Uganda's Flower Farms and Private Sector Development

The European Union's (EU) pledge to assist private sector development (PSD) in the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) states is a key pillar of its bilateral trade relationship with former colonies. It is this ostensible support to PSD that allows the EU to contend that its pursuit of market opening in ACP countries under Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) is not detrimental to human well‐being in low‐income countries, in spite of risks of import flooding and EU monopolization of emerging sectors. This article explores the legitimizing ‘development’ rationales of EU PSD frameworks from the perspective of stakeholders in a strategic site of private sector activity in the ACP grouping. Specifically, it explores Europe's PSD agendas from the standpoint of investors, managers and workers in Uganda's cut‐flower sector, which is domestically seen as one of the sectors most likely to bring economic benefits to Uganda. Based on interviews with stakeholders in the industry, the article explores whether actors in this business sector concur with the underlying ‘pro‐poor’ rationales of Europe's PSD framework and whether Europe is seen as a meaningful partner in this prioritized site of private sector activity.     

Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farms and Black Agrarian Geographies

This paper examines Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farms, a 1969 farming cooperative in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Specifically, this paper interrogates how Hamer's identity as a Black southern woman influences her formulation and daily activities at Freedom Farms. Theoretically, this paper situates Hamer as an expert agrarian labourer and knowledge producer who exists within a history of Black women who have always been utilised for their agrarian knowledge, but given little credit. Hamer's knowledge is a part of her body. This paper argues that Freedom Farms is a Black radical geography operating at three scales: the body, the farm and the southern agrarian landscape. This paper utilises Hamer's speeches, interviews and other archival documents to understand Hamer's efforts. Hamer's agrarian landscape is wrought with pain, but also the insistence in the economic opportunity that exists for Black people in agrarian spaces.     

Farms and families in ninth‐century Provence

Information about the people recorded in 813–14 on the estate of St Victor de Marseilles shows that although considered to belong to the monastery they were an independent peasant class. Family size and structure varied: some farms were run by the labour of the family which included unmarried sons and ‘married‐in’ sons‐in‐law; other farmers employed living‐in servants in husbandry. The mountain sheep farms had large groups of unmarried young people. Inheritance systems ensured that the peasant family property remained intact over the generations and provided support for unmarried sons who remained to work there.     

抗战时期华北日系农场的殖民经营--以天津地区为中心

天津沿海碱荒地带,自明清以来农业垦殖发展较快,逐步成为华北主要水稻产区。华北事变以后,日本为掠夺稻米、棉花等农产物,投资组设农场,强征当地土地、劳力,进行殖民土地开发,对华北日军的军粮供应,发挥了较大作用。日系农场多沿用旧租佃制,将土地分割小块出租。并未带来先进耕作方式,耕作者负担也比战前大大加重。日系农场在1941年前后较为活跃,到战争后期,由于周边抗日力量的兴起,不断遭受打击,最终陷入困顿。     

Notes from the Iberian Algae Belt

In this paper, we explore regional innovation in the use of varieties of algae as inputs to industrial processes. It is important to understand that algae are one of nature's most bountiful products, with an almost infinite variety of applications. Algae have received prominence in the research literature because of the strong evidence that they can make a major contribution to the production and—importantly—storage of renewable energy. Following the introduction to this paper, Section 2 reviews the nature and application of algae in two main aspects of clean energy production: first as biogasolene or biodiesel; second as large-scale storage batteries for electricity. The latter is particularly important as one classic deficiency of electricity is the difficulty in storing it for lengthy periods other than in short-life batteries. However (Section 3), there are other uses for algae, ranging from aquaculture to medicine and the production of cosmetics. In the southwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, between Faro in Portugal through Huelva to Cadiz in Spain, is a significant research and commercial algae production zone. The paper describes the key system elements in play in this trans-border innovation network and considers prospects for new path creation towards biofuels, the main research and application centres for which are in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Conclusions and recommendations for policy action are then drawn.     

Two Careers across Two Cultures

Beginning with my recollection of hearing C. P. Snow's ‘Two Cultures’ lecture, I sketch my experience of building two academic careers in succession, first in one of the natural sciences and later in the history of such sciences. I outline both the difficulties and the rewards that I encountered in crossing the alleged gulf between the sciences and the humanities, but also emphasise the diversity of cultures that I experienced within each. I describe my own encounter with the academic culture of continental Europe, within which the concept of a monolithic singular ‘Science’ could be dismissed as an ‘anglophone heresy’, and viewed from which the Two Cultures debate could seem both provincial and redundant.     

The Resurgent Conflict Between Offshore Wind Farms and Tourism: Underlying Storylines

Abstract

Efforts to put offshore wind farms in place have demonstrated that these are far from being conflict-free, evoking confrontations with a number of stakeholders' interests. One of the most persistent conflict lines refers to the feared adverse externalities on coastal tourism, although tourist surveys and initial empirical evidence seem to reflect the opposite. This paper explicitly addresses this gap and explores how and why certain stakeholders rationalise potential impacts on the tourism economy of coastal communities and, thus constitute the conflict between offshore wind farms and tourism. Based on two cases studies in Scotland and Germany, five storylines are identified that are invoked by local opponents to substantiate impacts on tourism. The paper will show that a particular meaningful construction of the coastal landscape is inherent in tourism and pervades all storylines. It is concluded that arguments of both opponents and decision-makers are embedded in epistemic uncertainty which necessitates a thorough consideration of oppositional arguments in the planning process for offshore wind farms.     

Russian Peasant Farms and Household Plots in 2003: A Research Note

An American specialist on Russian agriculture surveys the current legal status of peasant farms and subsidiary agriculture ("private plots") in Russia following the enactment of two important new laws in 2003. In the process, he highlights differences between peasant farms and subidiary plots in terms of the quantity and type of food produced, the size of land plots utilized, and their legal status. Also reviewed are selected aspects of the recent economic perfomance of these two pillars of private-sector agriculture. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O13, O18, Q15. 16 references.     

Forest Belt Along the Yarlung Zangbo River

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玉带钩的出现与发展浅说

在我国出土和传世的古玉器中,带钩是常见的器类。其数目众多、形式各异、造型别致、雕琢精细、纹饰华丽,令人赞叹不已。玉带钩是古人腰带的装饰,通常由钩首、钩身、钩钮三部分组成。钩首位于器之一端并向上弯曲成钩状,钩身正面为钩面,多有纹饰,钩身底一般有一钮（图1,带钩使用示意图;据燕下都出土战国铜人绘制）。     

Scenic Perceptions of the Visual Effects of Wind Farms on South Australian Landscapes

A survey of the visual effects of wind farms was undertaken in South Australia, with the aim of quantifying the impact of wind farms on the perceived scenic quality of landscapes. In the study a total of 311 participants assessed the scenic quality of a photographed landscape in 68 coastal and inland locations where wind farms could be located, both without wind farms and with wind farms digitally added to the scene. A key finding of the study was that wind farms generally had a negative effect on landscapes of higher scenic quality but a positive effect on landscapes of lower scenic quality. The negative visual effects of a wind farm did not reduce appreciably with distance. White, blue or grey coloured turbines were preferred over tan or rainbow hues, but this finding was based on a small number of scenes. Limitations of the study included using static views of wind farms and having an insufficient number of scenes to assess the influence of the number of turbines on scenic quality ratings. The study concluded that wind farms should avoid areas of higher perceived scenic quality, particularly on the coast, and be located in areas of lower scenic quality. The study adds to the growing body of international research on community attitudes to wind farms, and contributes useful knowledge for future planning of wind farms in Australia. These research results should assist communities, government agencies and the wind energy industry and improve the planning and design of wind farms by taking community perceptions into account.     

Making Space for Wind Farms: Practices of Territorial Stigmatisation in Rural Denmark

While issues of siting wind farms have often revolved around their local resistance, finding adequate locations and gaining access to land for large wind energy projects has become an increasingly significant challenge for developers, in particular in small countries with relatively mature wind energy sectors, such as Denmark. By drawing on the case of “Outskirts‐Denmark”, this paper focuses on how existing territorial stigma of rural areas is co‐produced and mobilised by wind farm developers to make space for large wind farm projects. In doing so, we demonstrate that the mobilisation of stigma through derogatory rhetoric and forecasting rural decline is used to legitimise the purchase and demolition of properties in marginalised rural areas. We then critically discuss how these developer practices produce controversies over the erosion of rural communities and are entangled in a neoliberal undermining of the planning system, revealing issues of rural energy justice.     

Why Russian Peasants Remain in Collective Farms: A Household Perspective on Agricultural Restructuring

This paper seeks to understand what motivates collective farm employees-share-holders to remain in collective structures rather than exercise their legally sanctioned right to leave with land and property shares. On the basis of a 1999 survey of 181 collective farm households and analysis of regional agricultural policies in Leningrad and Saratov oblasts, the paper examines divergent overt and covert benefits that employees derive from association with market-oriented versus less reformed collective agricultural producers. The paper relates the structure of employee incentives to regional-level agricultural policies and to the divergent effects these policies have on the depth and pattern of structural transformations of agricultural production. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, Q10, Q15. 5 figures, 15 tables, 38 references.     

资本主义还是后封建主义——论近代英国租佃农场制的性质

把英国19世纪的租地农场视为资本主义农场,认为租地农场主和工厂主一样是资本家,进而认为19世纪英国的农业是典型的资本主义农业,这一观点是马克思在《资本论》中提出的。它成为迄今我国史学界对英国农业史的一个基本认识。这种认识有违学界对经济制度的分析。从农业史来看,租佃农场不仅在英国近代存在过,在英国封建社会也长期存在。租佃制是各国封建社会常见的农业经济组织形式。英国19世纪的大土地经营不是直接雇佣劳动者耕作,而是分级出租。相当一部分租地农场面积不大,属于家庭农场,不使用或只是部分使用雇佣劳动力生产。一些地区庄园制仍然残存,通过租佃制持有土地的公簿持有农还受到封建领有制残余的束缚。因此,19世纪英国的租佃农场制夹杂着封建残余。19世纪英国农业的性质是资本主义与后封建主义的混合。     

唐宋占琴无俗韵 哲人心见圣人心

其一,“金玉音”琴,小仲尼式,长116厘米,腹内镌刻“大唐开元五年（717年）雷文制”,“大元至治二年（1322年）施牧州修”。琴背刻“金玉音”,“施牧州跋”,“道光戊子（1828年）一六道人重修”等。