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Thesis (MBA. (Business Administration)) -- University of Limpopo, 2010 / Refer to document

In recent years, Taiwan¡¦s agriculture has faced difficult situations. But as the trend of travel is raising, leisure farming is also gaining ground and gives a great opportunity for traditional farming industry. However, due to the lack of knowledge and experiences of managing leisure farms, many owners who were originally farmers have found difficulty when it comes to create distinguish features. Moreover, imitating each other also leads to collectively poor performance. Therefore, this study has two goals. On one hand, it sums up the past researches and literatures to find out the key factors resulting in success in managing leisure farms; on the other hand, it offers best practice from the case study of well-run existing leisure farms. The conclusions of this study can be presented as followings: 1. The operating activities of a leisure farm should be in accord with its own resources and tourists¡¦ demand. It has to create a unique theme to distinguish itself from others. 2. Once a leisure farm has positioned itself, its products and services should fit its position to avoid giving tourists conflicting messages. 3. Internet may be helpful to the marketing of leisure farms, but tourists can easily gain information as well. Therefore, without non-stop innovation, a leisure farm cannot sustain its distinctive position.

Regional disparities in agricultural growth

The purpose of this record of study was to examine the perceptions held by a targeted "grassroots" society composed of agricultural producers regarding farm policy goals, policy commodity components, and operational factors as potential barriers to successful policy. The study also examined the relationship of the government defined and "grassroots" perceived intended outcomes of current components to seek areas of needed education or research. A researcher developed questionnaire was used to collect the data from members/producers of USDA, FSA county committees in Texas. The questionnaire consisted of 37 questions divided into three sections: demographic and farm data; policy perception data; and operational issues. Ultimately, there were a total of 761 surveys returned from 175 FSA county committees of 206 (85%) representing farms and ranches from 232 of 254 counties (91% of counties) in Texas. Descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA were used to examine the data. Major findings, identified through descriptive analysis, were that the producer respondents in the study were predominately male, between the ages of 36 - 65 years of age and Caucasian. As a group, the producer respondents will be farming and ranching to provide food and fiber for a population much more diverse than itself. The perception data collected yielded that, while some general and important conclusions can be drawn from the data, the different size/types of producers had different opinions, knowledge levels, and therefore, educational needs. Overall, policy goals involving global orientation and the supply and stabilization of farm income for producers were high targets for educational needs by the respondents. Respondents also considered those policy tools providing producer control or proprietary decision making as high areas of need for education. Several operational issues noted educational needs such as individual handling of landowner/tenant issues, administrative costs/changes, and changes in commodity programs.

With increased pressures on today’s Federal Budget, there may be funding cuts on agriculture programs. These cuts would certainly bring about increased concern as to which programs and which crops take the biggest cut. A straight cut across the board will likely affect each commodity group uniquely, thus creating a need to evaluate the current distribution of funding and the relative benefits associated with this distribution. The equitable distribution of farm program payments has been an ongoing concern and publications have been written attempting to answer the question of which commodity is receiving more than their “fair share.” This thesis will use the measures used in prior publications that have been updated to reflect current farm bill visions. Additionally, this research uses a consistent data set over a long enough time period so that comparisons between program crops can be made. Equitability in relation to farm program payments is extremely difficult to measure as there are so many different factors to take into consideration. Thus, it would be expected that the answer does not resolve itself with one ratio. Ultimately, the results of this research show that depending upon which tool you choose, the relative levels of support may change. For example, rice receives the most support per pound of program production on average, relative to the other eight crops, yet receives the second lowest level of target price relative to total variable costs. The underlying causes for this variability of results are described in the research though investigation of trends in the market prices for these specific crops and the understanding of what each ratio is actually measuring. By reviewing the results, a clearer picture of which crops are getting greatest support begins to emerge, yet the outcome is still subject to much debate as there is no single “tell-all” ratio. The whole picture needs to be taken into consideration. This research provides a reference and attempts to present the whole picture, providing a consistent and complete reference for policy makers to refer to as this debate increases.

The construction of traditional large-scale central power plants and the extension of power lines in Taiwan have tremendous difficulties in terms of the land acquisition and environmental protection. In addition, one potential risk of energy supply is that over 95% of energy source is imported overseas. Therefore, the most important goal of Taiwan energy policy is to cut down the amount of energy import. To achieve the goal, it is important to explore innovatively local energy source by developing the renewable energy. Among the available renewable energy technologies, the technology of wind power is the most well developed one besides the hydraulic power. Because of the limited land resources and restrictive regulations, it is expected that wind farm development in Taiwan can only be set up in offshore, instead of inland. In the present study, we propose a multi-functional wind farm site, which involves ocean farm ranch. This may be desirable to bring mutual benefits for both developers and local stake holders. The present study has analyzed the diverse aspects of offshore multi-functional wind farm development under the framework of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). From a macroscopic view point, we have considered the environmental impacts of from the wind farm construction, as well an ocean farm ranch operation at the site. The ocean farm ranch included the establishment of offshore cage aquaculture and artificial reef. A hierarchy indicator set has been identified to account for the diverse factors, consisting of marine environment, ecosystem, and social-economy. The cross linkages chains between the interrelated factors have been carefully examined and established using the Integrated Assessment (IA) approach. It is therefore easy for the decision makers to comprehend the complex relations hips common the diverse environmental factors if an offshore multi-functional wind farm is to be developed in the future. The sustainable usage of coastal resource must be achieved for the offshore wind farm development.