Reshaping Agriculture's Contributions to Society

David Colman is Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Manchester. He is President-Elect of the International Association of Agricultural Economists and a past President of the Agricultural Economics Society in the UK. He has acted as expert advisor to the House of Commons Agriculture Committee on two occasions in relation to the dairy sector policy, and has been an expert witness and advisor in a number of court cases relating to the milk industry. David Colman has undertaken research projects and consulting contracts for various international bodies, including OECD, FAO, WHO, the World Bank, ODA, and the Canadian, Malawian, and Saudi Arabian Governments. He is co-author of textbooks on the Principles of Agricultural Economics, and Economics of Change in Less-Developed Countries. His main areas of research are agricultural supply response, dairy sector policy, price formation, and commodity modelling. Colman, was the Vice-President of IAAE in charge of the programme for the 25th IAAE Conference in Durban. Nick Vink has been Chair of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa since 1996. He spent 11 years at the Development Bank of Southern Africa as a senior policy analyst for rural and agricultural development issues during South Africa’s transition to democracy. His interests include land reform, agricultural policy, structural reform, and small farmer development.

• Preface (Joachim von Braun). Introduction: The 25th conference and the association (David R. Colman and Nick Vink).Agricultural economics and distributional effects (Joachim von Braun).Causes of rural economic development (Bruce L. Gardner).Plenary 1.Rural poverty dynamics: development policy implications (Christopher B. Barrett).Six characters (and a few more) in search of an author: how to rescue rural development before it’s too late (Simon Maxwell).Achieving success in rural development: toward implementation of an integral approach (Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet).Plenary 2.Is there a future for small farms? (Peter B. R. Hazell).A revival of large farms in Eastern Europe – how important are institutions? (Ulrich Koester).Total factor productivity growth in agriculture: a Malmquist index analysis of 93 countries, 1980-2000 (Tim J. Coelli and D. S. Prasada Rao).Is small beautiful? Farm size, productivity, and poverty in Asian agriculture (Shenggen Fan and Connie Chan-Kang).Plenary 3.Will food safety jeopardize food security? (Jean Kinsey).Poverty amidst plenty: food insecurity in the United States (Michael LeBlanc, Betsey Kuhn, and James Blaylock).Food safety, the media, and the information market (Johan F. M. Swinnen, Jill McCluskey, and Nathalie Francken).Agricultural biotechnology: implications for food security (Vittorio Santeniello).Plenary 4.The poverty of sustainability: rescuing economics from platitudes (Daniel W. Bromley).Under-investing in public goods: evidence, causes, and consequences for agricultural development, equity, and the environment (Ramon Lopez).Resource degradation, low agricultural productivity, and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: pathways out of the spiral (Simeon Ehui and John Pender).Economic development and environmental management in the uplands of Southeast Asia: challenges for policy and institutional development (Agnes C. Rola and Ian Coxhead).IAAE Synopsis: Reshaping Agriculture’s contribution to society.Prabhu Pingali.Michael Petit.Alberto Valdes.Johann Kirsten.Conference Program.Name Index.Subject Index