Recently, the United Nations announced that the annual average concentration of atmospheric carbon would pass 400 ppm and scientists warned that catastrophic climate change would soon be unavoidable. Three facets to addressing climate change exist: lessening impacts through greenhouse gas reduction, adapting to impacts that cannot be avoided and improving capacity by developing sustainably. Experts argue that fostering climate-resilient development pathways integrate all three facets thereby providing the strongest response through a triple-win. Yet, typically each aspect has been treated as a distinct response and studied separately. As such, insufficient research exists about the process of building resilience and the possible interactions between each of the facets. This research examined Ukraine’s agri-food sector to begin to fill this large gap in understanding how to build climate-resilience. A case study approach works best when aiming to understand context-dependent processes such as development pathways. Systems methodology provided a framework for understanding possible interactions. All three facets of addressing climate change were integrated into a single process by modifying the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) to include planned adaptation and mitigation. The SLF was then used to create a semi-structured plan for interviewing farmers and stakeholders. An iterative participant-driven approach including grounded theory and Q method allowed for multiple perspectives to be considered and allowed for exploration of an under researched topic. The research finding revealed that factors such as corruption, land tenancy, trust and a perceived inability to work together function as barriers to building resilience. Moreover, learning from both international and domestic projects helped to build resilience. The development of agricultural cooperatives within Ukraine has the potential to create a cycle of improved social networks and learning, thereby enhancing climate-resilience. These findings complement other studies that highlight the importance of addressing non-climate issues in order to foster climate-resilience.

Recent studies from the social sciences and humanities have interrogated the construction, spatialisation and governance of global climate knowledge through offering accounts of the intimate human-weather-landscape inter-relationship. This approach is currently lacking in Thailand, where the National Climate Change Master Plan’s adaptation and communication strategies are largely infrastructurally-oriented, and science-driven, respectively. To rectify this situation, in this study a group of Tai Yuan (Khon Muang) farmers in Nan province, Northern Thailand, were selected to explore with them their weather experiences and interpretations, through a 13-month-long ethnographic study, a focus group, and a series of photo-elicitations. To answer how facts and ideas of climate-change were mobilised, framed, and communicated to these farmers, representatives of external climate-related organisations were subsequently interviewed. The study found that weather was understood sensually, culturally and morally in relation to agrarian landscapes, Muang culture, Buddhist-animist beliefs, and farming practices: a winter of nostalgia; a summer of perseverance; and a rainy season of hope and fear. Unwelcoming changes in weather were believed to be local problems that required adjusting minds, worshipping deities, and reviving traditional beliefs and morality. NGOs tended to appreciate and respect these understandings by creating a hybridised local-science knowledge to empower and build resilience to external changes and injustices. Contrarily, most governmental and science-based climate organisations’ communication strategies tended to impose, upon villagers, claims of global climate knowledge through technical terms, numbers, and climate policy, thereby redefining local weather conceptualisations. This hegemonic standardised knowledge reflects a modernist ideology that places lay Thai villagers at the periphery of global climate knowledge production. The Thai government’s deforestation-maize-haze-global warming narrative exemplifies this standardised framing. The thesis concludes that if climate adaptation projects in Thailand are to matter culturally to local people, knowledge pluralism needs to be taken into account and environmental narratives and communication strategies critically examined.

To be able to meet the growing demand for food and ensure food security, arable farming systems need to be made more sustainable. However, making arable farming systems more sustainable could sometimes mean reductions in the use of productivity improving inputs such as fertiliser and pesticide in order to reduce their impacts on the environment. This presents conflicting environmental and economic goals, which increase management complexities in sustainable arable farming systems. An arable farm level model, consisting of four modules, which combines mixed-integer, risk and goal-programming approaches, has been developed to capture many of the complexities in arable farming and optimise farm profit, risk and nitrate leaching. Statistical validation of the model using data from the Farm Business Survey (FBS) showed a good association between model-predicted results and observed farm data. Results of the application of the mixed-integer weighted goal-programming module to estimate aggregate cost of non-chemical (spring cropping) control of black-grass showed that in the short run the strategy could cost the UK arable farming sector, however there could be a long term benefit of reductions in black-grass infestation. On per hectare basis, cost estimates provide indication of possible farm payment to incentivise adoption of the strategy. On individual farm basis, spring cropping could be beneficial dependent on the soil type, rainfall and hectares of land available to the farm. The application of the MOTAD module and randomly generated risk-aversion parameter method showed that arable farmers in England are risk-averse and that farmers in different regions would react to change in policy differently depending on their levels of risk-aversion. The results also showed the need for regional policies and relevance of the model in policy analysis. The model, which has been developed as part of this research adds to the few arable farm level models identified in the UK and bridges model capability gaps identified in arable farm modelling. Given available data for calibration and validation, results generated by the model can be applied to better inform arable farming and policy decisions to enhance the development of robust and sustainable arable farming systems to ensure food security.

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Before 1949 tenancy existed in various forms and degrees in Kiangsu. Although such relationships were eliminated by the land reform of 1950-52 and despite the sacrifice of social gains in the interest of economic advance, the economic impact of this first stage of agrarian reform was minimal. The Mutual Aid Team Movement was the first attempt to achieve greater co-operation in agriculture. However, because of its inherent limitations its appeal was confined to the poorer peasants and it failed to attract those whose potential contribution to agricultural growth was greatest. A more radical change was the creation of agricultural producers' co-operatives. Until 1955 these existed in relatively small numbers, but between mid-1955 and mid-1956 an extraordinary upsurge of activity occurred which led not merely to the rapid semi-socialist co-operativization of agriculture but indeed to its fully-socialist collectivization. An examination of quantitative indicators of agriculture's performance in Kiangsu during these years suggests that institutional change failed to generate the growth that had been hoped for. The rate of growth of output of the most important crops during the 1950's (especially the First Five Year Plan period) was extremely disappointing. Productivity levels remained low and there continued to exist alarming gaps in both production and consumption between different parts of the province. At the most general level there was a clear economic dichotomy between the relatively prosperous areas of south Kiangsu and the more backward and depressed regions of the north. More surprising is the evidence of declining production over the longer run. Output of a number of major crops, particularly when viewed in per capita terms, was lower in the 1950's than in the 1930's. In this case there were however two successes to be set against the failures; a more rational cropping pattern was introduced throughout the province and the production of rice, the most important food crop, showed an upward trend.

This thesis analyses the micro-economic process of technical change in one particularly successful agricultural area of Japan, the Saga Plain, between 1868 and 1939. It does so within a framework which relates the characteristics of the new techniques selected to the prevailing technical, economic and social environment, through the institutional mechanisms for the development of new technology. These characteristics themselves then influence the diffusion of new techniques and their effects. The Saga Plain differs from much of the rest of Japan in its natural environment. Hence the technology employed in paddy rice cultivation at the beginning of the period also differed, especially in methods of irrigation. Economic and social relationships between households centered on arrangements to meet the heavy labour and capital requirements of the irrigation technology and to ensure the subsistence of cultivators. The technical and economic system was disrupted by the rapid industrialisation of nearby areas after 1900. This raised the demand for marketed rice and caused a substantial outflow of small-scale cultivators. Shortage of hired labour forced larger cultivators to split up their holdings, and the proportion of middle-sized cultivators increased. Such farmers were under pressure to find ways of lessening the labour requirements for irrigation and raising output. The solution to their problems was developed by local government and extension officials, who assisted the manufacturers in the design of an electric pump. This innovation was rapidly diffused through communal purchase of the pumps by village organisations. It was the breakthrough which permitted the adoption of other new techniques, leading to substantial rises in yields and labour productivity. It intensified the trend towards increasing proportions of medium-scale family farms. The study suggests conclusions as to the institutional requirements for the development of appropriate techniques and the relationship between technical and structural change in agriculture.

The theme of this study is employment problems in the Sudan particularly its agricultural sector. The subject of employment in less developed countries is of considerable concern where it raises manifold issues. Some of these are outlined in the first chapter. Then an attempt is made (chapter two) to identify the dimensions of the Sudan employment problems and their possible causes. Data from different sources suggest a low rate of overall unemployment. In contrast to this seemingly favourable situation, pervasive underemployment in traditional agriculture is disclosed. In dealing with such a problem from the national point of view the tricky issue of combining growth with equity poses itself. The treatment of employment in the Sudan development planning exercises was found to be seriously inadequate (chapter three). Employment was there viewed more or less as a by-product of economic development, The implicit strategy of growth maximisation seems to have accentuated dualism between modern and traditional economies within agriculture. With a population about 15 million in 1973 and an average density of six persons per square kilometre, the Sudan may have seemed to be free from any threat of overpopulation, Demographic data are considered in chapter four in order to investigate various population problems related to growth, composition and distribution. The following two chapters lead on to an examination of the labour force, three-quarters of which has been engaged in agriculture. An apparent abundance of labour supply in the country as a whole is difficult to reconcile with the acute and costly seasonal manpower shortages experienced in modern agriculture. Migration and seasonal labour mobility may thus be crucial to combining growth with equity. Possibly for the first time as far as the Sudan is concerned, labour migration is here empirically studied from the point of view of the sending areas. Besides the demographic structure of sample rural areas, observations related to earnings and productivity in traditional sector are considered. Finally the threads of the preceding themes are brought together, summarising the findings and putting them into perspective. A few suggestions for further research are indicated.

The thesis is a study of some economic aspects of higher-yielding varieties of rice with special reference to small farmers in the West Godavary district of Andhra Pradesh. The introduction of higher-yielding varieties represents a major technological breakthrough in Indian agriculture. They sire expected to play an important role in increasing food production. The successful cultivation of these varieties depends upon the use of non-conventional inputs like chemical fertilisers and pesticides and the adoption of improved water management practices. The ability to increase rice production by means of these varieties will depend upon the availability of these inputs on farms of all sizes. Rice cultivation in India is undertaken predominantly on small farms. Such farms face several difficulties in acquiring these inputs. Any assessment of the impact of the new varieties in increasing rice production in the country as a whole will require identification of these difficulties. Chapter I contains brief descriptions of the new varieties and of the region studied; the term "small farm" is then defined for the purpose of the present study. Chapter II examines the role of irrigation in the cultivation of the new varieties. Chapter III deals with fertilisers; it explores the factors influencing demand at the micro-level. Chapter IV examines the nature and implications of the increased application of human labour input on farms resulting from controlled irrigation and high levels of fertiliser use. Chapter V returns to the themes developed in the earlier chapters and presents the demand for and supply of fertilisers and facilities for control of irrigation in the form of a generalised input, namely, credit. The inferior access of small farms to institutional credit is seen as an obstacle to their effective contribution to the programme of increasing rice production. Chapter VI contains the principal conclusion of this thesis: that the potential contribution of small farms to rice production has hitherto received inadequate attention and may be considerably more significant than is at present supposed.

It is postulated that agricultural development in third world countries cannot properly be appraised without an understanding of the farming knowledge, and economic and cultural attitudes, of those citizens whom it is supposed to benefit; the factors which have moulded the contemporary- individual 's approach to farming must also be appreciated. Physical factors affecting agriculture in the lowlands and foothills of Lesotho are therefore outlined; the economic history of the Basotho nation is then discussed, and the present contribution of agriculture to national subsistence noted. It is argued that the farming sector is in decline but that it retains a vital role in the sustenance of most households. Two aspects of cultural context are examined; vernacular relationships with the landscape, and the perceived role of cattle. Contemporary Sesotho agricultural methods and farming knowledge are then outlined, and the important social networks which sustain agricultural production are - discussed. In a broad analysis of Sesotho world-view, the individual's attitude to farming is located. It is argued that the extent of farming knowledge, the degree of interest in this activity and the needs, problems and desired changes reported reflect an accurate appraisal of the role and actual potential of agriculture in Sesotho economy today. The significance of this appraisal for rural development is then shown in a discussion of soil erosion and conservation in Lesotho. The analysis is expanded to consider the policies of government and aid projects in other areas of agriculture. It is concluded that these are more likely to meet with success where they reinforce the supplementary subsistence role farming is still expected to fulfil; more ambitious initiatives may not correspond with realistic Sesotho expectations in this sector.