In many European mountain regions, natural forest regrowth on abandoned agricultural land and the related consequences for the environment are issues of increasing concern. We developed a spatial statistical model based on multiple geophysical and socio-economic variables to investigate the pattern of natural forest regrowth in the Swiss mountain area between the 1980s and 1990s. Results show that forest regrowth occurred primarily in areas with low temperature sum, intermediate steepness and soil stoniness as well as close to forest edges and relatively close to roads.

The paper presents an application of the new version of the 'Decision Support for Irrigatedagriculture' DSIrr designed to integrate water and agricultural policy analysis and to supportparticipatory decision process. The tool is a scenario manager for bio-economic farm modelsconsidering climatic, agronomic, hydraulic, socio-economic and environmental aspects.

Temperate humid grazing lands are an important component of the landscape of the northeastern United States, as well as of the economy of this region. Unlike their European counterparts, little is known about the basic ecology of managed grasslands in this region. During an 8-year survey of 28 farms across the northeastern United States, we sampled the vegetation on 95 grazed plots, identifying 310 plant species, and collected data on topography, climate and soils.

Expected achievement of land consolidation depends on the priority given to the protection of water, soil and air quality which are the elements of rural environmental balance. Today, many of researches have carried out to determine the effects of land consolidation on the local hydrology and agricultural productivity.

Comparative analysis of U.S. and EU policies on the conservation of wildlife biodiversity.
Presented to USDA Economists Group, Washington, DC

The industrialization of agriculture in western societies has often led to either intensified use or abandonment of farmland and open pastures, but experimental evidence on how the dynamics of farmed ecosystems affect space use by large herbivores is limited. We experimentally manipulated farmland patches with cutting and (early summer) low- and high-intensity domestic sheep Ovis aries grazing according to traditional use in north Norway.

We show empirically using panel data at the plot and farm level and based on a model incorporating supervision costs, risk, credit-market imperfections and scale-economies associated with mechanization that small-scale farming is inefficient in India. Larger farms are more profitable per acre, more mechanized, less constrained in input use after bad shocks, and employ less per-acre labor than small farms.

This paper attempts to provide an interdisciplinary concept of the bio-economy in the context of environmental changes in the Polish agriculture. Various definitions of bio-economy have been presented and its place in the sustainable development theory has been described. The aim of this paper is to present the environmental changes in Polish agriculture in the context of the bio-economy. For this purpose uses the information published by the Central Statistical Office and Eurostat. To showcase and presentation methods were used descriptive and tabular.

The ideal water contract for a heterogeneous population of users is a prioritized right that is fully vested and fully tradable. A set of tradable, prioritized rights contracts will span the same space as the Debreu contingent commodities. Therefore, they lead to a competitive equilibrium that is Pareto optimal. Equal sharing of water shortfalls does not have this property.Existing water policies in Israel and the Disputed Territories are not characterized by an efficient set of water contracts.

This paper presents econometric evidence of the effects of economic incentives and institutions on national aggregate private agricultural R&D investments. A model is proposed and fitted to annual data for seven European Union countries, 1984-1995. We find strong impacts of both incentives and institutions on private agricultural R&D investment, and including institutional factors strengthens the story and in some cases changes greatly the results. In particular, we reject the hypothesis that quality of property rights does not matter.