This research investigated whether local economic development interventions necessarily improve the livelihoods of poor communities. More specifically, the goal of this thesis was to explore some of the reasons why land-based economic development interventions often struggle to meet their main objective of improving the livelihoods of local poor people.

A variety of conservation trends have gained and lost favor throughout the years in agriculture, with U.S. Farm Bills often influencing what conservation practices are implemented by farming communities throughout the U.S. This dissertation focuses on the unintended consequences of conservation management practices in the Fifteenmile Watershed of Wasco County, Oregon. Specifically, I seek to address how farmer enrollment in various conservation techniques, loosely defined as no-till agriculture, has affected soil and water quality through the increased use of herbicide, and subsequently rendered ecological and human health vulnerable. Using a critical physical geography framework, I address both the biophysical factors and social structures that have co-produced changes in soil and water quality in the study area of this research through intensive physical field data collection, spatial analysis, social surveys, and interviews. I also demonstrate how three neoliberal sets of processes: market-friendly reregulation; state rollback and deregulation; and the creation of self-sufficient individuals and communities, have transformed the human socio-environmental relationship to agriculture. These processes have had significant effects on the policies governing how soil and water quality are managed on both a state and national level, and have created a dependence on enrollment in conservation practices that may ultimately prove counterproductive for long term goals of environmental protection and sustainability.

This research investigated whether local economic development interventions necessarily improve the livelihoods of poor communities. More specifically, the goal of this thesis was to explore some of the reasons why land-based economic development interventions often struggle to meet their main objective of improving the livelihoods of local poor people.

The study investigates whether government-sponsored community development projects in the township of Mdantsane, Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa, have achieved the intended goal of alleviating poverty among the beneficiaries. The specific outcomes of poverty alleviation are: improved income, acquisition of new skills, reduced dependence on welfare grants. Four urban farming projects were selected, namely: Buffalo City Organic Producers, Sakhisizwe Nursery, Lusindiso Farmer’s Trading Co-operative and Mbombela Co-operative. Focus group discussions and a mini survey were conducted with project beneficiaries, while relevant government officials were interviewed. Conceptual insights were drawn from community development theory. The findings showed that the broader context within which the projects occurred was characterised by a pro-poor social policy, relative availability of resources with which to translate it into action, and a measure of entrepreneurial potential amongst community members. However, while one of the projects showed some promise (in the sense that beneficiaries acquired new skills and had a generally positive attitude despite not enjoying any improved income status), all the others appeared doomed and trapped in dynamics such as: excessive government control of the management of the initiatives, ineffective project monitoring, and the mischaracterisation of the initiatives by both the government and the beneficiaries. A distorted sense of ownership and perverse community participation seemed to prevail, which in turn robbed the initiatives of their poverty alleviation potential. The study thus concluded that specific benefactor-beneficiary dynamics are crucial for the success of a given anti-poverty intervention. A robust pro-poor social policy, availability of resources with which to translate it into action, and local entrepreneurial potential do not in themselves bring about success; they must operate in a certain way and be undergirded by certain principles for them to become a powerful mechanism for alleviating poverty. It is against this background that the researcher offers some recommendations.

This study examined the impact of the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) on the livelihood of land and agrarian reform farmers in Sedibeng District Municipality of Gauteng Province, South Africa. The programme serves as a post settlement support to agricultural projects. Post settlement support is very critical to achieving many projects of South Africa and other neighbouring countries. The study diagnosed the key variables that could be used in reforming, correcting and tightening in order to have a sustainable agricultural project. The study also indicated the variables that could have positive and negative contributions on the effects of obtaining the socio-economic deliverables of the CASP agrarian reform farmers. A comprehensive structured questionnaire was designed and used to collect data from 300 agrarian reform farmers in Sedibeng District Municipality. The study employed Probit Regression model and Propensity Score Matching to estimate the impact of CASP on farmers’ income. The key findings were that CASP promoted the livelihood of the rural economy by increasing farmers’ incomes. CASP had a high impact on the income of agrarian reform farmers who benefited on it than non-benefited. Socio-economic and institutional factors were found to influence participation in CASP. The survey data indicate that the majority of respondents who participate in CASP (74.4%) were males while 25.6% were female. About (32%) of CASP participants had attained primary school education, 28.3% had secondary school education, and 23.3% had education at the college level while 16.4% acquired high school education. For non- CASP participant, 71.6% was male and 28.4% was female. About (32.1%) of non-CASP participants had acquired primary education, 23.5% had secondary school education, 25.9% had education at the college level while 18.5% acquired high school education About 53.9% representing the CASP participants was married while only 6.8% was single, 19.2 was divorced and 20.1 are widowed. The percentage of non-CASP participant that were married was about 51.9% and 8.6% are single, 23.5% are divorced while 16.0 are widowed. About 22.8% of the CASP participant indicated that their household heads were employed while 77.8% are unemployed. About16.9% of CASP participants had obtained qualification in agriculture while the majority (83.1%) did not have any qualification in agriculture. Only 18.5% of non-CASP participant obtained qualification in agriculture while 81.5% have not obtained any qualification in agriculture. The study recommended that CASP be extended to more agrarian reform farmers and it will promote food security and sustainable strategy to achieve the post 2015 development agenda (2030 agenda-succeed the Millennium Development Goals) for sustainable development goals targets ending poverty and hunger. In order to achieve more participation, factors identified to influence CASP participation needed to be given more attention critical in policy formulation. / Agriculture, Animal Health and Human Ecology / M. Sc. (Agriculture)

It is verified in this thesis: to be the nature of capital strength extraction of surplus labor makes borderless. To this end, international competitiveness and efficiency productivist guide the European Common Agricultural Policy evading wealth polo Juazeiro/ Petrolina, in that obtains control of the land, water and all stages of production in the field by imposing stamp certifications as a determinant of the free movement of goods in the European market. Centered in the rules of accumulation and exploitation of the system capital, agro-hydro expands supported and encouraged by the state, as the only way to raise the standard of living of workers in town and country, justified the quantitative employment generated, which in turn, can result in unnecessary consumption of the city. While this discourse is divulgadado, land and water become appropriated by the owners of capital specifically for crop production required by the international market. Thus, demand for tropical fruits by countries that comprise the European Union has allowed the PAC to exert its total domination in the Valley, determining how to behave employee and employer, without necessarily having title to the land. Thus, the irrigation policy in areas that were implanted with the irrigated areas in particular: Bebedouro Nilo Coelho and Salitre has actually expanded production quantitatively and qualitatively, but this apparently positive balance has been extracted from the land rent , materialized in the precarious and temporary employees as well as the monopolization of land of small farmers who still has nominal bond with it. It is therefore the mediation of this land in the center of the factors that promote the separation between the place of production of the means of life that does not take the form of variable capital necessary reproduction of the worker and the place of production and reproduction of capital. With this, the surplus labor time that capital appropriates is shared by many capitalist agents in Polo and Europe. / Comprova-se na presente tese que: por ser a natureza do capital força extratora do trabalho excedente o faz sem fronteiras. Para tanto, a competividade internacional e a eficiência produtivista norteiam a Política Agrícola Comum Europeia a subtrair a riqueza do Polo Juazeiro/Petrolina, na medida em que obtêm o controle da terra, água e todas as etapas da produção no campo, mediante a imposição do selo de certificações como determinante à livre circulação da mercadoria no Mercado Europeu. Centrado nas regras de acumulação e exploração do sistema do capital, o agro-hidronegócio se expande apoiado e incentivado pelo Estado, como sendo a única saída para elevar o nível de vida dos trabalhadores da cidade e campo justificado no quantitativo de emprego gerado que, por sua vez, pode resultar no consumo de produtos supérfluos na cidade. Enquanto esse discurso é propagandeado, a terra e água passam a ser apropriadas pelos proprietários do capital especificamente para produção de cultivos requeridos pelo mercado internacional. Assim, a procura de frutas tropicais pelos países que compõem a União Europeia tem permitido que a PAC exerça seu total domínio no Vale, determinando como deve comportar-se empregador e empregado, sem necessariamente ter o título de propriedade da terra. Desse modo, a politica de irrigação nas áreas em que foram implantados os Perímetros Irrigados, em especial: Bebedouro, Nilo Coelho e Salitre têm de fato ampliado quantitativa e qualitativamente a produção; porém, esse saldo aparentemente positivo tem sido extraído da renda da terra, materializado no trabalho precarizado e temporário dos assalariados, bem como na monopolização da terra dos pequenos produtores que ainda têm vínculo nominal com a mesma. É, portanto, a mediação da renda fundiária que está no centro dos fatores que promovem a separação entre o lugar da produção dos meios de vida que não assumem a forma de capital variável, necessários à reprodução do trabalhador e o lugar de produção e reprodução do capital. Com isso, o excedente do tempo de trabalho de que o capital se apropria é repartido por muitos agentes capitalistas no Polo e na Europa.

This doctorate thesis aims to analyze the spatial reconfigurations established in the capital territory under the domain of the sugarcane harvest business on the basis of the new work and production relationships in the agrarian market through the sugarcane harvesters in the Brazilian state of Sergipe. With the thesis is that society is not actually facing the loss of work centrality, but the intensification of the extraction of the highest capital value based on the logic of structural unemployment which fails to comply with alterations on the official work legislation and workers. rights, allowing the worker to be subjected to degrading working conditions, analogous to slavery, with no work insurance. This work analysis is based on the historic materialistic method which allows a procedural reading of the internality and externality movements dynamic in the multifaceted connection network among the State, capital and work in local-, national-, world-scale interconnections, changing the content of the capital and work relationships to the oppression and over exploration in the extraction of work time not paid to the sugarcane cutting workers. This reality is faced by sugarcane cutting workers who live in precarious life and work conditions, being susceptible to capital, guarantying the agrarian business to keep its high value extraction rates. The forms of disguising were detached from the migration of workers for the realization of the sugarcane activity in other counties and / or other states, they need to stay in the accommodation companies in the harvest period. Conditions of ethnicity, gender and age present in the cane sugar activity, with marks of a work in which the principal is in ensuring the productivity and profitability of companies. The capital expansion (subjected to the Law of Value), always seeking higher profits, creates, as a result of its contradictory nature, a tendency to a decrease in profit, therefore it tends to a crisis. It.s understood that the liberal policies enable higher profit rates, but on the other hand it has caused a structural crisis. Nowadays, society has been experiencing a structural crisis of universal proportions and consequently the structural unemployment. / O objetivo desta tese de doutorado é analisar as reconfigurações espaciais estabelecidas nos territórios do capital sob o jugo do modelo do agronegócio da cana-de-açúcar a partir das novas relações de trabalho e da produção no espaço agrário sergipano através dos trabalhadores canavieiros. Com a tese que se vivencia não a perda da centralidade do trabalho, mas a intensificação da extração de mais-valor pelo capital a partir da lógica do desemprego estrutural que favorece o não cumprimento e a alteração oficial da legislação e dos direitos trabalhistas, permitindo cada vez mais que o trabalhador seja submetido a trabalho degradante, análogo à escravidão, sem nenhuma seguridade trabalhista. A análise está sustentada no método do materialismo histórico-dialético, que permite a leitura processual da dinâmica dos movimentos da internalidade e externalidade da rede de conexões da relação multifacetada entre Estado, capital e trabalho nas interconexões escalares local/nacional/mundial, alterando o conteúdo das relações capital e trabalho para a opressão e superexploração na extração do tempo de trabalho não pago dos cortadores de cana-de-açúcar. Esta realidade está presente nos trabalhadores do corte da cana que vivem em condições precárias de vida e de trabalho, tornando-se móvel para o capital garantindo ao agronegócio altíssimas taxas de extração de mais valor. As formas de travestimento foram destacadas a partir dos movimentos migratórios dos trabalhadores para a realização da atividade canavieira em outros municípios e/ou outros estados, que necessitam ficar nos alojamentos das empresas no período da safra. Das condições de etnia, de gênero e de idade presentes na atividade da cana-de-açúcar, sendo marcas de um trabalho em que o principal está na garantia da produtividade e lucratividade das empresas. A expansão do capital (submetida à lei do valor), sempre em busca de lucros crescentes, gera, por sua natureza contraditória, uma tendência à queda da taxa de lucro, logo uma tendência à crise. As políticas liberalizantes possibilitaram elevadas taxas de lucratividade, mas, contraditoriamente, provocaram uma crise estrutural. Atualmente vivencia-se uma crise estrutural de caráter universal e, consequentemente, o desemprego estrutural.

This Masters Thesis, titled |A Política dos Arranjos Produtivos Locais na Busca Sisifiana pelo Desenvolvimento|, aims to analyze the structural changes expressed by adjusting socio productive in the municipalities of Porto da Folha (SE) and Gararu (SE) with the institutionalization the National Policy on Support to Local Productive Arrangements (LPAs), considered as catalysts of development included in the territorial approach. The analysis was based on the assumptions of dialectical materialism, observing the main determinations in contradictory relation between capital/work on different scales. Speaking of Territorial Development submits the Hinterland of Sergipe to a Development Plan that involves the internalization and devolution of productive activities in Sergipe, linking the field to the market through the National Policy to Support LPAs. We have analyzed the limits of planning the state, while the second order mediation, from the regulator thought and the tripartite relationship Capital-Market-State, and we have investigated the contradictions of Local Development opposite the Structural Crisis of Capital, as well as its bases on studies about productive agglomerations and their ideological substrate. In this context, unveil the LPA on the scales of capital and its forms of local control forth the market, while totalizing process, mischaracterizing planning under the uncontrollable character of capital. The expansion of the logic of capital carries the intensification of exploitation of labor. Without autonomy, the peasant suffers from capitalist control of production, labor and land. Finally, we have analyzed the main contradictions of institutionalization of APL through the involvement of familiar production units characterized as small productive centers; the adequacy and enhancement of the productive process for the market; search for sustainable activities; incorporation of productive innovations; the territorial pact and encouraging the named social capital. We have concluded that LPA is part of the Development Project which seeks to alleviate the crisis of capitalism by market regulation. Thus, the state acts as mediator of the capital, the guarantee of private property as a function of capitalist system. Beyond duality between the Keynesian view and the liberal, the analysis of LPA has showed that the State and the market are inseparable in the capital system. In this sense, the quest for production control, land and labor reveals the quest for expansion and domination of territory to the capital, emerged in the insolubility of its structural crisis. / A presente Dissertação de Mestrado, intitulada A Política dos Arranjos Produtivos Locais na Busca Sisifiana pelo Desenvolvimento , teve como objetivo analisar as alterações estruturais expressadas pelo ajustamento sócio produtivo nos municípios de Porto da Folha (SE) e Gararu (SE) com a institucionalização da Política Nacional de Apoio aos Arranjos Produtivos Locais (APLs), considerados como catalizadores do desenvolvimento, inscritos na abordagem territorial. A análise foi fundamentada nos pressupostos do materialismo dialético, observando as principais determinações na relação contraditória capital/trabalho em suas diferentes escalas. O discurso do Desenvolvimento Territorial submete o Sertão Sergipano a um Plano de Desenvolvimento que envolve a desconcentração e interiorização das atividades produtivas em Sergipe, vinculando o campo ao mercado através da Política Nacional de Apoio aos APLs. Analisamos os limites do planejamento do Estado, enquanto mediação de segunda ordem, a partir do pensamento regulador e pela relação tripartide Capital-Estado-Mercado, e investigamos as contradições do Desenvolvimento Local frente à Crise Estrutural do capital, como também sua base nos estudos sobre aglomerações produtivas e seu substrato ideológico. Nesse contexto, desvelamos o APL nas escalas do capital e suas formas de controle local ante o mercado, enquanto processo totalizante, descaracterizando o planejamento sob o caráter incontrolável do capital. A expansão da lógica do capital carrega consigo a intensificação da exploração do trabalho. Sem autonomia, o camponês fenece ao controle sociometabólico da produção, do trabalho e da terra. Por fim, analisamos as principais contradições da institucionalização dos APL por meio do envolvimento das unidades de produção familiar caracterizadas como pequenos núcleos produtivos; da adequação e potencialização do processo produtivo para o mercado; da busca por atividades sustentáveis; da incorporação de inovações produtivas; do pacto territorial e do estímulo ao chamado capital social. Tendo concluído que o APL faz parte de um Projeto de Desenvolvimento que busca mitigar a crise do capitalismo por meio da regulação do mercado. Dessa forma, o Estado age como mediador do capital, na garantia da propriedade privada em função do sistema sociometabólico. Para além da dualidade entre a visão keynesiana e a liberal, a análise do APL permitiu concluir que o Estado e o Mercado são indissociáveis no sistema do capital. Neste sentido, a busca pelo controle da produção, da terra e do trabalho revela a busca pela expansão e domínio do território para o capital, emergido na insolubilidade de sua crise estrutural.

Même si la réduction des apports de nutriments dans les écosystèmes aquatiques est généralement envisagée avec des approches « effects-based », ce n’est pas le cadre qui a été suivi dans cette thèse. En effet, dans une démarche de développement durable, il semble plus pertinent, de définir des mesures de contrôle de la pollution agissant sur les relations de cause à effet. Selon cette logique, la méthodologie proposée par la Directive Cadre sur l’Eau (DCE) pour protéger les écosystèmes aquatiques présente plusieurs faiblesses. Par le fait qu’elle réfère à certains principes de l’économie standard de l’environnement, l’analyse économique de la DCE pose plusieurs problèmes pour agir sur la causalité de la pollution. Néanmoins, la méthodologie proposée par la DCE est pertinente par le fait qu’elle recommande l’utilisation combinée de mesures techniques et d’instruments pour diminuer les dommages environnementaux. Conformément à cette disposition, l’effet de mesures techniques et d’instruments sur le secteur agricole et sur la chaine alimentaire l’englobant a été évalué puisque cette dernière est responsable de la majorité des émissions diffuses et ponctuelles d’azote et de phosphore dans les eaux de surface. La définition de mesures techniques en fonction de l’efficience de l’utilisation des nutriments (Nutrient Use Efficiency, NUE) dans la production agricole a été complétée par l’étude des instruments économiques utilisés dans la Politique Agricole Commune (PAC) pour développer une agriculture multifonctionnelle. Si la thèse concerne de manière générale l’eutrophisation des écosystèmes aquatiques, elle se penche plus particulièrement sur les pressions au sein du bassin de l’Escaut et sur leurs impacts jusqu’à la zone côtière de la mer du Nord. Des mesures techniques agissant sur les causes des émissions diffuses du secteur agricole et sur les émissions ponctuelles des stations d’épuration ont été proposées pour ce bassin. Ces mesures techniques ont été caractérisées prioritairement par leur efficacité environnementale (grâce aux modèles Sénèque-Riverstrahler et MIRO) et en fonction de leurs coûts directs. <p><p>/<p><p>Although reducing the load of nutrients in aquatic ecosystems is usually looked at through "effects-based" approaches, this is not the context which this paper has chosen to follow. In fact, keeping in line with sustainable development, it seems more relevant to define measures to control pollution which act on cause and effect relations. According to this way of thinking, the methodology proposed by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) to protect aquatic ecosystems presents a number of weaknesses. By the fact that it refers to certain standard economic principles for the environment, the WFD’s economic analysis poses several problems towards acting on the cause of the pollution. Nevertheless, the methodology proposed by the WFD is relevant, as it recommends the combined use of technical measures and of instruments to reduce environmental damage. In accordance with this disposition, an assessment has been made of the effect of technical measures and instruments on the agricultural sector and on the food chain encompassing it, since the food chain is responsible for the majority of diffuse and point emissions of nitrogen and phosphorus in surface waters. The definition of technical measures in terms of efficient use of nutrients (Nutrient Use Efficiency, NUE) in agricultural production has been complemented by a study of economic instruments used in the Common Agricultural Politicy (CAP) to develop a multifunctional type of agriculture. Although the paper deals with the eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems in a general way, it concentrates particularly on the increasing pressures in the Scheldt basin and on their impacts as far as the North Sea coastal zone. Technical measures acting on the causes of diffuse emissions in the agricultural sector and on point emissions in the water treatment plants have been proposed for this basin. These technical measures have been categorised in order of priority according to their environmental effectiveness (thanks to the Sénèque-Riverstrahler et MIRO models) and depending on their direct costs. / Doctorat en Sciences agronomiques et ingénierie biologique / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis focuses on land reform in post-apartheid South Africa and specifically on land redistribution, as one of the main pillars of land reform. There have been many studies undertaken on land redistribution in South Africa and these studies offer deep criticisms of the prevailing land redistribution model (a market-led, but state-assisted model) and the ways in which this model has failed to meaningfully address colonial dispossession of land. Further, studies have focused on post-redistribution livelihoods of farmers and the many challenges they face. One significant gap in the prevailing literature is a sustained focus on the state itself, and particularly questions around policy formation and implementation processes pertaining to land redistribution. Delving into policy processes is invariably a difficult task because outsider access to intra-state processes is fraught with problems. But a full account of land redistribution in South Africa demands sensitivity to processes internal to the state. Because of this, it is hoped that this thesis makes a contribution to the existing South African land redistribution literature. In pursuing the thesis objective, I undertook research amongst farmers on selected redistributed farms outside Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, as well as engaging with both current and former state land officials. Based on the evidence, it is clear that the policy process around land in South Africa is a complex and convoluted process marked not only by consensus-making and combined activities but also by tensions and conflicts. This, I would argue, is the norm with regard to what states do and how they work.