2010

23 Dec 2010	How the power of consumers increased
	Jan Buurma visited the closing conference of the ENDURE project in Paris. Topics discussed were interest groups, power balances, and transitional processes en this involved frequent references to the... more
21 Dec 2010	LEI research forms basis for further steps for Sustainable Soya Task Force
	Dutch companies use 1.8 million tonnes of soya products and 0.13 million tonnes of soya oil. The 1.8 million tonnes of soya products are used for animal feed, while the 0.13 million tons of soya oil... more
	The Netherlands benefits from chain management in agriculture and food
	The service sector is becoming increasingly important in the trade in agricultural raw materials and food. This has given the Netherlands a strong position in the trade in crops such as cut flowers.... more
	Excessive engine power of Dutch cutter fleet restricted
	After a long period in which regulations regarding engine power were regularly exceeded, the engine power in the Dutch cutter fleet has now been brought almost completely back to statutory norms.... more
	Guide to corporate social responsibility for agricultural sector in Ethiopia
	Agribusinesses operating in Ethiopia now have a practical guide to help them improve their corporate social responsibility. The brochure ‘Inspiring practices in corporate responsibility’ suggests... more
	Capacity-building support for the water sector in Turkey
	The Water Framework Directive is a part of EU legislation, aimed at achieving a good water status in the entire territory of the Union. Its main focus is to integrate economic and environmental... more
	Assessing the multiple Impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy on Rural Economies (CAP-IRE)
	The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the main expenditure chapter of the EU and is directly affecting the economy of rural areas. There is a need to assess this impact, so as to support future... more
	Towards safeguarding biodiversity and human development
	This policy brief explores strategies adopted by a selected number of developing countries to combat environmental degradation and poverty. It categorises policies in these developing countries... more
	Partnership Wageningen UR and Sustainability Consortium
	Wageningen UR and the Sustainability Consortium plan to work together on making the sustainability of food transparent. The Sustainability Consortium was launched by Walmart and the University of... more
	LEI participates in animal and plant disease protocol
	LEI is developing a protocol to assess the risks of new animal and plant diseases in Europe. This relates to the risk of diseases caused by changes in trade flows. The protocol is being developed for... more
	Russia is an attractive market for Dutch agricultural companies
	The Dutch agricultural sector has good prospects for trade with and investments in a number of Russian sub sectors. Opportunities exist for the supply sectors such as animal feed, genetics, seeds,... more
	Effects of new European agricultural policy are varied
	The new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), as supported by the Dutch government, will result in a shift in income in the agricultural sector. If Europe invests more money in ecosystem services, this... more
	European countries explore cooperation in maritime spatial planning
	The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Denmark are exploring the best approach to maritime spatial planning. At the beginning of December, it was announced that these countries would receive a subsidy... more
10 Dec 2010	Report Pacioli 18
	The results of the workshop Pacioli, held from 5 to 8 September, are available now. The international Pacioli network shares knowledge on the management and use of agricultural micro-economic... more
	Semi-wild fruit trees are important for Western Africa
	In rural areas of Mali and Burkina Faso, all population groups make use of fruit trees spread around the landscape, both for their own consumption and to trade. These wild fruit trees were... more
24 Nov 2010	Combined heat and power generation is good for greenhouse horticulture
	In recent years, the economics of cultivating greenhouse-grown vegetables such as tomatoes, sweet peppers and cucumbers have been less favourable in Spain and the Netherlands. Combined heat and power... more
17 Nov 2010	Climate change and plant health
	LEI presents a conceptual framework for systematic assessment of direct economic impacts of climate change on pest and disease management at the crop level. The framework evaluates and aggregates the... more
16 Nov 2010	Saving peatlands
	The Netherlands has large areas of peat soils, mostly in fens. They are primarily used for pasture of dairy cows, but the big cities in the western part of the country (Amsterdam, Rotterdam and part... more
	Laan van Staalduinen appointed Business Director of SSG
	Laan van Staalduinen has been appointed the new business director of the Social Sciences Group at Wageningen UR (University & Research Centre) as from 1 December. She succeeds Rien Komen, who was... more
	Improving our insight: working on better methods to evaluate rural development policies
	The European Commission has designed a Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) for the evaluation of the EU rural development policy. The complexity of the CMEF has, among other things,... more
	International Trade and Healthy Diets
	With markets becoming increasingly interconnected, international trade in food is on the rise. Trade is an important component of food consumption; a lot of food we have on our plate every day comes... more
	Flat-rate income payment for farmers
	In 2012, major decisions will be taken by the EU on a new CAP Reform, possibly including a flat-rate income payment for farmers, additional top-ups for regions with specific values (nature,... more
	Different research for climate adaptation in Africa – not more of the same
	Numerous solutions have already been raised for climate adaptation problems in rural Africa, but the conditions that need to be in place for these solutions to be successful are still unclear. New... more
	What is Sustainability?
	Sustainability is a central concept in impact assessment of policies and programmes in many countries as well as in international organisations such as the European Union and the United Nations.... more
	Drought and fasts cause fluctuations in Ethiopian milk prices
	Though fresh milk is quickly sold out in the Ethiopian city of Addis Ababa, dairy farmers around the city are still finding it difficult to sell their milk in supermarkets. The root of the problem... more
	North Sea nature areas are rich fishing grounds
	According to the report of the LEI research project Distribution Maps for North Sea Fishing, Dutch fish catches in Natura 2000 areas in the North Sea were worth, on average, an impressive 16 million... more
12 Nov 2010	Distribution maps for the North Sea fisheries
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	LEI presents on conference about marketing in a turbulent environment
	LEI-researchers Karen Hoogendam, Machiel Reinders and Jos Bartels have visited the Global Marketing Conference in Tokyo: ‘Marketing in a turbulent environment’ which was held from 9-12 September... more
29 Oct 2010	LEI contributes to ‘It’s Down 2 Earth’ conference
	LEI will be taking part in three side-events of the ‘It’s Down 2 Earth’ conference, focusing on agriculture, food security and climate change. This international conference will be taking place in... more
19 Oct 2010	Mexican dairy sector: opportunities for improving performance
	The expanding Mexican dairy sector offers opportunities for investments on improving the performance of the large semi-specialised and dual-purpose cow farmers. This can be achieved by enhancing... more
	Structural changes could halve the projected global loss of biodiversity
	A combination of measures in different sectors could result in halving the projected global loss of biodiversity, up to 2050. This was calculated by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment... more
15 Oct 2010	Paper about the transition to consumer-driven value chains in the Netherlands
	In August LEI researcher Jan Buurma attended the International Horticultural Congress in Lisbon. He presented a paper on his research within the EU network ENDURE on the role of NGOs and supermarket... more
	Costs and benefits of soil conservation
	Soils fulfill many functions for human communities: apart from agricultural production, they also store water and carbon, are a reservoir of biodiversity, supply raw materials such as sand and clay,... more
12 Oct 2010	Turnover of multifunctional agriculture growing
	Multifunctional agriculture in the Netherlands is on the up and up. This is the picture that emerges from a study by LEI and PPO into the turnover and impact of this form of agriculture. It is the... more
	Tempting consumers with fruit
	The fruit industry can do more to reach consumers with innovation. That goes for the whole chain, from farmer to market gardener to retail outlet. A group of European researchers brought together in... more
1 Oct 2010	Food industry wants to change the character of food legislation
	On Tuesday, 21 September 2010, the second workshop on food wastage was held with representatives of the food industry. Participants discussed which legislation generates most food wastage. The Dutch... more
28 Sep 2010	Today’s pig farmer is efficient and animal-friendly
	Pig farmers who want to keep their business profitable must work very efficiently and take animal welfare into account. This conclusion was presented by LEI researcher Robert Hoste in a reading... more
24 Sep 2010	Kick-off meeting: Curious for development and eager to innovate?
	The Dutch Base of the Pyramid Innovation Center (BoP Inc.) is officially launched on 6 October 2010 at Antropia in Driebergen. It aims to enhance the role of the private sector and the poor,... more
21 Sep 2010	Papers about green care agriculture
	In the summer of 2010 LEI researcher Aïde Roest presented two papers on green care in agriculture. In July Roest presented the paper ‘Regional platforms for green care farming in the Netherlands’ at... more
	International workshop on micro-economic databases
	LEI organised the 18th Pacioli workshop, held from 5 to 8 September inclusive. This is an international workshop on Micro Economic databases, like Farm Accountancy Data Networks (FADN). The workshop... more
7 Sep 2010	Impact of a potential Turkish accession on food security in Turkey and the EU
	The study ‘Extension of the AGMEMOD model towards Turkey’ was carried out from September 2009 until July 2010 under the management of LEI , in cooperation with the European Commission's Joint... more
3 Sep 2010	ERSA Congress: Special Session about Landscape Economics
	From 19 to 23 August 2010, the 50th anniversary of the European Congress of the Regional Science Association (ERSA) took place in Jönköping, Sweden. During this European congress, professor Wim... more
	Analysing the effects of non-tariff measures (NTM) in the global agri-food trade
	With the liberalisation of agri-food trade, standards and regulations that specify the requirements for imported products to be sold on domestic markets have become increasingly important. These... more
24 Aug 2010	Study into eel fishery and sales
	During the last decades, the eel stocks in the European waters have steadily declined, resulting in a bad situation for the eel population as well as the eel fishery. Accordingly, various measures... more
	Correlation between energy and food prices
	The prices of agricultural products and fossil fuels have decreased significantly, after rising to very high levels in 2008. This parallel trend in price levels is due to the fact that the demand in... more
	Greenhouse gas emissions calculated which result from the production of crops for fuel
	At the request of the European Commission, the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment has carried out a study into the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of... more
20 Aug 2010	Insufficient compensation for agriculture
	For the Dutch agricultural sector, 2009 was a bad year economically. Production increased slightly, but most primary agriculture market prices fell. The average agricultural income decreased to 5,500... more
16 Jul 2010	Going “green” is feasible, but has its costs
	The Influence of the biobased economy on agricultural markets is a study from two Wageningen University and Research institutes that shows how the impacts of new technology may have unanticipated... more
13 Jul 2010	International attention for guidelines on sustainability reports
	The guidelines for food-processing companies on producing sustainability reports about their companies have been officially launched and presented at two international congresses. These guidelines... more
9 Jul 2010	1st Global Summit on Metropolitan Agriculture
	As globalisation proceeds, food chains are becoming longer. Now that the majority of the world population lives in urban areas, food has for many become a product that one buys in a supermarket... more
	Spatial Analysis of Rural Development Measures
	Rural development is the second pillar of the EU Common Agricultural Policy. For the first pillar (direct payments to farmers and market regulation), sophisticated models exist with which the impact... more
	Rural land markets
	The European Environment Agency recently organized an expert workshop on land pricing in Málaga, Spain. The workshop, which took place on 3 and 4 June, was aimed at examining what role land pricing... more
	Eastern European dairy farmers start management course
	In the autumn of 2010, farm managers from Eastern Europe will follow a training course in Interactive Strategic Management (ISM). In particular, dairy farmers will be taking the course.The countries... more
6 Jul 2010	Ethiopia tackling contamination of sesame exports
	Ethiopia has the potential to become a world-class player on the sesame seed market, but at present the quality of the sesame seeds at the time of export leaves much to be desired. The problem seems... more
2 Jul 2010	Stabilisation of the grain market by the flexible use of grain for bioethanol
	This report reviews whether the grain market and grain price can be stabilised by the variation of the use of grain in the EU-27's production of bioethanol. The time horizon of this study is 2020,... more
	Apple and tomato chains in China and the EU
	This study seeks to assess the comparative advantages of horticultural com-modities in the EU and China. The assessment is determined on the basis of natural endowments, farm structure, and marketing... more
	Farm viability in the European Union
	Farm viability is an important issue in the European Union. Farm payments con-tribute to the viability of farms. This study analyses the differences in farm pay-ments within Europe and analyses the... more
18 Jun 2010	New guidelines for the sustainability of the food-processing industry
	Companies are increasingly expected to account for their role in such issues as animal welfare and the environment. Many companies therefore produce sustainability reports, in which they report on... more
1 Jun 2010	China-SPAR project successfully concluded
	The China-SPAR project is an example of fruitful cooperation between science and business. The project resulted in improved fresh supply chains of SPAR and in a better understanding of the fresh... more
	‘Meat, why not?’
	During the knowledge market ‘Meat, why not?’, experts from various specialist fields will present the facts and the fiction surrounding the production and consumption of meat and meat... more
	Valuation of functions of the Wadden Area
	The Wadden Area is an important and valuable wetland in the northern part of the Netherlands. A recent study provides an ecological-economic perspective on the benefits of this internationally famous... more
	International conference 'European Agricultural Policies going global'
	Floor Brouwer did contribute to the International Conference 'European agricultural policies going global; how does Europe integrate global needs in its agricultural research strategies, policies and... more
	‘Hands-on mentality and knowledge’ for Uganda flower export industry
	The four-year programme “Capacity building in the floriculture sub sector in Uganda” ended formally on 7 May 2010 with an official ceremony in Kampala. Since 2006, two Ugandan education... more
	Evaluation methods for rural development policy
	The Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) is used for evalua-tion of the EU Rural Development Policy 2007-2013. In this study a set of 22 evaluation methods of rural development policy... more
	Costs and benefits of measures for soil protection
	LEI has developed a method for measuring the costs and benefits of protecting soil. The method takes into account private as well as public costs and benefits, and on-site as well as off-site... more
	European dairy policy in the years to come
	This study examines and discusses recent and future developments in the EU dairy sector. Expected future market projections are discussed. Market impacts are downscaled to farm level, illustrated by... more
28 May 2010	Legume Futures
	Legumes are important to the sustainability of European agriculture: by fixing nitrogen, they improve the soil and save nitrogen fertiliser (the production of which costs much energy). Because of... more
22 Apr 2010	Workshop 'Structural Changes in the Agrifood Sector in China and India'
	On 27 May 2010 a workshop on 'Structural Changes in the Agrifood Sector in China and India; future prospects for supply, demand and trade', will take place in Brussels, Belgium. The workshop will... more
	Decline in use of antibiotics on livestock
	The annual MARAN report, published in early April, indicates that the use of antibiotics on farm animals in the Netherlands decreased in 2008 for the first time after several years of increasing... more
	Stimulating entrepreneurship in Slovenia
	Since Slovenia became one of the new members is of the European Union, farmers in that country need to adjust to the European environment and rules. Three so called EU Twinning projects between... more
16 Apr 2010	Study of the decline in fish farming in the Netherlands
	More and more fish are being farmed worldwide. Today, nearly half of all fish products produced for human consumption are farmed. In the Netherlands too, the farming of fish for human consumption has... more
13 Apr 2010	Africa can be made more resilient to fluctuations in food prices
	Greater fluctuations in food prices are expected in the future as markets worldwide become more connected with each other. Eventually, climate change will also make its mark in this respect; the... more
9 Apr 2010	Veterinary export certificate requires continuous attention
	The official veterinary export certificate is a comprehensive instrument to regulate risks of animal disease transmission in global food trade. This paper documents how veterinary health attestation... more
6 Apr 2010	Surinamese and Antillean women ‘live to eat’
	According to the perception of women of Surinamese and Antillean descent, the benefits of healthy dietary habits do not cancel out the drawbacks. This forms an obstacle to Surinamese and Antillean... more
	Ethiopian flower growers work more sustainably
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	Ethiopian flower growers work more sustainably
	Flower growers in Ethiopia have taken the first step towards working sustainably in accordance with international standards. To this end, the training teams who supported the growers made use of... more
	EFSIM takes research to farmers
	Around the world, there is still a lot that can be improved regarding the production of food, but much of the agricultural expertise being developed at universities never reaches the world’s poorer... more
	New book about environmental and agricultural modelling
	Agriculture increasingly faces the challenge of balancing its multiple functions in a sustainable way. Integrated assessment and modelling (IAM) can provide insight into the potential impacts of... more
	LEI participated in OECD workshop on the impacts of CAP Reform
	At the OECD Workshop on the Disaggregated Impacts of CAP Reform in Paris, 11 and 12 March, some LEI-researchers participated with a presentation. Hans van Meijl presented papers about 'CAP reform en... more
2 Apr 2010	Scaling and Governance Conference 2010
	Policies have many impacts on environmental and human processes at different spatial and temporal scales. Climate change, biodiversity, energy consumption, water resource management, and food... more
23 Mar 2010	New book forms basis for discussion on agricultural policy
	From the earliest days of European unity, agricultural policy has always occupied a central position. Over the years, the policy has undergone various radical reforms and another new radical change... more
19 Mar 2010	Trends and challenges in world dairy farming
	During the congress of Global Dairy Farmers in China in 2009 the main trends and challenges were discussed with farmers and representatives from the dairy industry. Globalization, change from... more
5 Mar 2010	New perspectives on agri-environmental policies; a multidisciplinary and transatlantic approach
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	New perspectives on agri-environmental policies; a multidisciplinary and transatlantic approach
	This new book about agri-environmental policies aims to identify options for policy to overcome the challenges ahead related to future agri-environmental policies. Second, it synthesizes existing... more
	Chain Risk Model
	A Chain Risk Model (CRM) was developed for a cost effective assessment of phytosanitary measures. The CRM model can be applied to phytosanitary assessments of all agricultural product chains. In CRM,... more
	Poultry and pig sector in Argentina
	This report gives an overview of the current husbandry and management practices in the poultry and pig sector in Argentina related to animal welfare. The research centered on a description of the... more
26 Feb 2010	State-of-the-art overview of biobased technologies
	The impending threats of catastrophic climate change and peak oil are driving our society towards increased use of biomass for energy, chemical compounds and other materials - the beginnings of a... more
23 Feb 2010	The impact of WTO and other trade negotiations of fisheries
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	The impact of WTO and other trade negotiations of fisheries
	This study compiles and analyses information on international as well as EU trade flows; it considers the tariffs applied in trade in fisheries with a particular focus on tariff protection maintained... more
5 Feb 2010	PhD Winter School on transition
	ILVO, the Flemish Institute for agricultural and fisheries research, the University of Gent and LEI Wageningen UR organised a PhD Winter School titled 'An institutional approach to the analysis of... more
	High import tariffs not necessarily an obstacle for developing countries
	The agricultural trading policy of the European Union has been criticised because higher import tariffs apply to processed products than to unprocessed agricultural products. This 'tariff escalation'... more
22 Jan 2010	Management and use of micro economic databases
	PACIOLI 17 took place in Ettenhausen, Switzerland, in June 2009. The theme of the workshop was 'Innovation in the management and use of Micro Economic Databases in Agriculture'. The Pacioli network... more
13 Jan 2010	Vaccination against Foot-and-Mouth Disease
	The effectiveness of different control strategies against Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) were investigated using epidemiological and economic models. A quick and large-scale vaccination within a radius... more
12 Jan 2010	Incomes in agricultural sector falling
	In 2009, the agricultural and horticultural sector was hit hard by the economic recession (credit crisis) that began in the second half of 2008. Although production volumes were not influenced by the... more
	East African governments' responses to high cereal prices
	World food prices rose to unprecedented heights in 2008 but have come down in 2009. However, in many African countries prices continued to rise, despite governments' efforts to reduce prices. This... more