Due to the complexity and dynamism of the global beef market, policymakers need a theoretically consistent, rigorous and quantitative analysis to validate and quantify the effects of different factors that are believed to drive beef trade. The general objective of this dissertation was to validate and quantify the factors that drive and influence international beef trade in order to facilitate and improve the decision-making behaviour of policymakers. The gravity model methodology was identified as the ideal framework to address the general objective of this dissertation, and was used as the primary tool to analyse the factors that drive and influence beef trade. The specific objectives were to gain an understanding of prominent issues that influence international beef trade, to review the gravity modelling methodology and to model the effects of various issues on the volume of beef trade based on trade data among leading importers and exporters between 1996 and 2010. A model was estimated using two separate equations, referred to as Model B1 and Model B2. For each of these equations the dependant variable varied to represent: bovine cuts boneless, fresh or chilled (HS 020130); bovine cuts boneless, frozen (HS 020230); and an aggregation of these two products designated as "Total beef". Model B1 was estimated with the full gravity model specification, including export prices. Since very few studies on commodity specific gravity models exist and have never modelled beef exports prices directly, it was decided to run an additional model, Model B2, without the export price variable. The Wald Chi-square test confirmed that the variables included in the model were significant in explaining the variation in the volume of exports. Issues that were included in the specification included beef production in a beef exporter, beef consumption in a beef importer, tariff measures applied by importing countries, income per capita of consumers in importing countries, export prices and trade bans due to animal diseases. The coefficients of individual variables estimated were found to be plausible while the signs of the coefficients indicated the expected relationships between the volume of beef trade and each of the individual issues. After comparing the two models it was found that the price variable exhibited statistically significant and plausible results, and did not affect the estimates of the other variables. A comparison with similar studies revealed that the model developed in this dissertation estimated similar results in some areas, and even more plausible results in others. When all of the statistical tests and validation criteria are taken into account, the gravity model developed in this dissertation was successful in validating and quantifying the factors that drive and influence international beef trade. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

La cité de Nîmes, territoire localisé en bordure de la mer Méditerranée (Gard et partie est de l’Hérault), est créée au cours du Ier s. av. J.‑C., avec à sa tête un chef‑lieu (Nemausus) auquel sont rattachés de nombreux établissements répartis au sein de ce vaste territoire. La société nîmoise, tout en conservant son héritage protohistorique, est profondément influencée par le modèle socio‑économique romain dans ce nouveau cadre administratif centralisé. Dans ce contexte de transition, il était intéressant d’aborder la thématique de l’alimentation carnée des habitants de cette cité entre le IIème s. av. J.‑C. et le IIème s. ap. J.‑C. L’étude réalisée à partir des restes fauniques des mammifères provenant du chef‑lieu, d’agglomérations secondaires et d’établissements ruraux, permet d’éclairer l’exploitation des animaux dits « de bouche » dans cette cité. L’analyse propose d’aborder les questions des zones d’élevage et de la présence du bétail à l’intérieur des villes, la gestion des cheptels qui révèle des différences d’exploitation entre les troupeaux et une diversité des productions : lait, laine, force de travail et bien évidemment la viande. Les données archéozoologiques ont également permis d’observer des différences entre sites et des variations chronologiques dans le choix des espèces consommées, ainsi que dans les techniques de découpe des carcasses, les qualités de viande et la gestion des déchets d’origine animale. Les résultats font apparaître une organisation territoriale de l’économie animale nîmoise avec des lieux de production et de consommation, des activités que l’on retrouve souvent entremêlées au sein des établissements. / The city of Nîmes is located near the Mediterranean Sea (Gard and eastern Hérault provinces). Created during the first century BC, the city consists of several establishments scattered in a vast territory and connected to a chief town (Nemausus). In this centralized administrative organisation, a new society appears which, although retaining its protohistoric heritage, is deeply influenced by the Roman socio‑economic model. In this transitionnal context, the question of the meat diet of the inhabitants of this city between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD is of great interest. This study is based on the faunal remains of mammals founded at several archaeological sites: chief town, secondary agglomerations and some rural settlements. This work will focus on the animals which are eaten. The data analysis raises the question of livestock production areas or at least the presence of animals inside the urban sites. Livestock management reveals differences between herds and a diversity of productions: milk, wool, traction and of course meat. The zooarchaeological data also revealed differences between sites and chronologies concerning the choice of species consumed, butchering systems, meat quality and management of animal waste. All these results suggest a territorial organization of animal economy based on production and consumption areas, although these activities are often mixed inside the establishments.

Human consumption of dog meat in South Korea has been a topic of international scrutiny since the 1980s. This paper presents the findings of a research into how Korean and international animal welfare organizations design and implement initiatives that aim to bring an end to the dog meat trade, increase civic engagement and affect social change. Fourteen animal welfare organizations’ strategies and activities were analyzed complemented by qualitative interviews with animal welfare professionals. Results were informed by the school of thought of advocacy, participatory versus diffusion approaches, social change, and civic engagement; elements often found in Communication for Development. Given the complexities inherent in measuring social change, this is largely an explorative study. Furthermore, literature on animal welfare in the field of Communication for Development is scarce; this research attempts to bridge this gap. This research finds that Korean and international animal welfare organizations have employed a multitude of different strategies and engagement of civil society to mobilize social change and bring an end to the dog meat trade in South Korea. Yet as advocates for a specific cause there are limitations in conducting fully participatory based models. Nevertheless, these efforts contribute to a holistic approach that reaches different stakeholder groups, each with unique needs and motivations, for a greater impact than the sum of each organization’s efforts on its own.

This thesis is an interdisciplinary study that traces colloquial engagements with extinction in Victorian print culture (1859-1901). Extinction’s broad cultural life demonstrates the extent that scientific and cultural topics intricately entangled within Victorian print networks. Non-specialist Britons absorbed and transmitted evolutionary (particularly, Darwinian) knowledges within public discursive spaces instead of exclusively institutional settings. Class stratification did not bar non-specialists from absorbing and perpetuating cultural conversations about collapses, conservationism, and overconsumption. My project thus seeks to amend the critical discourse that assumes that Victorians passively accepted impending catastrophes or paid scant attention to extinction pressures. I recover multiple subjects formerly hidden in the vast Victorian archives: obscure non-specialists of the working and middle classes, obscurer animals cohabiting the Victorian’s everyday spaces, and the popular (and in some cases, underappreciated) literary texts demonstrating how Victorians circulated extinction discourses. Chapters One and Two explore the non-literary side of print culture, recovering widely disseminated but now largely unknown periodical artifacts (the domain of Punch, The Times, or Funny Folks). Chapter One focuses on cultural reactions to collapses of England’s domestic birds. Chapter Two traces the economized conservationism of the Brooke Brothers, popular game and meat traders. In both chapters, I determine how experienced evolutionary knowledges revealed the human-caused tenuousness of a trans-species milieu. Chapters Three and Four concentrate on scientific romances originally serialized in periodicals, including my key literary case studies, H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine (1895) and M.P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud (1901). Musing on extinction led to a mindset that acknowledged entanglement with nonhuman others as an ethical imperative. However, some case studies demonstrate a profound ambivalence toward the human’s self-extinction, resulting in a complicated engagement with future forms that often re-privileges the human from within a radical ontology. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This study examines how Victorians absorbed and communicated ideas about extinction, especially as informed by evolutionary theory. Throughout Victorian newspapers, journals, and literature, extinction was adopted for disparate uses. A culturally, economically, and philosophically muddied topic, extinction provoked reconsiderations of the natural world and humankind’s place within it. I begin by examining advertisements, articles, and illustrations from popular newsprint and periodical sources that communicated fears about the extinction of common animals and concerns about controlling or maintaining bird and game populations in everyday Victorian life. When I turn my attention to my literary case studies, H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine and M.P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud, I analyze the period’s preoccupation with the human’s future forms, looking at both posthuman evolutionary outcomes and the experience of becoming-nonhuman itself. Significantly, this project recovers underappreciated Victorians and texts, filling important gaps in Victorian periodical studies and animal studies.