The private governance of food: equitable exchange or bizarre bazaar?

In recent years, we have witnessed three parallel and intertwined trends: First, food retail and processing firms have embraced private standards, usually with some form of third party certification employed to verify adherence to those standards. Second, firms have increasingly aligned themselves with, as opposed to fighting off, environmental, fair trade, and other NGOs. Third, firms have embraced supply chain management as a strategy for increasing profits and market share. Together, these trends are part and parcel of the neoliberal blurring of the older liberal distinction between state and civil society. In this paper I ask what the implications of these changes are from the vantage point of the three major approaches to ethics: consequentialism, virtue theory, and rights theory. What are the consequences of these changes for food safety, for suppliers, for consumers? What virtues (e.g., trust, fairness) are these changes likely to embrace and what vices may accompany them? Whose rights will be furthered or curtailed by these changes?     

种粮利益与粮食安全利益的一致性试析

规模经营以前,粮农属于收入最低的群体,努力种粮也不能保障自己的粮食安全和经济安全。离开粮食 生产行业,可以提高粮农的粮食安全和经济安全水平。而国家的粮食安全与粮农的粮食安全和经济安全利益会出现 不一致现象。解决不一致现象,需要培育新型农业经营主体,实现规模经营,降低成本,使种粮收入大幅度提高,使粮 农成为体面的职业,让农业成为有奔头的产业。这样,国家的粮食安全与粮农的粮食安全和经济安全利益才能相一 致。同时探索耕地产权自有的制度改革,强化耕地作为财产的价值和功用,增强耕地吸引力,激励更有竞争力的劳动 者保障国家粮食安全。     

Sustaining production and strengthening the agritourism product: Linkages among Michigan agritourism destinations

Agricultural restructuring has disproportionately impacted smaller US farms, such as those in Michigan where the average farm size is 215 acres. To keep agricultural land in production, entrepreneurial Michigan farmers are utilizing agritourism as a value-added way to capitalize on their comparative advantages, their diverse agricultural products, and their locations near large, urban, tourist-generating areas. Using focus groups, this paper illustrates how entrepreneurial farmers have strengthened Michigan agritourism by fostering producer networks through brochures and web linkages, information sharing in refining the agritourism product, referrals to other agritourism businesses that serve different markets or offer different products, purchase linkages, and a regional approach to establishing agritourism destinations and increase visitation. Successful entrepreneurial, agritourism developers thus work cooperatively, rather than individualistically and competitively. Agritourism destinations facing stiff competition from alternative venues for leisure time and food purchases benefit from supportive linkages that help sustain a critical mass of producers who offer diverse goods, maintain land in agriculture, and thus, reinforce Michigans image for agritourism.     

马克思利益观视阈下农民生产经营观念的变迁与构建

依据马克思的利益观,对利益问题的理解要坚守唯物史观立场,利益的实质是调节社会关系。生产经营观念是农民利益观的集中体现,随着我国社会发展环境的变化,改革开放以来东部地区农民的生产经营观念出现了从“勤勉重农”到“农工商并进”的转变,中西部地区农民的生产经营观念出现了从“勤勉重农”到“重工保农”再到“农工商并进”的转变。农民生产经营观念的变迁对社会关系既产生了积极影响又产生了消极影响,为弱化消极影响、实现多重利益关系的和谐要进一步构建农民的生产经营观念。     

南方红壤地区种草养牛生产中计算机辅助系统的开发应用研究

本文介绍了种草养牛生产中计算机辅助系统的开发目的、意义及系统的组成和使用情况，养殖户只需输入一些基本信息，系统就可以以图表的方式直观地指导用户进行肉牛生产活动。     

Institutional obstacles to expansion of world food production

It was argued that over the near-to-medium term-roughly to the mid-1980's-there is enough potential for growth in existing Green Revolution technology and in technical capacity of farmers that institutions affecting these two sources of increased food production probably will not be seriously constraining. The principal bottlenecks likely will be found among those institutions affecting farmers' incentives to innovate. There is impressive evidence that when other conditions for innovation are favorable the supply of marketing services, for both inputs and outputs, is quite elastic. This seems to include the supply of funds from rural saving and informal credit sources, although the evidence is less clear in this respect. The situation concerning price relations and availability of inputs appears mixed. If national income growth targets are achieved, then the growth in total demand for food in the LDC's should be fast enough to support incentive prices for farmers. This advantage could be lost, however, if governments adopt policies to suppress food prices to keep down the cost of living. The price of fertilizers is expected to fall from the high levels of 1974, the amount of the fall depending in good measure on the success of the LDC's in increasing fertilizer production. Historically, their efforts to expand capacity have been relatively inefficient. Moreover, many countries still lack adequate capacity to produce the HYV's and pesticides. Even with good progress in expanding domestic production of inputs, imports will continue to be an important source of supply. Maintenance of present high prices of petroleum products could be a major obstacle to financing these imports on the necessary scale because of the drain it would place on available foreign exchange. I conclude, on balance, that prices and availability of fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds could have important negative effects on farmers' incentives to adopt Green Revolution technology. Rigidities in water management institutions may be even more limiting, for reasons noted in the previous section. The role of existing land tenure institutions is not clear. The tentative conclusion, however, is that over the near-to-medium term the maintenance will not be a major obstacle to further spread of the Green Revolution. Over the longer term, it could become more seriously limiting. The reason is that continued expansion of food production will eventually require the invention and adoption of new technologies and a higher level of technical and managerial skill than most farmers in the LDC's now possess. To do this will require substantial investments in domestic research and extension institutions and in rural education. In countries where a small class of large landowners wield substantial political power, these investments may not occur on the necessary scale because the large farmers have their own means of acquiring the technology and little perceived interest in supporting the upgrading of the skills of small farmers. This review of institutional obstacles to expansion of food production in the LDC's must end on a tentative note. The review does suggest some observations about the process of institutional change, however. There is impressive evidence of strong latent potential in the private sector of the LDC's for mobilizing the resources and effort needed for agricultural progress when the private economic rewards for doing so are high. Under these circumstances, needed changes in the institutions required to mobilize the resources and direct the effort seem relatively easy to achieve. Institutional resistance is stronger in situations where influential interests perceive change as a threat or where there is no direct personal economic reward to change, as in the typical public institution. The latter point is particularly important because the performance of public institutions is critical. Development of new technology, the fundamental condition for continued longterm growth, is basically a public responsibility because the gains from adoption usually cannot be sufficiently captured by private institutions to justify their assuming the cost. Although private firms often have incentives to impart technical knowledge to farmers as a way of widening the market for their products, the broadening and strengthening of the institutional structures concerned with both the general and technical education of farmers is a public responsibility. This is true also of the development of large irrigation systems, both because of the scale of the needed investments and the potential for social conflict in water management. The lack of a well-defined mechanism that would link responses of public institutions to the large social payoffs to increased public investment in irrigation, new technology, and technical abilities of farmers may prove in the long run to be the most important single obstacle to adequate growth of food production in the LDC's.     

论"三农"问题与农民权益

在我国渐进式改革和市场转型过程中,"三农"问题已经突破经济层面,成为一个综合性的社会问题.解决三农问题,必须按照社会主义的本质要求,站在市场经济的最高处,站在"最广大人民"利益的最高处,用发展的全局的眼光和思维,制定设计出符合农民长远利益的系统性战略性策略措施和改革方案.标本兼治,循序渐进,逐步实现农民的权益.     

The construction of an alternative quinoa economy: balancing solidarity, household needs, and profit in San Agustín, Bolivia

Quinoa farmers in San Agustín, Bolivia face the dilemma of producing for a growing international market while defending their community interests and resources, meeting their basic household needs, and making a profit. Farmers responded to a changing market in the 1970s by creating committees in defense of quinoa and farmer cooperatives to represent their interests and maximize economic returns. Today farmer cooperatives offer high, stable prices, politically represent farmers, and are major quinoa exporters, but intermediaries continue to play an important role in the local economy. Meanwhile, some farmers rebuff the national cooperatives and intermediaries in favor of a denomination of origin and closer association with local cooperatives. This article, based on 4?months of ethnographic research, explores the reasons for the continued presence of intermediaries on the market landscape and how farmers have worked to create a quinoa economy embedded with fair trade values. Farmers demand stable prices, flexible standards, provision of services, and promises of maintaining the distinctive qualities of San Agustín quinoa. They frame their trades in economic, utility, and solidarity terms to reflect their livelihood strategies, farming capabilities, and personal concepts of fair trade. Meanwhile cooperatives, development initiatives, and intermediaries each argue that their particular buying practices allow farmers to attain household goods, credit, and cash for food and economic security.     

农户对种植业保险的认知及评价研究李英(内蒙古财经大学财政税务学院,内蒙古呼和浩特市,010010)

中文：本文从种植农户的视角分析了我国种植业保险的实施效果,探讨连续几年农户对种植业保险的认知变化、评价变化和并对变化背后的原因进行深入分析。通过对内蒙古自治区7个盟市农户的问卷调查以及有关单位的部门访谈,得出以下结论：第一,农户对种植业保险政策认知度呈上升趋势,但了解深度不够；第二,随着农户对农业保险政策认知度的逐步提高,其对农业保险总体评价反而呈下降趋势；第三,农户对种植业保险不满意的原因主要是保险的保障水平低,农户遭受自然灾害后获得的赔偿对弥补灾害的作用不大,农业保险产品覆盖面窄,不能满足农户的需求。     

Improving technology delivery mechanisms: Lessons from bean seed systems research in eastern and central Africa

This article addresses concerns of technology dissemination for small farmers, specifically focusing on the diffusion of new varieties of a self-pollinating crop. Based on bean seed systems research in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, it shows four commonly-held basic assumptions to be false, namely that: first, small-scale farmers do not buy bean seed; they mainly rely on their own stocks or obtain seed from other farmers; second, that small-scale farmers cannot afford to buy seed of newly introduced bean varieties or will not risk it; third, that farmer seed networks function efficiently in varietal diffusion; and lastly, that a good variety will sell itself. Grounded in the reality under which small farmers actually operate, the article offers recommendations for improving the delivery of newly introduced bean cultivars by NARS and seed suppliers. Most of the recommendations are relevant to other self-pollinating crops.     

Drawing lines in the cornfield: an analysis of discourse and identity relations across agri-food networks

In this article, I analyze discourse and identity relations within so-called ‘conventional’ agri-food networks as well as how the conventional sphere perceives, constructs and responds to alternative food movements in Canada. The paper is structured around three primary research questions: (1) How are conventional actors understanding conditions, changes, and challenges within conventional networks? (2) How do conventional actors apply this understanding in advancing conventional interests and discourses, and defending conventional networks? (3) How do conventional actors and discourse construct AFMs? For this research, I draw from survey, focus group, and in-depth interview data alongside text analysis from online sources. I elucidate the interests and motivations behind the identities, stories and messages emerging from the conventional sphere. I conclude that relationship building and communication between diverse agri-food actors may help to expand the range of agricultural knowledge, philosophies and solutions available to farmers, especially those whom are currently quite divided.     

粮食生产过程中的不协调性分析——以河南省为例

分析粮食生产过程中的不协调性,对促进主产区粮食生产和保障国家粮食安全具有重要意义。利用粮食生产统计数据,对粮食生产的时序动态和空间变化进行的分析表明,粮食产量的大幅度增长主要依赖于粮食单产的提高,土地高产出(粮食单产)与资源低效率并存;粮食生产成本的增加与粮食价格不能同步提高,出现粮食主产区财政收入和农民纯收入的"双低"现象,成为影响粮食安全的障碍因素。粮食产量的波动与粮食政策关系密切,确保国家粮食安全,粮食政策具有发挥作用的空间。粮食主产区对保障国家粮食安全具有重要作用,制定有利于粮食主产区发展的财政、金融、价格等政策,探索一条粮食产量与农民收入同步提高、主产区与主销区利益协调和不以牺牲粮食主产区生态和环境为代价的粮食生产持续稳定和谐发展之路。     

果蔬质量安全政府治理失灵的原因研究

在对果蔬质量安全政府治理失灵表现介绍的基础上,研究了果蔬质量安全政府治理失灵的原因。结果表明：其原因主要有生产经营者的市场集中度低、抽样不具有代表性、事件导向治理的滞后性、生产经营者的机会主义、政府部门的信息不对称、政府部门的＂经济人＂特征、安全责任缺乏可追塑性、兼顾质量安全和农民利益的两难困境等。最后提出相关的政策建议。     

不同兼业化农户粮食生产效益和效率差异的影响因素研究

随着国家工业的快速发展,仍以一家一户式为主的农业生产模式,出现了产量差距大且停滞不前、生产成本增加、资源环境代价高等问题,怎样提高整体农业生产效率,增加农户的生产效益成为当下亟需研究的课题。该研究在前人研究的基础上,以河南疃镇为研究区域,从区域和非农化程度(兼业化)两个维度对农户粮食生产效益、效率差异进行分析,发现该地区兼业化农户高达82.2%,有66.7%的农户其非农业收入大于农业收入,且表现出由南向北兼业化程度加大的趋势;农户粮食生产效益、效率均受到兼业化和区域化的影响,提出当前进一步提高不同经济类型农户粮食生产效益、效率的限制因素及改进建议。     

长株潭地区主要旱杂粮作物生产情况调查与思考

通过对长沙、浏阳、醴陵等6县12乡镇120户种植农户的走访调查,总结2016年度长株潭地区主要旱粮作物的生产情况表现为:玉米生产面积较上年度有所下降,甘薯和马铃薯种植面积较上年度有小幅增加,大豆和蚕豌豆较上年度基本执平,绿豆在长株潭范围内有零星种植。发现其栽种模式呈多样化,新品种应用比较及时,但是新技术缺乏,机械化应用程度低,就此提出了旱粮作物生产存在的问题和技术需求及发展主要旱粮作物生产的建议。     

不同经营规模下绿豆产业生产技术效率分析——以吉林省白城市绿豆生产为例

2019年中央一号文件提出“要积极发展杂粮杂豆产业,建设特色农产品优势区”,对于提高我国绿豆增产潜力、拓宽农民增收渠道具有重要意义。分析了我国绿豆产业的发展现状,并使用DEA-Tobit两阶段模型,基于吉林省白城市233户农户绿豆种植微观数据,分析了不同经营规模绿豆种植综合技术效率及其影响因素。结果表明,样本中综合技术效率平均值为0.49,综合技术效率与经营规模呈现“倒U型”关系;不同经营规模下综合技术效率影响因素的显著程度不同,其中小规模与中规模农户更倾向于“经验农业”的种植模式,大规模农户更倾向于“现代农业”的种植模式。基于以上结果,提出应提升绿豆生产适度规模化经营水平、适度加强机械社会化服务供给、持续加强对绿豆种植户的科技培训等政策建议。     

基于层次分析法的农民集中居住福祉研究

根据江苏省海安县开屏村的50份调查数据,运用层次分析法研究了农民集中居住前后的福祉变化。结果表明:集中居住改善了农民的居住条件和居住环境,但打破了农民以前自产自足的生活模式,农民普遍对食品安全存在担忧;由于政府部门前期没有对居住区进行合理规划,在后期的基础设施加强建设中给农民带来很大困扰,影响了农民的生活质量。据此,政府部门需要从农民角度出发,在不损害农民利益的基础上加强基础实施的扩建。     

市场提供农村公共产品对农户收入的影响分析

为探讨通过市场筹资渠道提供的公共产品对农户收入产生的影响及其影响机制,通过构建生产模型和消费模型,分别从农户收入和农户效用(公共产品消费)两方面揭示农村公共产品市场化供给对农户福利的影响机制,并采用陕西5个县20个村400户农户调研数据进行分析,发现市场提供的公共产品对农户收入有显著的正面效应。因此,建议中央政府在加大对农村的公共投资力度的同时,乡镇政府应创造市场筹资提供农村公共产品的更多渠道,实现农村公共产品供给的筹资多元化。     

大豆价格波动对农户福利的影响

大豆价格波动关系到广大豆农的福利。基于中国1983-2012年大豆生产与消费的相关数据,并根据大豆的供给与需求价格弹性等参数,采用麦诺特福利效应模型考察大豆价格波动对农户福利变动的影响,研究了大豆价格波动导致农户福利变动的机理。结果表明,大豆价格波动导致农户整体福利恶化,大豆生产价格平均每变动10%,豆农的短期生产福利将变动1.32%,长期生产福利变动1.42%;大豆销售价格平均每变动10%,短期消费福利变动13.13%,长期消费福利将变动12.55%。大豆生产价格波动导致的农户福利变化在农户福利变动中起重要作用。大豆价格变动引起农户收入与消费支出变化的相对值决定农户总福利效应。最后提出了加大政策引导力度、保障生产者利益、构建信息平台等政策建议。     

Governance in the Global Agro-food System: Backlighting the Role of Transnational Supermarket Chains

With the proliferation of private standards many significant decisions regarding public health risks, food safety, and environmental impacts are increasingly taking place in the backstage of the global agro-food system. Using an analytical framework grounded in political economy, we explain the rise of private standards and specific actors – notably supermarkets – in the restructuring of agro-food networks. We argue that the global, political-economic, capitalist transformation – globalization – is a transition from a Fordist regime to a regime of flexible accumulation (Harvey, 1989). We also argue that the standard making process of this new regulatory regime is increasingly moving from the front stage – where it is open to public debate and democratic decision-making bodies – to the backstage – where it is dominated by large supermarket procurement offices. We assert that transnational supermarket chains are increasingly controlling what food is grown where, how, and by whom. We also contend that the decision-making processes of transnational supermarket chains are typically “black-boxed.” The Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP) is presented as a case of private governance by transnational supermarket chains. We conclude by examining the limitations and long-term efficacy of a system of private governance in the global agro-food system. Jason Konefal is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His interests include environmental sociology, food and agriculture, social movements, and science and technology studies. His dissertation research examines the political economic restructuring of the global agrifood system and the implications for social and environmental movements. Michael Mascarenhas is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His interests include political economy, the sociology of science and technology, environmental and rural sociology, and globalization and development. His current research involves a critical analysis of neoliberal water policy reform and indigenous inequalities. As of September 2005, Michael has taken a position in the Department of Sociology at Kwantlen University College in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Maki Hatanaka is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Her interests include food and agriculture, development, and gender. Much of her recent research focuses on standards and thirdparty certification and their social and environmental implications.