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Thesis (MDev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / The purpose of this study was to assess the socio-economic effects of farm evictions in Mogale City Local Municipality, Gauteng Province. Most of the land owners do not adhere to the legislations which govern evictions in general and to the Extension of Security of Tenure Act which governs farm eviction on specific. The key objectives of the study were to identify the socio-economic effects of farm evictions and to analyse how the affected communities responded to the phenomenon of evictions. The key questions were what are the socio-economic effects do eviction have on farm dwellers and how have the affected communities responded to the phenomenon of eviction. The literature revealed that evictions around the world started decades ago and to date are still happening. In Zimbabwe, evictions were initiated by white farmers as a way of redressing the imbalance of the land ownership; in China evictions are mainly caused by rapid population growth and expansion of cities, in Namibia, Germans expropriated land and forcefully removed original owners of such land. Since independence, Namibia has no legislation governing evictions and this pose a thread of tenure insecurity. Although South Africa has legislations which govern the evictions, evictions are still taking place and mostly initiated by white land owners. The quantitative survey study was conducted to determine the distribution of socio-economic variables before and after the eviction. The primary data was collected, using semi-structured questionnaires which the interviewer administered to the evicted households. The findings revealed that electricity supply, garbage collection, personal care, household income, access to health facilities are negatively affected and the condition of the households deteriorated after the eviction. The main recommendation on the basis of the findings is that the MCLM, DRDLR and NDHS should adhere to the principles outlined in the article 25(1) of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948. This would reduce the negative impact of evictions.

Despite concerted efforts at agricultural development over many years, millions of people in developing countries still suffer from poverty and under-nutrition. New crop varieties, such as those released during the green revolution in Asia, increased farmers' income and reduced the level of under-nutrition. In recent years, while the speed of the development of conventional breeding technology has slowed, biotechnology has developed rapidly. In 2005, about 8.5 million farmers in 21 countries grew transgenic crops. Transgenic rice has not been commercially released on a large scale, but progress has been made in developing varieties with potential to increase yield and reduce input costs. In this context, this research aims to provide empirical evidence on the potential effects of introducing transgenic rice on farm households' income and nutritional well-being in Bangladesh, including the impacts on their current nutritional status and nutritional vulnerability over time. To this end, two econometric models are constructed and estimated. A farm household model is employed to project farm households' production and consumption responses to introducing improved rice varieties such as transgenic rice. The model estimates the profit effect of introducing transgenic rice. The influence of the profit effect on farmers' consumption decisions is then considered. Due to the ex ante nature of this research and data limitations, the effects of transgenic rice are assumed to be similar to that of previous high yielding varieties (HYVs), and the impact of transgenic rice on farm household profit is assumed to be similar to the effect of the percentage of rice area in HYVs and the yield effect of transgenic rice is the same as HYVs. On the production side, the supply of three outputs- rice, all other crops and animal products- and demand of labor and fertilizer were estimated. On the consumption side, both poor and non-poor households' demand for rice, wheat/other food, pulse, oil, vegetables/fruits, meat/egg/ milk, fish, and spices were estimated. Based on the parameter estimates, the calorie intake and protein intake elasticities with respect to introducing transgenic rice were computed. The results indicate that the total profit elasticity with respect to the percentage of rice area in HYVs is 0.08. The calorie elasticity with respect to the percentage of rice area in HYVs ranges from 0.062 in non-poor to 0.074 in poor households, and the protein elasticity ranges from 0.075 in non-poor to 0.084 in poor households. The results indicate that transgenic rice is likely to play a positive role in improving farm households' nutritional status in terms of total calorie/protein intake. The magnitude, however, is likely to be moderate, if only the profit effect is considered. A consumption forecasting model is used to examine farmers' nutritional vulnerability a probabilistic concept defined as having a high probability now of suffering a shortfall in the future. It is assumed that when exposed to risk, farmers' consumption decisions have already considered their risk coping strategies. The effect of transgenic rice is reflected by its impact on farm income. Farm households' calorie intake in the future (hunger season) was predicted by a multivariate regression function with the logarithmic daily per resident calorie intake as the dependent variable. The independent variables include variables that represent households' income, flood exposure, assets, and demographic composition. Farm households' nutritional vulnerability profiles, based on the estimation of ex ante mean and variance, indicate that vulnerability exists among surveyed rice farm households. The model also predicts that the income increase induced by introducing transgenic rice will reduce each individual household's probability of suffering a future consumption shortfall and subsequently will reduce its vulnerability. The overall vulnerability profile of farm households improves in Bangladesh. / Ph. D.