Most commentary on Zimbabwe‟s land reform insists that agricultural production has almost totally collapsed, that food insecurity is rife, that rural economies are in precipitous decline, that political „cronies‟ have taken over the land and that farm labour has all been displaced. This paper however argues that the story is not simply one of collapse and catastrophe; it is much more nuanced an...

While the Uruguay Round resulted in greater transparency of agricultural trade barriers and limited liberalization, substantial barriers to trade in livestock products remain. This paper makes a projection of the global economy to 2005, and then seeks to determine the impacts of alternative outcomes of the next WTO Millenium Round. Three options for reform are explored – one is restricted to fr...

From 2004 until 2006, reform of US agricultural subsidy programmes seemed a likely result of pressure from the World Trade Organization. Many groups saw this pressure as an opportunity to ‘green’ farm policy by crafting environmental service payments that could replace crop subsidies. Yet the 2008 US farm bill fell short of such drastic changes. This paper uses discourse analysis to trace the d...

The recent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform of the financial support mechanism for farms was introduced in 2005. According to this reform, the level of support that each farm receives is paid regardless of the current level of production. The decoupling of direct payments is expected to change production decisions, as farmers will change their mainly subsidy revenue maximization objectiv...

This article assesses the achievement of land reform in South Africa with respect to the number of beneficiaries relative to rural employment and the demand for land and increases in livelihoods and agricultural output. Even though there are islands of success, for the past twenty years the Land Reform Programme has not satisfied these criteria. Implementation has been poor and farm workers’ an...

Given the year on year decrease of rural farmland and various forms of land degradation through the intrusion of non-farm land uses, the government of Bangladesh has drafted the agrarian reform strategies, primarily to protect the agricultural land from encroachment, conversion, and indiscriminate use. The draft Agricultural Land Protection and Land Use Bill since its inception in 2011 is facin...

Pursuant to Article 1 of the Convention signed in Paris on 14th December 1960, and which came into force on 30th September 1961, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shall promote policies designed: – to achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a rising standard of living in Member countries, while maintaining financial stability, and thus t...

The colonial experience of developing countries provides valuable evidence regarding the impact of legal and institutional innovations on economic growth. However, there has been little effort by economists to study colonial policies to gain theoretical insights into the process of institutional reform. This paper considers the introduction of civil courts in colonial India and its impact on ag...