm to slaughter. These changes are identified and described. A farm business survey of lowland beef and sheep finishers was undertaken, prior to the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak, to gain a better understanding of farm business behaviour in order to model the farm business strategies in relation to aggregate livestock channel utilisation. Statistically robust and predictive models using a number of derived latent strategic variables, distilling marketing and business orientations, were used in an adapted multivariate approach. Group profiling confirmed consistency with the cluster profiles. Results show that both lowland beef and sheep producers can be statistically classified into three distinct strategic groups. The marketing approaches that farm businesses use vary according to group membership. For lowland beef producers these are described as selling orientation, buyer focus and differentiation strategies. Sellers view beef production as a minor enterprise to provide supplementary farm income, but fail to meet procurement requirements and are limited to channel utilisation. Buyer focus are production orientated, understand distribution, have good market knowledge and meet procurement standards. Differentiators have similar attributes to buyer focus, but are more likely to differentiate and add value and actively seek markets to which they can sell. Lowland sheep producer strategies are described as opportunist, production and differentiation. Opportunists have similar attributes to sellers, and fail to meet or understand procurement requirements. Producers are as production orientated as buyer focus, but have poorer market and distribution knowledge and tend to focus primarily on production concerns. Differentiators, as with beef finishers, are more likely to differentiate and add value and actively seek markets to which they can sell. The developed typologies reveal that farm business marketing behaviour changes according to group membership and this has a significant influence on aggregate channel utilisation within the Far South West. For some fanners it would appear that channel utilisation is predetermined.

No description available.

This thesis is a statement of research into the use of various aspects of the science of land evaluation in a selected area of Eastern Durham, Great Britain. It has a dual purpose of both investigating the area under question and of developing new means of analysis in the light of present concepts and past research. Two broad themes run through the study; that of consideration of methods of assessing the physical capability of land for various uses, and that of the development of natural resource information inventories for use where no specific land use is initially contemplated. Two areas for research, suggested by deficiencies in the existing literature, are followed. The first is the use of point sample surveys to enable a rapid evaluation of an areas characteristics and land use capability at a "strategic" level of survey. The second is the development of quantitative information inventory procedures which reduce the elements of subjectivity that are inherent in composite unit analysis. The three major underlying practical conceptual approaches to land evaluation of thematic, composite and parametric analysis are taken as the methodological basis for the research and only physical evaluations are considered. Soil receives particular emphasis throughout. The work is divided into five parts. Part 1 discusses the concept of land evaluation, the contribution of previous workers and the role of natural resource attributes and parameters. Part 2 defines the study area, the survey methods, and a thematic description of the area's characteristics relevant to the study. Part 3 investigates parametric land capability classifications for selected land uses and Part 4, after a discussion of quantitative information analysis, outlines a series of quantitative methods for the development of site information inventories. Part 5 concludes the study.

No description available.

No description available.

The negotiation and implementation of the policies proposed by the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (market access, domestic support, export subsidies and consideration of non-trade concerns), show that agriculture remains a most contentious trade issue, despite its diminishing role in the economy worldwide and its accounting for only 8% of total trade. The research has explored how the arguments behind the proposed policies become discourses and how these in turn become resources used by different actors for influencing policy formation. A heuristic framework of fora and arena has been generated enabling the organisation and interpretation of a set of heterogeneous empirical materials for discourse analysis; the organisational, technical, popular and moralising fora showing the cognitive, emotion and moral matrices of knowledge construction and the political arena being the site for public legitimation. Through the literature review and the case studies of WTO, the FAO, the European Commission and transnational civil society organisations, discourses were found on multifunctional agriculture, roles of agriculture, sustainable agricultural and rural development, food security and food sovereignty. These were formed through the theoretical resources by epistemic communities and also through discursive practices and governance arrangements. Paradigmatic shifts were found in the conceptualisation of agriculture and trade liberalisation, with convergent views on the need for national food production and local foods, the dismantling of the comparative advantage principle as a guide to policies, the association of agriculture with global public goods and the increased elaborations of the 'non-trade concerns'. The findings suggest that it is consumption and not only production issues that are driving the negotiations. They also highlight agriculture as part of a complex chain linking the physical environment and production to consumption and health on a global scale, as such in need of greater interdisciplinarity than the original economics-driven policies formulation of the Agreement on Agriculture.

This thesis analyses the class dynamics, politics, and ideology of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador. It argues that engagement with class dynamics within the Via Campesina, the world's preeminent transnational agrarian movement struggling for food sovereignty, is essential for the construction of 'unity in diversity' necessary to challenge the neoliberal food regime. It interrogates the claim made by the movement and its proponents of a 'unified people of the land' to show that the food sovereignty project currently underrepresents rural labour and producers of cash crops. It also shows that struggles of the landed peasantry for autonomy from and within the market can successfully resist the accelerated forces of proletarianisation, dispossession and immiseration that characterise much of the rural South in the neoliberal era. Autonomous struggles are the foundation of peasant production and reproduction strategies in Mexico and Ecuador today and are the basis from which food sovereignty's productive, political and ideological alternatives to neoliberalism must be developed. However, state-peasant movement relations are central to the construction of counter-hegemony. So too are peasant organisations' internal structures, their modes of representation between leaders and bases, and alliance building and conflict with other subaltern groups. These factors are critical in determining whether, and to what extent, the food sovereignty movement is able to transform neoliberal food and agricultural policies in favour of sustainable, small-scale peasant production guided by concerns for social and environmental justice rather than those of capital accumulation.