Horticulture – Page 36 – Naturehydro Horticulture Grow

The activity of NHXs plays a significant role in the transport of K+ into the vacuole

In the rice genome, there are at least five NHX members with OsNHX1-OsNHX4 belonging to the type-I and OsNHX5 to the type-II . The operation of the NHXs also affects the pH gradients across the different luminal compartments . Both type-I and type-II NHXs have different subcellular localization; they may have different mechanisms in salt tolerance, and other not yet defined functions. Large efforts have been paid to increasing the plant salt tolerance by over expressing NHX orthologue genes from different species. In rice, over expression of the NHX1 homologue genes from Oryza sativa, Chenopodium glaucum and Atriplex dimorphostegia resulted in the enhanced tolerance to salt stress . However, these NHX proteins actually mediate both Na+ /H+ and K+ /H+ exchange and their functions cannot be solely explained by accumulating Na+ into vacuole . The type-II NHXs have also been shown to be involved in salt tolerance. AtNHX5 and AtNHX6 are the only two type-II NHXs inArabidopsis. Although their function appears to be redundant, the double knockout Atnhx5nhx6 displayed high sensitivity to salt stress . In tomato, the over expression of LeNHX2, a type-II NHX located in prevacuolar compartments and Golgi,industrial drying racks enhanced salt tolerance at high external K+ levels . Plants use a number of strategies to deal with high salinity .

Halophytes rely heavily on the homoeostasis of three major inorganic ions to maintain their osmotic and turgor pressure under saline conditions, while glycophytes predominantly increase the synthesis of compatible solutes . For salt tolerant plants grown in high external saline conditions, the efficient compartmentation of Na+ into vacuole and other cell organs via intracellular NHXs is of importance, together with the extrusion of Na+ at the roots, via plasma membrane-bound antiporters such as SOS . Jerusalem artichoke belonging to the same Asteraceae family as sunflower is an herbaceous perennial plant that have potential as a bio refinery crop . H. tuberosus is highly tolerant to infertile, drought and saline stresses and its variety Nanyu No. 1 could fully emerge in the coastal region containing 1% salt at soil surface layer and grow well in soil containing 0.5%–0.6% salt or under irrigation with 50%–75% sea water . In this study, we isolated two putative NHX genes, HtNHX1 and HtNHX2, from H. tuberosus cv. NY-1 and examined their roles in enhancing the tolerance of salt stress and nutrient deficiency in rice, Arabidopsis and yeast. Our results indicate that HtNHX2 could function in enhancing the plant tolerance to salinity stress and improving plant nutrient efficiency.Considering the essential roles of K+ in balancing uptake and distribution of anions, particularly, nitrate and phosphate and improving plant growth, we characterized the effects of expressing HtNHX1 and HtNHX2 on enhancing the tolerance of rice to nutrient deficiency. The reduction in nutrient supply to 1/4 of its full strength decreased the growth and biomass of WT and HtNHX1-expressing rice equally while did not affect the growth of HtNHX2-expressing rice plants .

The HtNHX2 lines showed about 35%, 25% and 45% increase in total biomass, N and P contents, respectively, in comparison with WT , indicating that HtNHX2 expression could remarkably enhance the root acquisition of N and P, thus improving plant growth under limited nutrient supply conditions. In contrast, N and P contents in the HtNHX1 lines were lower than those in WT. 15N quantification analysis of rice grown in low N and K conditions showed that HtNHX2 expression did not alter root N contents, but significantly increased shoot N contents , suggesting the enhanced N translocation from shoot to root, in addition to the increase in total N uptake. The notion of the role of HtNHX2, but not HtNHX1, in enhancing K+ uptake and mediating N and P accumulation was further supported by the growth of rice plants in infertile paddy fields . Compared to WT, HtNHX1 lines showed 20% lower straw weight and 40% lower grain yield, resulting in significant lower grain harvest index due to a larger portion of unfilled grains . The HtNHX1 lines contained significant higher total N, similar P and lower K+ in the straw at mature stage . Remarkably, the HtNHX2 lines showed 45% increase of total grain yield and 90%, 40% and 13% higher N, P and K+ contents in the straw .Plant NHX-type antiporters play important roles in salt tolerance and the maintenance of cellular K+ and Na+ homoeostasis and the regulation of intracellular pH. In this study, we cloned two highly identical salt-stress up-regulated NHX orthologues genes, HtNHX1 and HtNHX2 from H. tuberosus . HtNHX1 and HtNHX2 share identical 50 -UTR, 30 -UTR and coding sequences, except for a fragment of consecutive 342 bp in HtNHX1 which is absent in HtNHX2. Whether the two genes were alternatively spliced or evolutionary independently generated is not clear. According to their sequences, both genes are predicted to belong to the type-I family and to locate at the vacuole .

The ability of HtNHX1 but not HtNHX2 to confer resistance to hygromycin in yeast and Arabidopsis and different cellular localization in rice would suggest functional differences between the two isoforms. Notably, the role of HtNHX2 in conferring tolerance to nutrient deficiency, in addition to conferring tolerance to salinity, provides a novel insight on NHX functions .We observed that HtNHX1 or HtNHX2 improved rice tolerance to salt stress , but they did not have significant influence on growth and uptake of K+ and Na+ at normal growth conditions . At salinized conditions, HtNHX1 increased rice K+ and Na+ accumulation, that is keeping the same ratio of K+ /Na+ as that in WT . This indicated that HtNHX1 indistinguishably transported K+ and Na+ , which is similar to that of AtNHX1 and AtNHX2 in Arabidopsis . In addition, the K+ and Na+ contents of plant expressing HtNHX1 were higher in the roots and the shoots than in WT plants , supporting the role of HtNHX1 as type-I NHXs in sequestering Na+ into the vacuoles . Interestingly, the accumulation and distribution of K+ and Na+ in plants expressing HtNHX2 differed from that seen in HtNHX1 plants, as HtNHX2 plants accumulated relatively more Na+ and K+ . These results were in agreement with the localization of HtNHX2 to intracellular compartments other than the vacuole . Endosomal trafficking and the vesicle fusion to the vacuole are important components of the response of plant cells to salinity. Transporters playing roles in cation sequestration, such as NHX1 and H+ -pumps ,commercial greenhouse benches depend on vesicular trafficking for their delivery to the tonoplast. Thus, the expression of endosomal NHXs may influence protein trafficking from the Golgi/TGN to the vacuoles , necessary for the response to high salinity. The upregulation of endosomal NHXs, such as AtNHX5 in response to salt stress, but not to osmotic shock, supported the role of endosomal AtNHXs . In addition, salinity induced bulk endocytosis, promoted the rapid increase in vacuolar volume and the accumulation of sodium into the vacuole . These results suggest that the over expression of endosomal NHXs, such as HtNHX2, contributed to salt tolerance through several mechanisms: increasing vesicle fusion to the vacuole, contributing to the accumulation of Na+ and by increasing the trafficking of transporters that could explain the improved nutrient uptake in the transgenic plants. HtNHX1 and HtNHX2 rescued the salt sensitivity of the Arabidopsis Atnhx5 nhx6 double mutant at the same extent , but HtNHX1 was more effective than HtNHX2 in conferring tolerance of Arabidopsis to external hygromycin . It has been shown that AtNHX5 and AtNHX6 located at endosomes, TGN and prevacuolar compartments and nhx5 nhx6 double knockouts displayed abnormal vesicular trafficking and sensitivity to salinity . In rice, HtNHX2 showed similar cellular localization as AtNHX5 ; thus, it is plausible that HtNHX2 may play a similar role as AtNHX5 in the regulation of endosomal ion and pH homoeostasis. Nevertheless, these results should be taken with some caution as both HtNHX1 and HtNHX2 were expressed under the control of a constitutive promoter and abnormal localization due to unregulated expression cannot be ruled out.Potassium is a plant essential nutrient, and vacuolar K+ plays roles in the regulation of cellular volume and tissue expansion. Although plants grown under different K+ supply can change their vacuolar K+ contents, cytosolic K+ is maintained at a relative constant level of around 60–100 mM .

The over expression of AtNHX1 in tomato led to increased vacuolar K+ accumulation and higher tissue K+ contents. In the knockout Atnhx1, Apse et al. reported a reduction in K+ /H+ and Na+ / H+ exchange and reduced cell expansion. Bassil et al. observed lower vacuole pH and K+ concentration in the nhx1 nhx2 mutant, further supporting the role of AtNHX1 and AtNHX2 in driving the uptake of K+ into the vacuole. The expression of HtNHX2 improved plant growth and grain yield at low K+ concentrations , and the tissue K+ contents of the transgenic plants were higher than the WT and HtNHX1-expressing plants. Notably, HtNHX2 localization appeared to be similar to that of AtNHX5 , that is intracellular vesicles, TGN. , thus associated with vesicular trafficking and storage protein sorting . In yeast, nhx1 mutants have been shown to have impaired vacuolar biogenesis and protein sorting . In tomato, LeNHX2 colocalized with prevacuolar and Golgi markers and appeared to be more selective to K+ than Na+ . Interestingly, HtNHX2 lacks a continuous 114 amino acids stretch at predicted six to eight transmembrane domains of HtNHX1 . This stretch also comprises a segment of eight amino acids that is absent in type-II NHXs . Although the occurrence of a shorter HtNHX2isoform retaining its transport function has not been reported before, shorter AtNHX1 isoforms have been reported . Using DNA shuffling mutagenesis, Xu et al. generated a 296 amino acids deleted AtNHX1, AtNHXS1, in which, several transmembrane domains and the C-terminus hydrophilic tail containing the CaM-binding domain were deleted. Interestingly, such large fragment deletion did not alter its vacuolar localization but increased the Na+ /K+ selectivity and Na+ /H+ exchange activity, enhancing the NaCl tolerance of yeast expressing AtNHXS1 . Notably, plants expressing the endosomal HtNHX2 accumulated more K+ and Na+ than the transgenic rice expressing the vacuolar HtNHX1. Although it is possible to speculate that the deletion in HtNHX2 resulted in increased transport activity of the antiporter, a detailed structure/function analysis is needed to assess this point. The increased tolerance to nutrient deficiency displayed by transgenic rice plants expressing HtNHX2 was associated with increased K+ contents and enhanced N assimilation as seen by the increase in 15N translocation from root to shoot and the amounts of N, P and K+ in the straw of plants grown in infertile soil . K+ is the major accompanying ion for the translocation of NO3 and sucrose in plants . About 40%–90% of root acquired K+ could be retranslocated from the shoot via the phloem and recycled through the roots , and K+ recycling in plants can act as an important signal for feedback control of nutrient uptake . It could be speculated that the expression of HtNHX2 improved the synthesis/delivery of the transporters of N, P and K+ to plasma membranes by improving vesicular trafficking and/or protein targeting . The functions of NHX-type transporters have been extensively studied , and the effects of the over expression of NHXs on salt tolerance have been shown in different crop species . Here, we show that although the expression of HtNHX1 conferred salt tolerance, only the expression of HtNHX2, a shorter isoform ot the known type-II NHXs, conferred salt tolerance under nutrient stress conditions.The tubers of H. tuberosus genotype NY-1 after dormancy were germinated on moist sand in an incubator. Uniformly germinated slices of the buds were selected, sown in sands and then transplanted into 1/2 Hoagland nutrient solution in the greenhouse as described previously . After emergence of the fourth leaf, the seedlings were treated with 50, 100, 200 and 300 mM NaCl for 24 h or with 100 mM NaCl for 12 h before the sampling for analysis of HtNHX1 and HtNHX2 expression. Each treatment was replicated three times. Arabidopsis thaliana wild-type and nhx5 nhx6 double knockout mutants were provided by Professor Eduardo Blumwald at University of California .

Farmers can also become more independent from vacillations in supply and prices of fossil fuels

With a special emphasis on vineyards, which have higher wood C stocks than annual cropping systems, the paper considers the relative contributions of different land use regimes in contributing to carbon storage. Following an explanation of field methods, data analysis, and research findings, we examine some of the opportunities and limitations facing growers in the current policy climate for maintaining or increasing carbon stocks. A discussion then considers how policies and incentives could be amended to encourage greater participation in activities that promote the management of agricultural land as a multifunctional landscape—that is, a landscape in which production is only one of the valued outputs alongside carbon sequestration, soil quality, biodiversity protection, and other ecosystem services.The assessment of carbon stocks for Fetzer/Bonterra Vineyards was conducted on five ranches scattered across the Russian River valley near the town of Hopland in Mendocino County, California . Fetzer grows organic grapes for its Bonterra label on these ranches, which vary in topography, size, area under cultivation, and the number of different habitat types present. In total, the ranches comprise about 1,150 hectares of land,hydroponic nft channel roughly 30 percent of which is in vine cultivation, 35 percent in forested land, and most of the remainder in grassland.

The non‐cultivated habitat of the study area varied from oak woodland and mixed hardwood forests, to chaparral and grasslands in drier sites, as well as a distinct riparian vegetation surrounding waterways. Most of the non‐vineyard, non‐riparian forested land was mixed hardwood forest, dominated by a variety of oak species and interspersed with madrone , bay , buckeye , and the occasional Douglas fir . Several woody shrub species were found in the under story of the forest lands, including manzanita , ceonothus , and toyon , at times forming pure stands of chaparral shrubs where soils and exposure presented the ideal conditions. The riparian areas were characterized by a different suite of hardwood species, including maples , alders , cottonwoods , ash , and willows . In total, 29 woody species were recorded on the five ranches. In vineyard tracts, carbon was estimated for only the above ground woody portion of the vines, which are grown as a monoculture, planted in parallel rows that were also approximately two meters apart. Using a sampling regime based on a geographic information system , carbon was measured in soil from 44 pits that were 1 meter deep, and in above ground woody biomass, from 93 vegetation plots. The sampling points were located according to a representative set of sites on each of seven different habitat types. To estimate the carbon stored in a given tract, the average biomass per vine, calculated using allometric equations4 developed with age and main stem diameter, was multiplied by the number of vines in each tract . Similarly, field measurements combined with published allometric equations for native woody species were used to estimate woody biomass for the non‐vine species sampled on 10 x 30 m plots in forest lands. Soil carbon was estimated after combustion analysis of samples taken from the soil pits that were located in forested and vineyard lands. The data for the vegetation samples were integrated into a GIS together with remotely sensed imagery using a cluster analysis technique to produce a general land cover classification map with seven categories.

The amount of carbon stored on a given hectare of land was thus estimated to be a function of its habitat classification and the carbon values for the samples in that category . Soil carbon was estimated in a similar way, but samples were compared to existing soil maps from the national Soil Survey Geographic Database . These distribution maps, along with the sampled carbon values, were used to extrapolate carbon across the landscape to give both per hectare estimates of carbon stocks and total carbon estimates per ranch. The results of the study show two main conclusions with respect to carbon stocks : that per hectare, the top meter of soil holds substantially more carbon than the above ground woody vegetation, ranging from 5 times more in forests to 50 times more in vineyards, on average; and forest lands store more carbon in both soil and above ground woody vegetation than vineyards. On average, forested wild lands had 45 percent more total C/hectare than vineyards. That is, there are approximately12 times more above ground woody carbon and 6 percent more soil carbon per unit area in wild lands than in vineyards. Among wild land vegetation types, valley riparian habitats had the highest carbon stocks, and most of the carbon came from soil . This is most likely due to long‐term upland erosion, and subsequent deposition of organic material along the floodplains of the Russian River and its tributaries. The upland vegetation types had more variability in soil carbon stocks, but closed‐canopy mixed hardwood forest made the greatest contribution to C stocks .

For vineyard tracts, the age of the vines explained much of the variation in above ground C stocks and wood biomass. But even the largest vines contained only about one‐fourth of the wood biomass per hectare of the adjacent wooded wild lands.Planning ahead for climate change in agricultural landscapes involves more than crop management for reducing GHG emissions and coping with uncertain temperatures and precipitation . Land managers must have the capacity to respond to unforeseen change in natural resources as well. Integration of forest, other natural habitat and vegetation types, and agricultural ecosystems into complex landscapes is increasingly viewed as a way to increase the provision of multiple ecosystem services, including carbon storage, pest management, nutrient retention, erosion control, and water quality . Complex landscapes that are rich in biodiversity help to “keep options open” for alternative future management, even if such a strategy appears inefficient and sub-optimal in the present tense . In a mosaic approach for vineyard management, management objectives allow topography and habitat variability to determine the amount and configuration of vine tracts and wild lands. It was the landscape variability that also presented the greatest challenges to modeling carbon in this study. Combining GIS‐ and field‐based approaches was a useful way to sample and analyze vegetation‐based habitat types for their carbon stocks across the landscape . Variability in tree species composition and distribution within habitat types, as well as the many soil types showed the necessity of refined models to address heterogeneity for assessing C stocks. Two specific improvements would make for greater accuracy in future woody plant carbon estimates: a more comprehensive set of allometric equations for extrapolating above ground woody biomass of California tree species from field measurements such as diameter at breast height ; and understanding which environmental variables best explain the variation in above ground woody biomass and developing relevant procedures so carbon stocks can be accurately estimated on specific land holdings. Methods for improving the estimation of carbon stocks will be necessary if regulating bodies make carbon accounting mandatory or provide incentives for maximizing C storage. At present, however, most regulation is focused on emissions, such as AB 32. The U.S. Government has also taken an emissions control approach, such as when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared carbon dioxide and five other GHGs to be air pollutants subject to regulation in 2009. In California, viable voluntary carbon offset projects must qualify for one of three categories: reforestation; improved forest management; or avoided conversion. This means that forest cover must increase by planting or management techniques, or land owners must demonstrate that forested land is at risk for conversion, and therefore its protection meets the requirement of additionality . In California in 2006, transportation, energy production,nft growing system and industry accounted for more than 80 percent of annual GHG emissions; whereas, agriculture collectively contributed only 6 percent . At first glance, it seems that paying for carbon storage on croplands in California would have only a small effect on reducing total GHG emissions and that high transaction costs would discourage any such policy, given the thousands of farms in the state. But marginal lands, remnant natural vegetation, and restored ecosystems within agricultural landscapes could potentially account for substantial carbon benefits in California, based on the results of this study, as well as provide a host of additional environmental benefits not measured here. At present, woody plants in agricultural landscapes are not eligible for carbon offsets in California’s forest protocol .

This situation deserves further recognition, not only to retain an important set of carbon stocks by avoided deforestation, but because incentives for managing a vineyard/wild land mosaic contribute toward other ecosystem services, such as threatened or endangered species habitat protection , water quality and storage capacity, soil erosion, and nutrient run‐off control. The importance of maintaining forest lands has been a major issue for scientists and policy makers concerned with global warming. Efforts to develop incentives to reduce deforestation have produced global campaigns like the United Nations REDD and REDD‐plus programs , as well as specific efforts to slow deforestation in key tropical forest biomes . A crucial issue in the global deforestation debate is the renewed recognition for the importance of forested lands that exist in agricultural landscapes that are not formally considered forests . In conclusion, for complex landscapes, high resolution spatial modeling is challenging and requires accurate characterization of the landscape by vegetation type, physical structure, sufficient sampling, and allometric equations that relate tree species to the landscape. While remote sensing techniques may improve the accuracy of carbon estimation, climate change policy in California shows a lack of focus on storage compared to emissions, and on agriculture compared to other sectors. These oversights may lead to missed opportunities for maximizing ecosystem services, including carbon storage, as well as for encouraging better farm stewardship and habitat conservation. Many types of agricultural landscapes have some fraction of their land out of production and in forests or other forms of conserved habitat. Yet this land is generally not being counted in carbon accounting protocols such as AB 32. As a result, land owners are not being recognized or rewarded for the role they are playing in storing carbon in forested lands. Furthermore, if such rewards or incentive programs did exist, it is highly likely that many producers would take an active role in reforesting parts of their land that is not in production, or planting hedgerows or other vegetation, in order to qualify for these programs.The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 has been a catalyst for greenhouse gas mitigation and has generated awareness of climate change adaptation in California’s agricultural sector. While agriculture accounts for only 6 percent of the state’s total GHG emissions, it has the potential to play a significant role in statewide mitigation efforts through the sequestration of carbon in soils and plant biomass and as a source of feed stock for renewable energy generation . Agricultural residues are a major, and largely untapped, renewable energy source for California . Statewide estimates suggest that the potential feed stock from agricultural residues is over 8.8 million tons of dry biomass per year . Various biomass‐derived fuels can be used to partially displace fossil fuel consumption and facilitate GHG mitigation. Since agriculture tends to be particularly vulnerable to climate change, market volatility, and urban development, some have argued that on‐farm energy generation using agricultural residues is a key way to link mitigation and adaptation to generate profitable co‐benefits .In short, mitigation strategies that integrate renewable energy sources into farm operations can themselves be viewed as an adaptation in response to climate change regulation. California’s net metering laws were established in 1995. They currently allow wind, solar, and some biogas installations to be connected to the energy grid through net metering accounts, provided they meet certain energy output and pollution‐control requirements . With the passage of AB 920,5 which became effective in 2011, residences, farms and businesses with renewable energy installations can also sell excess power back into the grid. In contrast, state policies have not previously allowed projects which generate electricity on‐farm from crop residues to participate in these net metering programs. However, the Renewable Energy Equity Act 6 which has been passed by the State Legislature, makes all forms of renewable energy eligible for California’s net metering program.

The OBO Foundry initiative provides a variety of tools including an ontology import feature

Examples include the GO for attributes of gene products such as subcellular localization, molecular function or biological role, and Plant Ontology for plant attributes such as developmental stages or anatomical parts. When data are associated with appropriate ontology terms, data interoperability, retrieval and transfer are more effective. In this section, we review the challenges and opportunities in the use of ontologies and provide a set of recommendations for data curation with ontologies.To identify current status and challenges in ontology use, an online survey was offered to AgBioData members. The survey results for ontology use in databases for each data type are provided in Table 1 and a summary of other survey questions such as barriers to using ontologies are provided in the supplementary material 1. In addition, the ways ontologies are used in data descriptions in some GGB databases are described in supplementary material 2. To facilitate the adoption of ontologies by GGB databases, we describe the challenges identified by the survey along with some opportunities to meet these challenges, including a review of currently available ontologies for agriculture, ontology libraries and registries and tools for working with ontologies.Most GGB databases use GO but fewer use additional ontologies such as Plant Trait Ontology and PO to describe their data. In addition, with a few exceptions,hydroponic bucket these terms are assigned through computation instead of through rigorous manual annotation.

The use of ontologies could be facilitated if the list of applicable ontologies were readily available. Within the agricultural domain there are many reference ontologies applicable to model and crop plants, livestock, arthropods and other animal species. Table 2 lists some of the ontologies that are applicable to agricultural data. In supplementary material 3, we also describe ontology libraries and registries, including description of the Planteome project , the Crop Ontology project ,the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology Foundry , the NCBO BioPortal , OntoBee , the EBI Ontology Lookup Service , AberOWL and the AgroPortal project . Lack of funding and resources to train and pay biocurators. While most databases recognize the importance of using ontologies for efficient data integration and retrieval, GGB databases typically lack sufficient funding to train and pay additional biocurators. The curation work could be somewhat eased by tools for the curation and validation of annotations and by standardized data formats for ontology annotation data exchange. Significant work has been done in these areas. The curation tools for GO annotation include TAIR’s in-house curation tool PubSearch and TAIR’s community portal the Online Annotation Submission Tool , PomBase’s Canto , the GO consortium’s Noctua and Table Editor .To facilitate sharing annotations among resources, there are some existing and emergent standards for ontology annotation data exchange. The GO Annotation File format is the standard for GO annotation data exchange and Phenopackets is an extensible data model and data exchange format for phenotype data from any species . More details about these tools are provided in supplementary material 4.Some databases develop in-house ontologies since the existing ontologies do not meet their needs. When using in-house ontologies, it is necessary to map their terms to reference ontologies to facilitate ontology development and/or data transfer among other databases. In addition, it is often necessary to use species-specific ontologies. For example, analogous organs across plant species often do not have the same name.

To ease this difficulty, the CO and Planteome projects work together to link terms in plant species-specific ontologies to more general terms in references ontologies like GO and PO. In case of incomplete ontologies, there is a need for a tool or system where researchers and biocurators can add terms, which are timely reviewed for inclusion in the ontologies.The core recommended set of ontologies to use for agricultural is GO for gene function annotation, Sequence Ontology to define sequence types and trait ontologies for Quantitative trait locus , heritable phenotypic markers, gene models, transcripts, germplasm, molecular markers and trait descriptors for breeding and/or diversity projects. PO and TO are recommended for describing plant anatomy, developmental stages of plants and plant traits. When species-specific trait ontologies are used, it is recommended that they be annotated with reference PO and TO to enable cross-species comparison. Trait-related ontologies recommended for livestock, arthropods and other animal species are summarized inTable 4. All curatorial assignments of an ontology term to a database object should also be accompanied with the appropriate Evidence and Conclusions Ontology term describing the evidence on which that assertion is based and a traceable reference to the source of the experimental data. For agricultural animals, anatomy is represented using Uberon and Cell Ontology . For describing traits, the Vertebrate Trait Ontology provides trait descriptors analogous to TO for plants. The Ontology of Biological Attributes is a Phenotype and Trait Ontology -based ontology that provides traits in a completely species-neutral way, and integrates with VT and TO. The Mammalian Phenotype Ontology describes abnormal effects of gene mutations and other phenotypes.In order to provide unified access to different types of agricultural data and enable large-scale analysis, it is crucial to have a network of domain ontologies.

Each ontology focuses on its own domain, but often several ontologies are needed to fully describe the data.As an example of the creation of an ontology network, TO defines phenotypic traits in plants as Entity–Quality statements. The quality terms come from the PATO whereas the entity terms come from PO, GO or ChEBI, depending on the entity. These efforts can reduce the curation time in individual databases since once the data is curated with one ontology such as TO, it can be further associated with other component ontologies. There are also tools to make relationships among reference ontologies. One example is Intelligent Concept Assistant , a National Institute of Health Big Data 2 Knowledge – funded project to develop an environment for helping scientists to collaboratively create, extend and apply their knowledge to describe and interpret biomedical data sets.We encourage the use of ontologies by implementing rules and procedures where available/applicable, and improving ontologies by enlisting community helps in adding new terms, correcting existing terms as needed and in general, modifying ontologies to be broadly adaptive. A good example of this process occurs in AnimalQTLdb, where ontologies were developed in parallel with improvements to AnimalQTLdb . One way to encourage researchers to use ontologies is to provide a system that requires collection of accepted ontology terms as part of the data and/or publication submission process. Some databases, such as TAIR, TreeGenes and GDR work with journals to require that authors submit their data to the appropriate GGB database prior to manuscript submission . There are multiple approaches to this. GDR has downloadable data templates that researchers fill in and submit. TreeGenes has a web form for submitting association genetics and population genomics studies. TreeGene’s web form is currently being converted to a Tripal module ,stackable planters with the aim of fully adopting Minimum Information About a Plant Phenotyping Experiment to include the full spectrum of data generation, including design, sampling, sequencing and informatic analysis. The TreeGene system simplifies the submission process through the use of guided prompts to query researcher for the location of the experiment , the type of experiment and environmental conditions , and to determine which ontologies are necessary. TAIR’s TOAST allows authors to submit GO and PO annotations for their own or for others’ published works.Public data is valuable for additional research and for reproducibility analyses. But data cannot be reused unless they are sufficiently described, including attribution, analysis methods, procedures, data formats and a description of the subjects and treatments. Data cannot be reused if they cannot be found via search engines or persistent identifiers. Take the data resulting from a Genome Wide Association Study as an example. The accompanying metadata should include the species and specific individuals that were sampled; the study participants and publication; the genotypes and phenotypes and how they are obtained; the name, versions and parameters of software used; any scripts developed; parameters used to define significance; and data formats. Not only does this enable researchers to reuse data that may have been produced at considerable expense, but also enables researchers to reproduce results . Furthermore, having a persistent identifier attached to this data set, and having it deposited in a permanent repository, ensures that it can be found, retrieved and reused by multiple researchers for years to come. Metadata is descriptive information about an object or resource whether it be physical or electronic. The underlying concepts behind metadata have been in use for as long as collections of information have been organized. Library card catalogs represent a well-established type of metadata that have served as collection management and resource discovery tools for decades.

A metadata standard can be either a set of core descriptors that will apply in all instances and extended as needed or a comprehensive standard consisting of both required and optional data fields. The advantage of a core set is that its simplicity can greatly aid its adoption. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is an example of a core standard. For scientific research data, a ‘core standard’ will not be adequate to describe how the data was generated and analysed. Extensions to a ‘core standard’ are by definition, not standardized and so, extended fields likely cannot be compared. A ‘comprehensive standard’, on the other hand, may provide sufficient descriptive fields to enable reuse of research data, but its complexity may create a significant barrier to adoption. Another dimension of a metadata standard is the use of CVs. To compare metadata for multiple data sets, there must be a means of directly comparing the contents of each field. CVs, especially in the form of a hierarchical ontology that contains information about the relatedness of values, are essential to metadata.For conservation to achieve success in a dynamic and changing world, many issues must be addressed. Threats, costs, site availability, and type of conservation action, in addition to biodiversity targets or other conservation benefits, are important factors to consider when allocating limited conservation funds . Systematic conservation planning has traditionally emphasized designing reserves for biodiversity conservation. However, tools from spatial conservation prioritization, the prioritization of conservation actions through quantitative means , have been applied to prioritize other resources such as ecosystem services , the future ranges of biodiversity , and multifunctional agricultural lands , and for other conservation actions, such as restoration or invasive species control . The problem formulation of many cases of spatial conservation prioritization can generally be defined as trying to find the minimum set solution, the network with the minimum area or cost that meets all of the conservation targets , or the maximal coverage solution, the network with the most conservation targets met at a specified budget . Utility maximization is one case of the maximal coverage problem . Utility maximization problems are similar to maximal coverage problems in conservation planning in that the goal is to maximize the benefit of conservation actions subject to a resource constraint . The major difference between the two is in the calculation of site value. In the utility maximization approach, a site’s marginal value is calculated based on the representation level of the resource, and a target amount of the resource, and a benefit or utility function . Whereas the maximal covering formulation uses a step function that values all selected sites within the set equally, and non-selected sites have no value. A major advantage of the former is that it allows non-threatened areas outside of the selected set to have value and contribute towards conservation goals. A prime example of a utility maximization problem can be seen in Davis, Costello & Stoms , where conservation funds are allocated to maximize the averted loss of utility, which is a composite of three conservation criteria: hotspots of rare, threatened, and endangered species; under-represented wildlife habitat types; and sites for expanding existing small reserves, all in the Sierra Nevada region of California. They highlight a priority acquisition schedule for conservation and discuss how the framework incorporates key elements of systematic conservation planning , including concepts of complementarity, efficiency, irreplaceability, and retention .

A large share of the population lives in rural areas and engages in subsistence production

Increasingly, so are its related up- and down-stream activities in input supply, food logistics, food processing, retail, and food services, which, together with agriculture, make up the broader agri-food system . The AFS remains a major employer, particularly in poorer countries and for the poorer segments of society . Much hope is vested in the AFS to create badly needed jobs for youth in Africa, as well as for vulnerable populations and people in lagging regions elsewhere in the world . In contrast, employment in the AFS has dropped to only 10 percent of the labor force in high income countries, where the majority of AFS jobs are now off-farm in food processing and services. There, the domestic workforce has shifted out of the AFS. New digital technologies are enabling the automation of some historically labor-intensive agricultural tasks and providing an alternative to domestic labor substitution through international migration. COVID-19 will likely reinforce these trends. Given these developments, what role will the AFS play in the future of inclusive job creation across different countries worldwide? At the early stages of development, employment in the AFS largely coincides with employment in farming.Food supply chains are short and, for the most part, local. As countries develop, however, populations urbanize and food supply chains become longer. The income elasticity of demand for food declines, agriculture’s role as employer diminishes ,hydroponic nft system and the farm workforce becomes older, more wage-oriented, and more immigrant.

Urban consumers, and those with rising incomes, demand foods that are more protein- and nutrient-rich, processed, and convenient to consume. This change in demand provides some scope for agriculture related job creation beyond the farm, particularly in food processing and services. While these changes occur, jobs on the farm typically become more remunerative and competitive with jobs off the farm even though they dramatically shrink in terms of share and number.These dynamics, driven importantly by food demand behavior, have been observed across countries throughout history. They are broadly known as the structural transformation and the agricultural/dietary transformation . Often, these transformations are accompanied by deeply wrought societal change in response to growing rural-urban income divides and ineffective policy responses, including agricultural protectionism, especially when investment in rural public goods and inclusive food value chain development lags behind . Technological revolutions further shape these dynamics . Examples include steam power, railways and tractors in the 19th century, and electricity and cold storage in the 20th century. The current century is witnessing a rapidly unfolding digital revolution , with another revolution in energy just around the corner . These technological advancements of the 21st century and the associated business and product innovations are affecting structural and agricultural transformations across the globe. They have the potential to profoundly alter the global organization of the food system, as well as labor and skill demands. They dramatically reduce transaction costs in input and output markets, change economies of scale, and modify the optimal capital/labor mix in agricultural production, processing, and marketing. Because some agricultural tasks are arguably more automatable than those in industry and services , automation could accelerate the exit of labor out of agriculture in developing countries and transform farms and food processing firms in the developed world.

A future with robots in the fields and packing plants, together with technology-savvy farm workers to complement new technological solutions in specific commodities and tasks, already is taking shape. Solar driven water pumps , cold storage, and agro-processing equipment are also beginning to spread in rural India and East Africa, accelerating the transition away from subsistence production . Historically, during this process of structural and agricultural transformation, societies typically evolved from having a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor. Food prices dropped to offset technology-induced productivity gains because of income-inelastic food demand. Inefficient land markets and sluggish food value chain development slowed farm consolidation and diversification, and social protection for the self employed remained limited. As a result, farm incomes have struggled to keep up with more secure and faster-growing incomes off the farm. Domestic workers shifted from the primary sector to the secondary and tertiary. More often than not, in developed countries farm labor shortages have been filled largely by foreign agricultural wage workers, especially for difficult-to-automate tasks like harvesting fresh fruits and vegetables. Migrant-sending households in low-income countries benefited through remittances. However, with anti-immigration sentiments flying high in migrant-destination countries, the structural transformation unfolding in migrant-source countries, and technology increasingly offering alternatives to hired labor everywhere, opportunities to close income gaps across countries through legal farm labor migration may be narrowing .

The shift in policy dialogue away from immigration solutions to farm labor problems coexists with a bifurcating global demographic. Many developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, struggle to provide employment for their young, rapidly-expanding populations, presenting a missed opportunity for development from the so-called “demographic dividend” , including through international migration. Agricultural trade is similarly challenged in its role to help address global imbalances in farm labor, partly because of its purported contribution to global warming. The domestic and global forces of structural transformation and food demand behavior, the new technological revolution and associated business innovation, and the deceleration of agricultural trade and labor migration provide much of the socioeconomic backdrop against which the future of work in the AFS unfolds across countries. These transformations are further affected by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. It already has set back income growth . In the long run, the pandemic will reinforce existing trends in AFS automation and digitization and decrease reliance upon agricultural labor migration and trade, especially in the developed world. The pandemic has also exposed vulnerabilities in supply chains, as some countries experienced difficulty securing supplies of strategic goods and risks ushering in a new wave of protectionism .How countries address these, and related, challenges will shape the extent to which the AFS can continue its historically crucial role in reducing poverty and fostering shared prosperity by raising smallholder incomes and creating employment opportunities for young, expanding work forces. We argue that a policy and business environment supportive of inclusive agricultural value chain development will be a critical component of the solution. Adequate competition policies to address the challenge of rising power concentration within the AFS need to be part of the solution, as does the provision of broad access to digital infrastructure. Solutions will also require the provision of quality education to rural populations, including on the use of digital technologies,so that the agricultural and rural workforce can maximally benefit from new technologies and off-farm employment opportunities. To mitigate problems that arise during the farm labor transition and help prevent a reversal to agricultural policy distortions,nft channel adequate social protection systems that mitigate calls for agricultural protectionism must be developed. The decoupling of social protection from employment holds promise in that regard , with the massive expansion of social protection provisions across the globe in response to COVID-19, especially through cash transfers, providing useful experiences and platforms to build upon. The remainder of this paper discusses the impact and evolution of these different forces and reflects on a policy agenda that can leverage the future global food system to generate decent employment, accelerate poverty reduction, and attain shared prosperity.

Work in agriculture tends to be seasonal and dispersed across space, with labor productivity often low and unpredictable. High fertility among rural and agricultural populations, partly in response to low and variable agricultural earnings, often contributes to low labor productivity. As countries become more affluent, their demand for nonfood goods and services increases, and their work forces shift out of agriculture into more stable, high-paying, jobs in industry and services.The development of food manufacturing and services is particularly important in the process of narrowing cross-sectoral income differences. These nodes of the AFS tend to be more labor-intensive and less high tech than other industries and services, more likely to employ women and unskilled workers , and less spatially concentrated .This pattern of structural transformation is evident historically in high-income countries and is currently unfolding in low-income countries . Against this broad and sweeping background of structural transformation, what role will the AFS play as a source of employment and shared prosperity in the future? First, on-farm work will continue to be a major source of employment in poor countries. In low-income countries, as in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, a decrease in the share of the workforce employed in agriculture is still accompanied by an increase in agricultural employment in absolute terms. Given high population growth, the agricultural workforce is projected to continue swelling in the foreseeable future before it starts to decline . The population continues to grow fast while the amount of cultivated land expands. Therefore, in low-income countries, where most of the global agricultural workforce is still concentrated, the transition out of agriculture in the short run does not necessarily imply a smaller agricultural workforce overall. In these settings, the primary challenge is to improve the quality of farmers’ jobs, while also facilitating the transition out of agriculture. In many middle income countries, on the other hand, as well as historically in high income ones, the absolute number of agricultural workers has decreased over time,farm populations have “grayed,”and farm labor shortages in specific commodities at specific points in time have become a feature of the agricultural landscape. Second, agricultural labor productivity will continue to rise. The existence of a persistent and large productivity gap between non-agricultural and agricultural activities is received wisdom in development economics. It is often seen as proof that agriculture is intrinsically less productive and as suggestive that the policy solution for agricultural labor in the developing world lies in removing barriers that prevent people from exiting agriculture . Recent research, however, suggests that agricultural labor productivity is understated . Using micro household data instead of national macro accounts, controlling for skill differences, and expressing productivity in terms of value per hour of labor , labor productivity in agriculture is not lower than in other sectors . This finding suggests that agriculture is not intrinsically less productive but, rather, underemployment in the sector is high, at least in the earlier stages of development. Underemployment is likely linked to the seasonal nature of agricultural production and high fertility rates . If the productivity gap is much smaller than generally assumed, a disproportionate focus on policies to remove barriers to sectoral or spatial migration, however well-intentioned, may be misplaced. In fact, if agricultural labor is only in surplus during the agricultural slack season , such policies may prove ineffective, or they may even exacerbate agricultural labor shortages during planting and harvesting . Improving agricultural productivity would enable a productive move out of agriculture, leaving a more productive agricultural labor force behind. This could be accomplished through the development of complementary activities during the slack season, such as double cropping through irrigation and mixed farming systems .These types of developments would maximize poverty reduction , in contrast to a scenario in which people leave agriculture due to distress following under investment. The road out of agriculture runs importantly through a path that increases labor productivity in agriculture. This agricultural job paradox remains underappreciated. It will eventually leave far fewer people in farming, but they will have better employment conditions, and there will be greater quantities of relatively cheap food available for those in the rest of the economy. This process is still not underway in earnest in many African low-income countries . Third, the successful exit of labor out of agriculture is intimately tied to a successful agricultural transformation . Food expenditure shares decline as incomes increase. Food consumption patterns also change from primary staples to more protein- and micronutrient-rich diets .Eventually, societies tend to demand more processed and prepared foods; they may even develop food consumption patterns that involve eating as an “experience.” Societies become more dependent upon the downstream AFS as a result. This, in turn, opens up new employment opportunities off the farm in food processing, marketing, logistics, food retail, and food services.

This change was made in an effort to finally force an agreement on agriculture

One major reason Japanese farmers have been so successful in pushing their policy preferences and forestalling liberalizing trade agreements is that the main groups in other countries that traditionally challenge farmers by supporting liberalization, namely consumers, business, and the food industry, are either unwilling or unable to challenge the JA’s preference for protection . Moreover, while farmers are united in their opposition to agricultural liberalization their opponents, most notably consumers and the food industry, are internally divided. Consumer organizations, for example, are dominated by concerns over food quality and prefer to restrict access to the Japanese market to ensure that the preponderance of available products are those of Japanese origin, in which they have a high degree of trust. Because of this strong preference among consumers for food of Japanese origin, many in the food processing and distribution industry are reluctant to push for agricultural liberalization. Their fear is that demand for their products will decline if they are made with or include the imported agricultural goods. The result is that, despite their small share of the population, farmers are able to extract new policies, or preserve existing policies,grow hydroponic that benefit a small share of the population and inconvenience a much greater share of the population. While these group preferences are indicative of the peculiarities of the Japanese case, the broader explanation of farmer influence and power tracks the European story.

Japanese farmers, like those in Europe, have powerful and well-coordinated organizations. These organizations operate from the national level all the way down to the local level, giving farmers access to and influence over key actors at all levels of decision making. Tight control over members and impressive capacity for coordination allows Japanese farmer organizations to influence not only politicians concerned with re-election but also key actors, like business, that might challenge farmer preferences. Boycotts are one common strategy employed by farmer organizations in Japan to shape policy by punishing other interests that challenge agriculture. For example, in the mid-1980s, Nōkyō led a boycott against Mitsubishi Kōgyō Cement because a company executive belonged to a Nikkeirencommittee that pushed for agricultural policy reform. Since that incident, Nikkeiren has struggled to find executives willing to sit on the committee . Farmers also executed a successful boycott of Sony, Daiei , and the food-maker Ajinomoto because their executives had pushed for agricultural policy reform as part of a Keidanrencommittee. In these cases, the boycotts were ended only after the executives from the offending companies apologized to farmers and quit the committee . So, farmer organizational power in Europe is often manifested through street protests, Japanese farmers often direct their organizational influence toward hurting the economic interests of their main policy opponents.

The JA’s organizational strength allows Japanese farmers to exert significant electoral influence, rewarding politicians who commit to protecting and advancing preferred farmer policies, and punishing those who do not. As a Japanese official explained, “If JA doesn’t like a candidate, they will do a smear campaign. Farmers are maybe not strong enough to make someone win, but they are strong enough to make sure someone loses” . The farmers have long been a staunch ally of the Liberal Democratic Party , which governed Japan, uninterrupted from 1955 to 1993. Since its formation in 1955, the LDP has only been out of power from 1993 to 1994 and 2009 to 2012. The JA’s ability to coordinate the voting of its membership played an important role of the LDP’s defeat in 2009 and its return to power in 2012. In the run up to the 2009 election, many farmers threw their support behind the Democratic Party of Japan as opposed to their traditional ally, the LDP. This shift appears to have been prompted more by the DPJ’s aggressive campaign to win the farmers over than farmer anger with a specific LDP policy. In an effort to win farmers away from the LDP, the DJP announced a plan to transition agricultural policy from price supports to a system of direct income compensation. The policy was an extension of one offered in the 2007 Upper House elections that proved to be very successful in winning rural votes away from the LDP. These policy promises in 2009 lured numerous JA prefectural offices into tempering their commitments to the LDP, saying that decisions on whom to support would be made on a district-by-district basis, or, in the most extreme cases, that this election would be a “free vote” and no official candidate would be endorsed. The DPJ, thanks to their plan for supporting farmer incomes, won the support of the agricultural community and thus the election.

After taking power, the DPJ adopted their new farmer income scheme, which provided a direct income subsidy for all commercial farm households, regardless of size. The scheme was also designed to compensate farmers for times when production costs exceeded sale prices. Under the policy, farmer incomes increased for the first time since 2003. Despite these positive developments, the LDP took back farmer support and won the next elections in 2012. A central promise of the LDP was to increase public spending on the farm sector, which had been cut by the DPJ to pay for the new income support program. Under the DPJ, the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries had declined . In the run up to the 2012 elections, the LDP committed to reversing this decline. In addition, its agricultural policy platform promised to replace the “individual farm household income compensation scheme with enhanced direct payments to farmers for the multifaceted functions of agriculture” . The way the direct income payment was handled by the DPJ also came under criticism: some viewed it as a way to separate farmers from the powerful farmer organizations by weakening the dependent relationship between the two. Essentially, a direct income payment from the government could weaken, if not break, the relationship between farmers and the JA because farmers would be paid independent of production and would thus be less dependent on JA services. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the DPJ could not overcome the opposition of the farmers, and the JA more broadly, to the DPJ’s position in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, aiming to reduce trade barriers. Farmers, protected by high tariff barriers, feared that an influx of low-priced agricultural goods would follow the adoption of the TPP. The JA stated an official position of opposition to the TPP and those who supported it, no matter their party affiliation. In the 2012 election, the JA published a list of the 177 candidates it endorsed, 162 of which were from the LDP. Of the 177 officially endorsed, 173 were elected . As these examples demonstrate, my framework for studying agricultural policy making and reform can provide help provide a fuller understanding of decision making in domains outside of Europe. Japanese farmers have repeatedly shown the ability to defend preferred policies, defeat unwanted reforms, and even silence those who advocate economic liberalization, whether a powerful political party or a major industry. As in Europe,growing lettuce hydroponically it is difficult if not impossible to take support away from farmers or even to challenge their policy preferences.This third and final mini case tests the applicability of my argument to cases that involve agricultural interests but are not agricultural policy proper. Additionally, this mini case tests my argument beyond the European/EU context. Decision making occurs at the supranational level, and, beginning with the 1986 Uruguay Round, agricultural interests are just one set of voices within a much broader set of voices. Essentially, in the case of world trade after 1986, agriculture cannot simply sort out its own situation in isolation, excluding all other interests.

Because these negotiations are supranational, like CAP negotiations, farmer organizations and their influence are predominantly mediated through national representatives to the GATT meetings. Essentially, the task of this mini-case is to demonstrate that the major claims of my argument still hold under the conditions outlined above. When GATT was created in 1948, agriculture received special treatment. It was thought that agricultural interests were so powerful and agriculture such a touchy national subject that its inclusion would render any negotiations dead in the water. So unlike manufacturing sectors, agriculture was exempted from the prohibition on the use of both quantitative import restrictions and export subsidies. In addition, agriculture was left out of the first three rounds of multilateral trade talks in the GATT in order to assure successful negotiations. As a result of agriculture’s special treatment and its absence from GATT negotiations, domestic agricultural programs were allowed to develop unchecked. The resulting agricultural surpluses were one of the major factors that pushed agriculture to be fully included in GATT multilateral negotiations despite major concerns over the dilatory effects of powerful farming interests and the objections that would certainly be raised by negotiating parties in defense of their particular agricultural profile. The centerpiece of the GATT Uruguay Round negotiations was the section on agriculture. The GATT UR was launched in 1986 and was supposed to be concluded by 1990. Due to delays on the agricultural section of the negotiations, an agreement was not reached until 1993, almost doubling the length of the GATT UR. The declaration launching the Uruguay Round identified greater liberalization in agricultural trade as the fundamental goal of the round. Particular attention was to be paid to domestic support, market access, and export subsidies . The specific goals for agriculture were to reduce import barriers, to order to improve market access, and to restrict the use of direct and indirect subsidies in order to improve the competitive environment. US Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter insisted on the inclusion of policies relating to domestic support over the strong objection of some EC member states, most notably France. In short, in the GATT UR, reformers wanted to remove protectionist trade barriers and dramatically cut, if not completely eliminate, subsidies for agriculture, including those designed to boost farmer incomes. In a major break from previous GATT negotiations, the UR was to be treated as a “single undertaking” . In other words, the round could not be concluded without an agreement on agriculture. By contrast, the Tokyo Round was described as “GATT à la carte” because contracting parties could decide which agreements they did and did not want to sign .In all previous rounds, agriculture was either excluded entirely or treated under special, separate rules. The EC played a key role in pushing for the single undertaking condition for the Uruguay Round. For France, which was reluctant to include agriculture in the UR negotiations, the condition was particularly important because it “represented the potential for offsetting gains in other sectors: to rebalance trade with Japan and to ensure the newly industrializing countries, particularly in Asia, met in full their obligations under the GATT” . In practice, the single undertaking condition permitted agriculture to cause extensive delays in the negotiations, repeatedly proving to be the issue that blocked everything. Negotiations at the Uruguay Round took place over seven years. Throughout the talks, the US and EC advanced radically different negotiating positions. An inability to reach an agreement on agriculture resulted in the collapse of the round, and the original deadline for an agreement, 1990, was missed. Talks were revived by GATT Director General Arthur Dunkel and ultimately concluded in 1993 with an agreement that was dramatically watered down from the initial GATT UR objectives and was ultimately quite favorable to farmers. In the end, farmer income payments, which GATT officials sought to eliminate or at least restrict, were entirely preserved and the dismantling of tariff barriers was delayed or restricted such that most farmers felt little to no effect from these changes. The Uruguay Round negotiations were driven by the sharply divergent positions of the United States and the European Community, supported by the Cairns Group43 and Japan, respectively. The US saw government support as the root of trouble in farm trade while the EC blamed the market. Specifically, the US called for dramatic liberalization, primarily by reducing the protection and support afforded to European farmers under the CAP. The EC, however, argued that that the aim of negotiations should be to “progressively reduce support to the extent necessary to reestablish balanced markets and a more market oriented agricultural trading system” but not to phase out support and protection .

Blair agreed but asked Fischler to drop the capping of direct payments in exchange

The deal to not cut the CAP budget was extracted by France in exchange for supporting enlargement, and allowed the budget to increase by 1% each year until 2013 . This agreement was a major victory for France and the CAP, as the EU’s multi-annual financial framework at the time called for an automatic annual cut in the CAP budget . The proposal designed by Fischler and his team was also well received by the Commission because it addressed several of the main issues that provided the impetus for reform: food safety and quality, environmental impact, imbalances in the distribution of CAP support, and the CAP’s impeding of trade negotiations. Food safety and quality issues were addressed by cross compliance. Decoupling of payments and cross compliance handled the issue of environmental impact, while dynamic modulation confronted the problem of inequities in CAP support distribution. Finally, decoupling brought the CAP support payments into the WTO green box, and thus into compliance with existing WTO rules on agricultural subsidies. The core components of the proposed CAP reform were also structured so that they would directly address the challenge posed by enlargement. Doing away with payments tied to production and instead basing income support on historical yields tied to holding size would save the CAP money in both the short and long term. Farms in the East were, on balance,30 litre plant pots much smaller and less productive than those in the West.

As a result, their calculated income support payment would be comparatively low. In addition, there was no risk that, as these farmers gained access to improved resources and technology enabling them to improve their output, the CAP would have to fund larger payments. Instead, income payments would be tied to a low historic yield. Cross-compliance would serve as a further check on the amount of funds dispersed to the new member states. Eastern Europe already lagged behind the West in terms of existing environmental practices. Farmers in new member states would have difficultly meeting and adhering to these new standards, resulting in reductions in the funds paid to them. Countering some of these effects, modulation would allow some funds to be redirected from richer to poorer countries The MTR was the last opportunity to reform the CAP before the candidate countries would be full members of the European Union, and thus party to CAP negotiations. Unlike previous reforms, it would be much risker to put off or delay making reforms to the operation of the CAP. Even adopting reforms that were optional but not binding, as had been done in the past, was risky. If these changes, ones that were necessary to save the CAP but were deeply unpopular in the East, were not taken immediately, they would not be in the future because the new member states would band together to block them. The only component of Fischler’s proposal that was significantly revised by the Commission was dynamic modulation. The Commission altered the rules governing eligibility for modulation and income payment limits. Though the revised proposal maintained an exemption for farms earning less than €5,000, it added a provision stating that only those farms earning over €50,000 would be subjected to the full 19% reduction in direct income payments prescribed by modulation in order to ensure that small holders would not be targeted.

In addition, the final version of the Commission proposal removed the €300,000 limit on total income payments. The Commission also revised how the money collected under dynamic modulation would be redistributed. The new version significantly reduced the amount of money that would be directed to general rural development objectives and increased the amount that was to be set aside to fund future CAP reforms. This change was made in order to accommodate the rules that emerged from the Chirac-Schröder deal at the Berlin Summit in 2002. Specifically, it ensured that there would be some funds in reserve to uphold the agreement from the deal that allowed for a 1% annual increase in the CAP budget. These amendments to the Commission’s proposal were important victories for both larger and small farmers. Larger farmers avoided a cap on how much support they could receive and small farmers were granted important exemptions and protections from reductions in their income payments under dynamic modulation. After review and revision by the Commission, the official package of proposals was sent to the European Council on 23 January 2003. Among the member states, France and UK were the key players. France led the effort to block the reform while the UK was the primary member state that Fischler worked with to achieve the necessary votes to pass his reforms via Qualified Majority Voting . France was the leader of the anti-reform camp and used its relationship with Germany to cement a blocking minority, while the UK proved central to breaking the French-led blocking minority. Three groups emerged after the reforms were announced. The first group, the pro-reform coalition, consisted of the Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. This group of countries favored reforms that would make the CAP more market-oriented. Sweden was a vocal new partner of the pro-reform club.

Upon joining the EU, Sweden had been required to reintroduce subsidies, which the government had removed in the early 1990s after a period of substantial agricultural policy reform . Sweden was thus a strong supporter of reforms that would move the CAP in a market-oriented direction. Other members of this group had long been proponents of market-oriented reforms. Agriculture in each of these countries was marked by the predominance of large holdings and/or highly efficient farming. Agricultural and political elites expressed the belief that their farmers, in general, would benefit from freer competition and the removal of support programs that served to prop up inefficient competitors in other member states. Within this group, the UK also objected to modulation. As one of the member states with the largest farms, the British felt that this policy, if adopted, would disproportionately negatively affect its farmers. The second group was the anti-reform alliance consisting of France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. These countries took issue with nearly every aspect of the reform package, in particular decoupling and modulation. Germany, with large farms in the east and highly efficient farms in the west, opposed a limit being placed on total CAP payments. Both of these sets of farmers would be adversely affected by a limit on the total payment a farmer could receive. German farmers in both the east and west were already receiving more in direct payments than the proposed payment cap would allow. These member states also opposed the timing of the reforms, arguing that Agenda 2000 should be fully implemented before any further reforms were adopted . France’s position became even more staunchly anti-reform after a leftist cabinet was replaced by a center-right government in 2002, and Hervé Gaymard, a member of Chirac’s own party, was installed as minister of agriculture. Several agricultural lobbies posed three main reform critiques of their own. The lobbies argued that the new system of payments would not allow farmers “in the least-favoured regions, where low productivity and lower competitiveness” predominates to earn a livable income . The result, they argued,10 litre plant pots would be land abandonment and an increase in unemployment. Second, they voiced the concern that paying farmers regardless of production would negatively affect public opinion and could ultimately result in the complete termination of direct payments to farmers . Third, the proposal to base the direct payment on historical yields would serve to perpetuate past discrimination in favor of certain products, producers, and regions . The third group represented those countries in the middle that, while not completely opposed to the reforms, had some specific objections. Countries in this group were Austria, Belgium, Greece, Finland, and Luxembourg . Finland and Austria were traditionally protectionist agricultural countries and thus supported subsidies as a means to help their farmers. However, because Austria and Finland each had an agricultural sector that was predominantly small-scale and high value added, they favored strategies for rural development, greening, and multi-functionality, as opposed to production-based subsidies that favored large scale cultivation of commodity crops . At a meeting of the Council of Ministers on 8 April 2003, decoupling was discussed for the first time. Only the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark expressed support for Fischler’s proposal to completely disconnect payment from production . Most of the other member states preferred partial decoupling, whereby a portion of a farmers’ income payment would continue to be linked to how much he or she produced, but no member state offered any concrete ideas or proposals for how partial decoupling could be carried out .

While many countries were neither fully opposed nor fully in favor of the reform, no agreement could be reached without breaking the French-led blocking minority. Under the rules of QMV, a blocking minority consisting of a minimum of 4 countries that represented at least 35% of the population could prevent the passage of a proposal. Given the existence of this blocking minority, member states in the middle had no incentive to officially back reform, particularly since their formal support might provoke the ire of the farming community at home. There was no incentive to express support or even negotiate on the terms if the blocking minority could thwart the whole package. Though the Commission preferred to pass reforms with unanimous support, with the continued expansion of the EU, it was no longer feasible to pass reforms only with unanimous support. The adoption of QMV facilitated a faster negotiation process than was possible under unanimity rules, and ensured that a single country could not use a veto to stymie reform. Ireland ended up abandoning the anti-reform group early. Irish farmers’ unions opposed the reforms, but their members did not. The farmers supported the reforms because they felt they would provide them with adequate income support while also giving them the freedom to farm a greater diversity of crops . The Irish farm minister ultimately sided with the grass-roots farmers and against the farmer unions. Even without Ireland, however, the other four countries, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, could form a blocking minority on their own under the rules of QMV. In order to break this minority alliance of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, Fischler targeted the Spanish delegation, as it was believed that “Spain joined the French to gain some breathing space” rather than because of outright objection to the reforms . Fischler asked British Prime Minister Tony Blair to reach out to Spanish Prime Minister Aznar . Spain was a crucial country to flip, because it would break the blocking minority led by France.These caps, which would be applied primarily to big farms, would hit the UK especially hard . Fischler agreed and Blair began working with Fischler to swing the other member states in support of reform. One of Spain’s central demands was to amend the decoupling proposal to allow for partial decoupling in certain sectors, at the member states’ discretion. Partial decoupling would allow the Spanish government to continue allocating a percentage of income payments based on production in sectors important to Spain, namely sheep and goat farming. Once that concession was made, Spain shifted in favor of the reform. With the blocking minority broken, France and Germany quickly followed suit, hoping to grab some concessions in exchange for their support of the reform Similar to Spain, Germany and France also received a concession that allowed them to keep a certain percentage of income payments coupled to production for sectors of importance. The French switch was also motivated by pressure from the Association Générale des Producteurs de Blé , the cereals division within the FNSEA. Chirac’s opinion was strongly influenced by that of France’s national farming union, the Fédération nationale des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles , with some Commission officials describing Chirac as “entirely beholden” to the FNSEA . Chirac completely opposed decoupling until he was approached by AGPB leaders, who told him that they supported the policy change .

Examples of amber box subsidies are production-based subsidies and price supports

Under these operating assumptions, it was difficult if not impossible to make the argument that CAP payment schemes needed to be reformed so that they were both functional and financially viable once ten new member states from Central and Eastern Europe joined the EU. Excluding the new member states obviated what would have otherwise been a clear need for reform. Finally, because the terms of accession to the CAP had yet to be negotiated or agreed, the Commission and the Agricultural Council ignored the effects of enlargement on the CAP on the grounds that it was not yet known how new member states would be integrated into the CAP . Indeed, if anything enlargement mitigated against far-reaching reform; why make major changes to the CAP designed to facilitate accession if it is unknown how and to what extent the new member states would be incorporated into the program? A second potential source of pressure for reform during Agenda 2000 came from trade related issues. The direct income payments created under the MacSharry Reform were compatible with the GATT Uruguay Round due to their inclusion in the specially created “blue box”. The GATT/WTO used a “subsidy stoplight” system, containing green, amber, and red boxes, to evaluate and classify member country subsidies. Permitted subsidies,30 planter pot meaning those that do not distort trade and do not include price supports, are in the green box while the red box refers to subsidies that are forbidden. Subsidies in the red box must be eliminated or offending GATT/WTO members can be made subject to disciplinary action.

The amber box refers to all domestic subsidies that distort production and/or trade.The “blue box” was added as a category for domestic support under the GATT UR agreement. Essentially, this category served to exempt the US deficiency payments and CAP direct income area- and headage-based payments from these reduction commitments . EU officials considered it highly likely that these payments, since they were not fully decoupled from production, and thus remained trade distorting, and the blue box more broadly, would come under fire in future negotiation rounds, with some speculating that the blue box might be eliminated entirely. Adding to the concern over the survival of the “blue box” was the United States’ adoption of the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act, also known as the Freedom to Farm Act. The FAIR Act introduced a system of direct payments, completely decoupled from production, that replaced the existing deficiency scheme. In addition, the FAIR Act stipulated that these payments would be reduced over a period of seven years . With the passage of the FAIR Act then, the blue box existed only to provide special status and exemption for the CAP payment system. Despite concerns about what future rounds of WTO negotiations might mean for some core components of the CAP, it was not enough to push the member states into undertaking meaningful reform. The MacSharry Reform negotiations were concurrent with actual GATT talks, while Agenda 2000 began, was negotiated, and concluded before the new WTO round was even launched.

For Agenda 2000, trade-related concerns had ultimately little impact because they were all hypothetical: the special status of CAP payments could disappear; partially decoupled payments might not fit within the new WTO scheme; the US’s FAIR Act might be a sticking point between the US and the EU. In addition, the trade conflicts between the US and the EU at this time were not really about the operation of the CAP as they had been in the GATT UR. In sum, the major events and issues that disrupt politics and allow for extensive reform to be achieved did not operate during Agenda 2000. Enlargement was thought to be a non-issue, and any potential trade issues were, at best, hypothetical. As a result, Fischler had to negotiate his reform under politics as usual. The importance of disruptive politics to achieving meaningful reform is clearly illustrated by the case of Agenda 2000, since no major adjustments to CAP policy were achieved, with major initiatives either being made optional or rejected outright.Fischler and the Commission had four main objectives for the Agenda 2000 reform: 1) to extend the systems of price cuts and direct income compensation started under MacSharry in 1992; 2) to reduce the CAP budget and improve financial discipline, particularly in light of the transition to the Euro and the financial strictures involved with that transition; 3) to rebalance the distribution of CAP benefits across member states and sectors of production; and 4) to overhaul and simplify the CAP’s rural development and environmental schemes by putting them into a single framework, the so called “second pillar” . The first objective was particularly important with Guy Legras, still head of DGVI, stating, “you might call [the new reform proposal] MacSharry Mark II” . To extend MacSharry, the Commission sought to continue to reduce price supports, in order to bring prices closer to the world level, and to increase direct income payments. Objectives 2 and and 3 followed the same model as they had in previous negotiations- cut CAP costs to the extent possible and attempt to adopt a system that would limit the payments received by the largest farmers, facilitating better distribution of payments across countries while also improving support for small farmers.

This latter point, directing more support to small farmers, was seen as important to preserving the social acceptability of the CAP to the broader public. Finally, the fourth objective, like the first, was part of a continuation of a bigger project, begun under MacSharry. Fischler and the Commission wanted to reinforce the role the farmers played in maintaining the countryside. They sought to direct more funds to agri-environmental measures so as to better support sustainable rural development and better meet the growing environmental demands of the broader public . A major discussion of a potential CAP reform occurred in the late summer and early fall of 1997, after the Commission had formally launched Agenda 2000 in a document called “Agenda 2000: For a Stronger and Wider Europe”. In reference to the CAP,plastic planters bulk the general document on Agenda 2000 called for compensated price cuts to arable crops, beef, and dairy, a commitment to rural development and agri-environmental measures, and ceilings on income payments in an effort to mitigate perceived inequalities in the system . Reform along the lines proposed by Agenda 2000 would, the Commission argued, increase the EU’s agricultural competitiveness, improve food safety and quality, advance the fundamental CAP goal of stable farm incomes , promote sustainable agriculture, and simplify EU legislation . Under this initial Agenda 2000 announcement that set the scope for the negotiations, agriculture would remain the single largest program in the EU, consuming roughly 45% of the budget, with structural funds remaining the second largest, accounting for just over 35% of EU spending . Agricultural Commissioner Franz Fischler publicly defended the need for reform, arguing in an editorial in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that: “acting as though everything would stay the same as in the past without reform is verging on a lie” . He further stated that the reform’s main objective was protecting farmer incomes, and predicted that Agenda 2000 would improve farmer welfare. Beyond making this public defense of the CAP in the German press, Fischler also undertook a tour of the member state capitals, much like MacSharry did before the 1992 reforms. In so doing, Fischler hoped to get some sense of the political acceptability of his reform goals. In addition, he began to negotiate some elements of the reform in the hope of making the general Commission proposal more acceptable and limiting negative reaction. At the end of the tour, despite some divergent opinion, Fischler found that the balance of support was in favor of “maintain[ing] the status quo, with only slight modifications to the CAP” . The Commission formally made its proposals for Agenda 2000 in March of 1998. The package consisted of four main components: 1) intervention price cuts for arable goods, beef, and dairy, with partial compensation in the form of direct payments, 2) a system of modulation and price ceilings; 3) cross compliance; and 4) a package of rural development policies. Overall, the reforms sought to continue MacSharry’s legacy by cutting prices and maintaining quotas in exchange for increased direct compensation. For beef and dairy, these cuts would come in one step, but would be offset by increasing the amount that farmers received via their direct payments. In an effort to continue MacSharry’s objective of keeping milk production under control, the Commission proposed extending quotas for a further 6 years, while also allowing a 2% increase in a farmer’s production limit. Other dairy products like butter and milk powder would follow a program similar to that for beef and cereals, with the price cut offset by an increase in compensation.

The Commission once again attempted to address the issue of inequality in payments and to respond to the public criticism of CAP payment operations and spending levels by introducing payment ceilings and other mechanisms to reduce the amount of funds directed towards Europe’s largest farmers. The Commission sought to impose a 20% cut on all payments over 100,000 ECUs and a 25% cut on all payments over 200,000 ECUs. The other payment-related initiative, modulation, was intended not to reduce the CAP budget but rather to redistribute aid among farmers and member states and also to reinforce the second pillar, as a portion of the money collected would be earmarked specifically for rural development and environmental programs and policies. Specifically, member states could make some adjustments to the amount of financial support a farmer received based on the number of persons employed on the farm. Those savings would then be redistributed to those farmers and member states that were disadvantaged and to support second pillar goals and programs. The Commission attempted to improve environmental accountability and to advance the perception of the CAP as promoting the multifunctional role of farmers, as both producers of food and stewards of the environment. The main tools through which the Commission sought to achieve these goals were cross-compliance and a series of reforms designed to direct funding and support to issues related to rural communities. Cross-compliance would tie the receipt of direct income payments to adherence to a set of basic environmental standards. This program was to be mandatory, applying to all farmers. Finally, a series of smaller reforms were designed to provide support for young farmers, to fund early retirement, to support training programs and opportunities, and to provide additional support for those farming in “less favored areas” and to provide compensation for farmers engaging in approved agri-environmental activities. Three broad camps emerged after the publication of the Commission’s formal proposal. The first group, the pro-reformers, was led by the UK and Sweden but also included the Netherlands and Denmark. These countries welcomed the reform, but felt that the Commission had not gone far enough. They preferred a bigger reduction in intervention prices and the eventual elimination of subsidies and income support payments. These countries favored the development of a more market-oriented European agricultural sector. In addition, the UK expressed opposition to modulation. The second group, led by Germany, and also including Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Portugal, all had some significant problems with the reform as it was proposed. Germany was among the most staunchly opposed, preferring the status quo. The German agricultural minister Jochen Borchet stated that he could see “very few positive things” in the proposal . The third and final group included the remaining member states who, rather than take a strong position for or against the reform proposal, “emphasized the specific interests of their national agricultural sectors, and declared their firm intention to defend these interests in the upcoming reform negotiations” . For example, Spain was concerned that increasing spending on the CAP would make it more likely that structural funds would be targeted as a way to find more resources. Italy wanted an end to milk quotas, Greece and Portugal desired reform for Mediterranean products, and Finland and the Netherlands preferred changes to formulas for compensation .

France and Germany were both reluctant to adopt major agricultural reform

The first significant effort to reform the CAP was the so-called Mansholt Plan. In 1968 the Commission, led by Sicco Mansholt, published the “Memorandum on the Reform of Agriculture in the European Economic Community” commonly referred to as the Mansholt Plan. Mansholt was one of the principal architects of the CAP, representing the Netherlands, and was the only agricultural minister party to the negotiations among member states. He was deeply committed to the project of European integration in agriculture and was considered a leading expert on the topic. His document contained a formal analysis of the situation in the Community. It built on Mansholt’s 1967 speech to the Council of Ministers in which he warned the Council that the CAP already required major changes, even though it was barely half a decade old. In particular, Mansholt noted that price supports had fostered a significant increase in production, which yielded massive surpluses that were incredibly expensive to dispose of. More troubling, these price supports failed to meet a key goal of the CAP,plastic garden pot as incomes did not increase for the majority of farmers. Despite a founding goal of the CAP being the improvement of farmer incomes, during the first decade of its existence not only had the income gap failed to diminish but income disparities had grown considerably within agriculture .

The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization’s 1975 “State of Food and Agriculture” noted that in the previous decade there was “no evidence of any general narrowing of the gap between agricultural and non-agricultural incomes”, rather “the general tendency was for the gap to widen still further” . Despite the EU’s program being designed with the specific intention of improving farm incomes, the only developed nations where “large improvements” were observed were the United States and the Soviet Union . Mansholt believed that the fundamental problem in Europe was too many farmers. The Mansholt Plan observed that farms were, on average, small. The average farmer produced and sold very little, resulting in a low income. In addition, there remained too many elderly farmers with inadequate training for modern conditions. Mansholt asserted that CAP price policy encouraged and allowed marginal farms to stay in business. His plan’s core claim was that the only practical way to increase farmer incomes was for farms to become larger and more modern businesses. To make farms larger, there would necessarily have to be fewer of them. Achieving the objective of creating larger and more efficient farms, Mansholt argued, would meet the CAP’s goal of increasing agrarian incomes. Moreover, higher incomes would reduce dependence on high prices, allowing these prices to be lowered, which would in turn remove incentives to overproduce. The result, in the long run, would be lower EAGGF support costs and an efficient farming sector. Essentially, Mansholt’s plan was oriented around improving farmer incomes by removing farmers from the land in order to increase the average holding size.

Reduced production and CAP spending were uncertain outcomes that would only emerge in the long term. Mansholt asserted that 5 million people would need to be removed from agriculture between 1970 and 1980. His proposal included several options to encourage exit. Exiting farmers could be offered either retirement pensions or compensation and training for a new profession. To prevent rural depopulation, however, Mansholt suggested that regional plans be implemented to bring jobs to the countryside. For those remaining in farming, financial assistance would be available for the modernization and expansion of their farms. Finally, because the remaining farms would ostensibly be larger and more productive, he recommended that 5 million hectares be taken out of agriculture and devoted to re-afforestation. The removal of agricultural land would prevent a worsening of the surplus situation because it would limit the ability of farmers to both keep excess labor in farming and expand the areas devoted to certain crops known for higher yields, such as grains and sugars . If the land were permanently removed from production, it could not be bought up and used by the highly-productive farmers already benefiting from the current system. In addition to better controlling production, this initiative to both remove land from production and engage in a re-afforestation effort would help to reduce the Community’s dependence on timber imports. Despite its efforts to address the real crises facing the CAP, the Mansholt Plan was poorly received by farmer groups and politicians.

Farmer groups criticized it extensively, dubbing Mansholt “The Peasant Killer” because they perceived of the plan as an existential threat to their constituencies. For their part, politicians, wary of farmer voting power and the sway of agricultural lobbies, declined to engage in formal discussions of the plan. One issue that made discussion difficult from the start was that Sicco Mansholt’s understanding of the family farm was very different from that of key member states. Mansholt’s plan aligned with the Dutch assessment of a family farm as a unit that could support a family when run professionally, using modern techniques. The other member states saw the family farm as the key socio-cultural institution of Europe’s countryside, thus requiring its preservation. To the non-Dutch member states, Mansholt’s plan portended the destruction of the family farm as they knew it, thus rendering the plan politically unpalatable and fundamentally unacceptable. The fundamental problem, though, was that Mansholt undertook his reform initiative at a time of politics as usual. In 1968, when his memorandum was published, there were no ongoing trade negotiations. Moreover, not only was there no looming enlargement, but the prospects of accession in general seemed grim, with French President Charles de Gaulle blocking British membership. Paradigmatic reform, like the Mansholt Plan proposed, is essentially impossible to achieve under politics as usual. Mansholt’s plan faced strong resistance from farmers, and there was no disruptive event to overcome this resistance. Even though Mansholt did not take on the issue of surpluses directly and instead focused on the size of the farming community, he was unable to overcome the refusal of other key actors to accept the need for CAP reform. For these reasons,draining pots the fundamental problems plaguing the CAP’s operation carried on into the ensuing decades. The CAP’s unresolved production problems and their associated financial expenditures continued to build in the years following Mansholt’s unsuccessful initiative. The high cost of disposal was all the more alarming, given that in 1970 the CAP accounted for 75% of the Community’s budget. A new funding agreement for the CAP which was reached in 1969 and would be implemented in 1975, would provide much needed stability for the financing of this incredibly expensive program. Previously, national contributions to the Community were settled through acrimonious negotiations. Under the new plan, the CAP, and by extension the Community, would have its own resources. Specifically, levies on agricultural imports and customs duties were to accrue to the Community.

National value added tax receipts, up to a maximum VAT rate of 1%, would meet expenditures in excess of what could be covered by revenue from the levies . Due to delays in harmonization of the member states’ VAT systems, the VAT component of the financing was not implemented until 1979. Essentially, this financial program served to prop the CAP up without fixing it by providing a large, dedicated source of funding. Overproduction, and the associated costs, continued to drive up spending. By 1986, CAP annual spending had reached 56 billion ECU , up from an average of 30 billion ECU between 1979 and 1981. The 1984 Fountainebleu agreement attempted to stabilize expenditures in agriculture by limiting spending increases to 2% annually. The agreement, however, provided no incentive to compel individual farmers to cut back on production. In the wake of limited change, production continued unchecked, and overall expenditure continued to increase at a rate of 18% per year. By 1987, the CAP was violating the policy’s own financial regulations by running a budget deficit between 4 and 5 billion ECU, which, at the time, “was concealed through cleaver accounting” . Despite the swelling agricultural budget, farmers did not necessarily become richer. Rather, most farmer incomes held steady or declined because these new funds were directed towards costs associated with exports and/or maintaining the growing surplus. This decline in farmer incomes made reform even more difficult, particularly any proposals that would cut prices, since this strategy would hurt farmer incomes that were already not improving, despite a growing CAP budget. Yet, other than a major overhaul of the CAP, cutting prices paid to farmers for their production was the quickest solution for the CAP’s twin problems of out of control spending and excess production. The 1988 Stabilizer Reform was negotiated under politics as usual. Enlargement was not a pressing issue, as Spanish and Portuguese accession had been completed two years prior, and the next round of enlargement would not be until 1995. Although the Uruguay Round had been launched in 1986, negotiations were slow to get underway, and it was not yet clear that the CAP was playing a key role in forestalling progress. With farmer interests dominating CAP policy making, only incremental change was possible.

The CAP would be patched up by the 1988 Stabilizer Reform, rather than fundamentally overhauled.François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl were facing major elections. In Mitterrand’s case, he was attempting to prevent a strong challenge from his prime minister, Jacques Chirac, in the 1988 presidential election. Both Mitterrand and Chirac “believed that the agricultural vote would play a crucial role in the election outcome” and thus were reluctant to challenge farmer preferences9 . In Germany, the Christian Democratic Union /Christian Social Union was facing tighter Länder elections in two states with significant agricultural populations, and believed that they would lose votes if they hurt farmer interests. Kohl and his party therefore had good reason to be reluctant to cross the farmers, as German farmers had habitually sanctioned the CDU/CSU in elections over agricultural policy. To address the crisis, Germany and France each proposed price cuts of no more than 3% and a grain production ceiling of 165 million metric tons. This plan, however, would do little to address the actual problems plaguing the CAP, as the proposed ceiling would allow for a 6 percent increase in production over production levels that were already considered to be unsustainable. Only after reaching that point would production penalties be applied. In short, the Franco-German plan proposed little change to existing price supports with minor penalties, at best, for overproduction. It thus did little to address the budget problem. The UK, supported by Denmark, represented the opposite end of the spectrum on CAP reform. Given that British farmers were among the largest and most efficient in the Union, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher viewed the CAP primarily as a means by which the UK was forced to support less efficient competitors. Just a few years prior to this reform, Thatcher had negotiated the UK rebate, essentially awarding the UK a refund for money they paid into the EU. The rationale for the rebate was that the UK got back from the EU far less than it paid in, with the CAP being the main cause. Thatcher proposed a 15% price cut for cereals in years in which production was in excess of an established ceiling and also advocated for a producer tax, called a co-responsibility levy, which would help defray the costs of export subsidies and surplus storage. Ultimately, the final agreement contained a 3% price cut for cereals, as France and Germany preferred, along with the co-responsibility levy that took effect only when cereal production exceeded 160 million tons . Beyond cereals, which was among the more contentious commodities, a system of production ceilings and co-responsibility levies was adopted for the other major crops. However, the ceilings were set so high, and the fines so low that no change in production practices would result. Ultimately, the reform did little to address the main budgetary issue, however, as it was estimated that “no savings would result until 1990, if at all” . Because of strong British and Danish resistance to contributing even more to an out of control budget, “Germany agreed to contribute an extra 5 billion ECU over a five-year period, representing a 30% increase in their net annual budget contribution” .

The CAP has certainly felt the pressure of post-materialist values

Farmers, due to their large share of the population, exercised a decisive influence in pre- and inter-war Europe. The way that farmers aligned often affected the trajectory of economic policy and regime outcomes . Moore contends that the revolutionary potential of the peasantry was the key determinant of interwar regime outcomes. Where the peasants were driven off the land by the commercialization of agriculture, as in Britain, liberal democracy prevailed. By contrast, where peasants remained on the land, they provided a mass foundation for either fascism or communism. Luebbert builds upon the work of Moore , contending that the choice of alliance of the family peasantry determined whether a country’s interwar regime became social democratic or fascist. A peasant-urban worker alliance produced democracy, while an alliance with the urban middle class produced fascism. In the post-war period as agricultural populations plummeted, many saw farmers as doomed to political irrelevance. According to scholars who fall into what might be called the “demography is destiny” school, such as Mendras and Daugbjerg ,gardening pots plastic now that farmers no longer have the numbers to be crucial and/or decisive alliance partners, they have lost political relevance. This political decline is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the rise and fall of agrarian parties.

Agrarian parties once flourished and were attractive partners for other parties seeking to form a coalition. As their core population declined, however, these parties faded into irrelevance or transformed into centrist or environmental parties . For example, Sweden’s once powerful Agrarian Party, founded in 1910, was a key source of support for governments headed by the Social Democratic Party in the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. As Sweden’s rural population shrank, however, the party’s political relevance declined dramatically. In 1958, the Agrarian Party was renamed the Centre Party, and its traditional rural and agricultural interests were replaced by a platform promoting environmental and green interests. Moreover, the Social Democrats found new coalition partners, and the Centre Party was cast into the opposition. In short, farmers used to have political influence because they were a large voting bloc. With their decline in population, however, farmers no longer had the numbers to attract coalition partners. As opportunities for alliances diminished, so too did the farmers’ ability to influence policy outcomes. The demographic perspective would expect CAP support to decline with farmer population. Yet such accounts ignore past examples of small group influence. Gershenkron for example, describes how landed elites in interwar Germany , despite accounting for only a sliver of the population, continued to steer the nation’s agricultural policy for nearly a century. The low price of grain from Eastern Europe and the United States threatened the livelihood the Junkers, who operated large, grain-growing estates. However, the Junkers combined manipulation of the peasants and an alliance with heavy industry to protect agricultural subsidies, preserve an authoritarian social order prior to World War I, and undermine the Weimar Republic in the interwar period .

The case of the Junkers demonstrates that, even when its members represent only a small percentage of the population, a group can be politically influential. While the “demography is destiny” literature correctly identifies population decline as a challenge for farmers and farmer syndicates, it does not fully consider the possibility that farmers, like other small groups in the past, may be able to overcome demographic decline and continue to exert outsized influence. It assumes that farmers and their organizations are static, and cannot evolve in order to maintain their political influence as their numbers wane. Yet CAP spending figures indicate that farmers continue to exercise political influence. Declining numbers may have changed the ways in which farmers exercise power, but they have not eliminated that power.A second set of arguments claims that the rapidly changing global economic climate is overtaking farmers and blunting their ability to shape policy , Daugbjerg , Frieden and Rogowski , Hennis , Keohane and Milner , and Potter and Tilzey. Scholars in this camp contend that in an increasingly globalized world, groups that are globally uncompetitive and oppose liberalization, such as farmers, will become marginalized in policy debates. Lower costs of international transportation, along with global liberalization reforms, has made trade cheaper and more prevalent. The effects of maintaining closed markets in a globalized world grow while sheltering agriculture behind a wall of tariff barriers, income supports, and inflated prices becomes increasingly costly.

Thus, as countries around the world open their markets and lower barriers to trade, those segments of business, industry, and labor that stand to gain from liberalization have increased incentives to mobilize for reform. Under these conditions, the protectionist demands of the much smaller farming population should be overwhelmed by the growing pro-liberalization preferences of consumers, industry, and business. In addition, while the farmer population continues to shrink, the expense placed on consumers and tax payers, like having 40% of the EU budget go to less than 5% of the population, appears increasingly egregious. Globalization arguments would predict a dramatic reduction in CAP budget and a sharp turn away from protectionist policies and towards market-liberal measures. Yet outcomes of major trade negotiations do not fully match this prediction. Although trade liberalization has occurred, CAP spending commitments remain high, and farmers have successfully defended their subsidies. Consider the Uruguay Round of the GATT. The UR, launched in 1986, was supposed to be concluded in 1990, but delays in the agricultural negotiations resulted in no conclusion being reached until 1994, doubling the expected length of the round. What is more, the central goal of the UR was to reduce subsidies to farmers. Yet, due to the efforts of farmers and their representatives, an agreement could only be reached and the round concluded once precisely the sort of payments targeted for elimination were redefined so as to be exempt from GATT/WTO regulations. Despite accounting for only a sliver of both the workforce and GDP, farmers stared down industry and services, delayed GATT negotiations for four years, and ultimately prevented reformers from cutting farmer subsidies. Farmers held the GATT agreement for ransom, ensuring the protection and continuation of their subsidies before allowing a deal to be reached. As the example demonstrates, farmers’ interests are not doomed to being swept aside or overwhelmed by the preferences of consumers, business, and industry. A consistent pattern has emerged whereby trade policy movement in a liberalizing direction has been accompanied by hefty side payments and/or policy concessions to farmers. Farmers have essentially been paid to accept liberalization. Traditionally, CAP programs paid farmers based on how much they produced, offered guaranteed purchase prices, and assured the purchase, storage,plastic pots with drainage holes and dumping of excess product. The programs were all labeled by the GATT/WTO as trade distorting. Instead of simply eliminating these trade distorting programs and forcing European farmers to compete on the open market, CAP programs were reconfigured so that farmer incomes could still be maintained, but in ways that did not violate WTO rules on trade distortion. Specifically, the CAP moved from supporting agricultural prices to subsidizing farmer incomes. The CAP became GATT compatible, but at no loss to farmers.

Ultimately, while scholars in the globalization school expect farmers to be eclipsed in the move toward the market, in reality, contemporary farmers have been able to adapt to this trend, making market liberalizing measures compatible with the preservation of farmer incomes. Farmers are not prisoners of globalization; they are agents who have shaped the character of globalization in ways that protect their interests and pA third set of arguments contends that farmer preferences are at odds with those held by the general public. Scholars including Berry , Inglehart , Kitschelt ; Montpetit , and Yearly describe the rise of a so-called post-materialist culture since the late 1970s. Post-materialism refers to a shift in political values and norms away from traditional political priorities such as economic growth and social order to new concerns, notably environmental protection, gender equality, and LGBTQ+ rights. Green parties have typically taken on the mantle of advancing these goals. Green parties have been successful politically and in many cases have come to replace communist parties as key alliance partners for Social Democrats and Socialists. Such “red-green” alliances have governed a number of European countries, including Germany , France , Finland , and Norway . In addition, Inglehart notes, “in recent decades, social class voting has declined and now shares the stage with newer post-materialist issues that emphasize lifestyle issues and environmental protection.” This change in how voters mobilize and vote should threaten farmer interests, with politicians targeting voters via issue area, like women’s rights and environmental protection, as opposed to making direct appeals to social classes, like farmers. The increased salience of environmental and animal welfare issues is particularly threatening to the CAP. European consumers have become more concerned about the quality of food production, with an increased interest in animal welfare and good environmental practices. Eurobarometer surveys reveal that European consumers want a CAP that produces food that is safe to eat and that is not harmful to the environment. While 90% of respondents in a 2001 Eurobarometer poll expressed a belief that the CAP should “ensure that agricultural products were healthy and safe”, only 36% thought that “food bought could be safely eaten” . As the survey indicates, there is a vast disparity between what the public thinks the CAP should be doing and what it believes the CAP actually does. The traditional CAP is widely regarded as bad for both the environment and animal welfare. By guaranteeing high prices and a market for all output, the CAP incentivized farmers to produce as much food as possible, no matter the cost to the environment. A major side effect of this policy was the heavy use of pesticides and nitrates to maximize yields. A quantity-oriented approach was also at odds with animal-welfare standards. Given that the central elements of the CAP run contrary to increasingly influential post-materialist values, scholars in this school would predict a decline in support for and commitments to the CAP. Arguments in the post-materialist camp predict that policies that promote harmful environmental practices will be gradually eliminated, notwithstanding the opposition of farmer organizations. A further implication of these arguments is that policies will be enacted that protect the environment and/or guarantee the provision of food that is both safe and of a high quality. For these authors, farmers will be forced to go along with a shift from quantity-based production to quality-based production at considerable economic cost.Over the past several rounds of CAP reform, policymakers have striven to “green” European agriculture. New policies that focus on improving environmental practices are not just a threat to farmers, however. Such initiatives have offered opportunities for farmers to obtain more support. In exchange for greater regulation of the way that they farm, farmers have been able to extract subsidies for following “good farming practices,” such as reducing their use of nitrates and pesticides. In other words, farmers have ridden the green wave to more subsidies and income-boosting programs and policies.While many scholars provide compelling accounts of farmer power from the 19th century to the immediate post-war period, explaining contemporary farmer power poses more of a challenge. The reason is that the principal source of influence that the literature identifies for farmers, demographic and economic dominance, no longer exists. My dissertation therefore builds on and updates these arguments in order to provide an understanding of contemporary farmer power. My argument has three parts. The first examines why agricultural policy reform is so difficult. Despite globalization, changing European values, and demographic and economic decline, farmers have remained politically influential. Contemporary farmer power stems from the ability to access politicians on both the left and the right, to manipulate public opinion, to control the policy space, and to leverage the broader importance of food production. Because farmers continue to be powerful actors, technocrats and policymakers must contend with their influence. Another obstacle to agricultural retrenchment is agricultural policy itself. Just as postwar welfare states have been shown by Paul Pierson to have generated their own political support base and locked in certain kinds of social spending, so the CAP has mobilized farmers in defense of agricultural spending.

Agricultural science in the public domain is increasingly being asked to do more with less

If breeders can increase their imported genetic materials by 10 percent, the marginal cost of wheat variety production will fall by 2.2 percent .Such an effect, a type of spillin, has long been known to play an important role in the effectiveness of spending on agricultural research . Our study demonstrates that spillins are also an important source of efficiency gains at the level of the crop breeding institute, and policies and institutions that facilitate the free flow of germplasm will raise the productivity of the agricultural research system. Compared with increasing an institute’s human capital and access to genetic material, the effects of having scientists from other disciplines and the burden of caring for retirees are less clear. Having scientists from other disciplines in a breeding program marginally reduces wheat-breeding costs. It has the opposite effect in maize institutes, although the effect disappears in estimations that correct for measurement error. Hence, at the very least, it seems that the addition of soil scientists, plant pathologists and other scientists does not significantly detract from productivity, even in the types of breeding centers that dominate China’s research system. Our findings also do not provide evidence that would validate the complaints of scientists and research administrators about the adverse effects of bearing the burden of the welfare of retirees. While this result is surprising , it could be that there are two offsetting effects of having breeders remaining formally attached to the institute after they retire. Although retirees probably do take away resources that could otherwise be used for research,round pots their presence could be an asset since they have experience, breeding material inventory, and contacts in the seed system that could help reduce costs.

The scientists responsible for breeding new varieties today will have to meet even greater challenges than those that gave rise to the Green Revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. In an era of waning support and increased demands for output, it will be necessary to become increasingly efficient at producing new varieties. However, there is almost no empirically-based evidence to guide the efforts of reorganizing the current agricultural research system. In this study, we attempt to identify sources of efficiency in China’s crop breeding system. Using a panel data of 46 wheat and maize breeding institutes from 1981 to 2000, we examine the factors that affect the variable costs of wheat and maize varieties. Using a number of approaches and accounting for a number of econometric issues, our analysis produces a set of robust results that can help guide reformers in their efforts to increase the efficiency of China’s crop breeding system. Our most striking finding, and one that is relevant for crop breeding centers around the world, is the existence of strong economies of scale in China’s crop breeding research. The coefficients of economies of scale imply a significant cost saving associated with expanding the scale of crop breeding institutes. According to our findings, the current large number of small crop breeding institutes is the main source of inefficiency. In addition, a number of other sources of inefficiency are identified.

Though not as strong or consistent as the results for economies of scale, we find there are economies of scope in the production of varieties of different crops. Merging a wheat-only institute with a maize-only institute can lead to small, but significant cost savings. We also find that raising the human capital of the breeding staff and facilitating the access of breeders to wider sources of germplasm increases the efficiency of breeding. All of these results fit squarely with our expectations based on knowledge of the crop breeding system in China as well as from a consideration of the counterpart institutions in other countries and in international agricultural research centers. Taken at face value, our findings can support a blueprint for the reform of crop breeding in developing countries, from a system dominated by a multitude of small, fragmented, and isolated breeding stations to one characterized by a smaller number of “super” breeding centers. New centers would be larger, broader in scope, and be staffed by well-trained scientists representing a number of different agricultural science disciplines. Expanding the size of the institutes, either by merging two or more or by expanding a single institute and shutting down others, would take advantage of the strong economies of scale. Our results do not give exact guidance on how big the institutes should be, in part because we are not observing many institutes that have reached or passed the bottom of the average cost curve. However, even casual observation of the descriptive data shows that crop breeding institutes can be expanded by at least several times their current size. Such a move would start to shift the size of breeding programs in China more towards those of developed nations. The new centers could also take advantage of other sources of efficiency gains.

The positive economies of scope mean that the new super centers should have at least two departments, one for wheat and one for maize. It also can be argued that new departments should be created in the centers for the support of work by scientists from other disciplines. Although we did not always find strong efficiency gains from the addition of other scientists, there was even less evidence of any diseconomies associated with institutes that contained non-breeders.13 But, in anticipation of future changes in the technology of crop breeding, that surely will confront any modern agricultural research system , it is likely that there will be substantial gains to having an institutional structure in place that can take advantage of and develop its own high technology products. However, a number of factors potentially could undermine part or even all of these efficiencies, should the government implement an approach based on merging and expanding smaller crop-breeding institutes into a smaller number of super breeding centers. First, there will be non-pecuniary costs associated with mergers or expansions. For instance, researchers who are likely to lose their jobs and directors who are likely to lose their political positions will do whatever they can to prevent any ambitious reorganization from happening. The more ambitious the reform is, the greater will be the opposition. Second, merging or cutting will encounter transaction costs associated with the reform process itself and with reorganizing operations of merged or expanded institutes. Finally, a smaller number of super stations could mean less competition,garden pots plastic leaving less incentive for innovative research. Hence, in deciding how to implement a reorganization of the crop breeding research system, research sector leaders should also take into account these adverse factors and potential transactions costs. Agriculture has increased to meet the demand of a growing and wealthier population that demands more, and more resource intensive, calories . The doubling of agricultural production in the past 40 y has been fueled by technological improvements as well as higher levels of pesticide and fertilizer inputs . Although this increase in food production has contributed to vast improvements in nutrition and reductions in hunger worldwide , the ecological and environmental consequences of these inputs are straining the long-term viability of agricultural systems and the human and natural communities that surround agricultural production . Agricultural intensification at both local and landscape scales has been the workhorse behind production increases. Farms have become specialized on fewer, high-yielding crops grown in shorter rotation cycles on larger fields . In aggregate, agricultural landscapes have become more simplified with less noncrop habitat and fewer crop types in production . Aggregate food production from intensification has undoubtedly increased, reducing the pressure of agricultural land expansion into natural habitats to meet the growing food demand . However, there are numerous unintended consequences of agricultural intensification for biodiversity , water quality, and other ecosystem services . Modern agricultural systems rely on agrochemicals to reduce pest damage, thereby minimizing crop loss . However, many of these chemicals have adverse environmental and ecological effects. Pesticides, broadly, and insecticides, in particular, have been linked to biodiversity declines in numerous taxa in both temperate and tropical regions , as well as declines in water and air quality. Further, off-site pesticide contamination and pesticide resistance are important externalities of pesticide use that have consequences for both chronic and infectious human diseases.

Pesticide use is fundamentally about controlling pest damage. Crops can vary substantially in average insecticide use based on value or susceptibility to pest damage. However, given the set of crops in production, ecologists are seeking means to reduce excess insecticide use by manipulating on-farm and landscape characteristics. Because insect pests and natural enemies often have large dispersal ranges and varied habitat needs, the focus has been on if and when complex landscapes reduce pest abundance or, conversely, if and when simplified landscapes lead to more pest problems . However, ecological field studies seeking to inform more sustainable pest control practices face an enormous challenge. Pest community composition and pest damage may be intricately linked to landscape composition, habitat configuration, and the focal crop type in ways and at spatial scales that are difficult to address in field experiments. As a result, the evidence tying simplified habitats to insecticide use is often specific to one crop and pest combination and is equivocal overall . Data-driven approaches have proven useful in elucidating the larger scale patterns in the relationship between landscape-level agricultural intensification and insecticide use . However, these studies have been limited in spatial resolution of both crop and insecticide data . Thus, the majority of research has focused on one aspect of landscape simplification, namely, cropland extent measured as the proportion of county in cropland. In highly simplified agricultural regions that are dominated by one or a couple of crops, county-level cropland may serve as an appropriate metric for intensification. However, in highly diverse agricultural regions, landscape-level crop diversity, in addition to cropland extent, may be an important driver of pests and enemies . Further, cropland extent may act on both local and landscape scales. Disentangling suchcomplexities requires refined data on crops and insecticides at We conducted all analyses at the field scale. There are ∼13,000 large spatial scales, information that is currently absent for much fields active per year, with crop diversity, cropland extent, field of the world. size, and insecticides varying regionally . Crop diversity Here, we take advantage of unique field-level crop and pesticide was calculated as the Simpson’s Diversity Index of all data for ∼100,000 field-year observations in the agriculturally diverse crops within a 2,500-m radius of the focal field Kern County, California, from 2005 to 2013 to understand if crop and did not include the focal field. SDI was calculated at difdiversity , field size, and cropland extent drive insecticide ferent taxonomic levels or commodity use. Kern County is situated in the southern San Joaquin Valley and levels . Unless otherwise noted, is California’s second ranked county by agricultural production the results discussed below are from models based on SDI at value, with an annual agricultural output of ∼6 billion dollars . the species level. To facilitate comparison, all covariates were Although the leading crops by value are grape varieties and almonds, standardized. over 200 different commodities are produced . We first conduct For models including all crops , we found the analysis pooling all crops to understand general patterns in in- the largest effect of crop diversity on insecticide use in secticide use and landscape simplification using panel data analyses the pooled ordinary least squares model, followed by the that control for regional differences in insecticide use as well as for fixed effects model with region and year controls, and then by the year shocks in pest control. Because crops are not planted haphaz- fixed effects model with crop and year controls . Throughout, we are following the econometric use of the or “fixed effects”) to parse the effect of crop diversity from the term fixed effects to describe panel data models with dummy or differences in crop composition that may be inherent to landscapes with high or low levels of crop diversity. Using these models, we indicator variables for each crop, year, or region.