This paper proposes a strategic framework for policies to assist smallholders in developing countries. It describes the inevitable features of structural change in the agricultural and rural economy, the associated pressures that these changes place on smallholders, and the consequent need for...

After the introduction of the new tobacco regime, many regions in Greece, formerly specialized in tobacco cultivation, are now facing serious threats of economic and social decline. Sheep farming is considered by many analysts as a viable alternative to tobacco. This study analyses the financial...

Without support, the levels of agricultural public goods will fall short of the demand in high cost countries like Norway, Finland and Iceland. However, as demonstrated in this paper using Norway as a case, the current support and agricultural activity is far out of proportions from a public...

The EU dairy sector is facing a period of significant changes that are due to three major decisions: the EU enlargement, the Luxemburg reform and on-going WTO negotiations. In this paper, we focus on the analysis of changes in both domestic and trade dairy policies using a spatial model of the...

The paper outlines the most noticeable economic effects of the 2004 accession of Slovenia to the European Union (EU) on its agri-food sector. The main national statistical data are used to compare the situation in the Slovenian agri-food sector in the pre- and postaccession period. The main...

The switch from market-support to direct payments in Switzerland had impacts on the income distribution among farmers. In this paper, the distributional effect of the switch as a whole and of the different kinds of direct payments are elaborated through a presentation of different decomposed...

Croatia joined the European Union (EU) on July 1st, 2013. This paper assesses the likely effects of this accession on the agricultural and food sectors, and analyses the impact on the EU, Croatia and their main trading partners. It considers both the harmonization of Croatia's trade instruments...

Irrigation water use by agriculture has been identified as one of the major sustainable water management issues in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). This paper aims at developing a simulation framework to jointly assess agricultural and water issues. While the strong...

This paper provides first results of the sector model approach to analyze the effects of alternative policy scenarios on the multifunctional role of Finnish agriculture. In terms of environmental non-commodity outputs we focus on nutrient runoffs, landscape diversity and biodiversity. As regards...

EU enlargement has combined two very different patterns of organic farming development under one market and policy framework. An approach to policy learning and innovation is presented. In the effort in bringing together stakeholders of the organic and general agricultural policy sector within...