No abstract

No abstract

Despite a significant growth in food production over the past half-century, one of the most important challenges facing society today is how to feed an expected population of some nine billion by the middle of the 20th century. To meet the expected demand for food without significant increases in prices, it has been estimated that we need to produce 70-100 per cent more food, in light of the growing impacts of climate change, concerns over energy security, regional dietary shifts and the Millennium Development target of halving world poverty and hunger by 2015. The goal for the agricultural sector is no longer simply to maximize productivity, but to optimize across a far more complex landscape of production, rural development, environmental, social justice and food consumption outcomes. However, there remain significant challenges to developing national and international policies that support the wide emergence of more sustainable forms of land use and efficient agricultural production. The lack of information flow between scientists, practitioners and policy makers is known to exacerbate the difficulties, despite increased emphasis upon evidence-based policy. In this paper, we seek to improve dialogue and understanding between agricultural research and policy by identifying the 100 most important questions for global agriculture. These have been compiled using a horizon-scanning approach with leading experts and representatives of major agricultural organizations worldwide. The aim is to use sound scientific evidence to inform decision making and guide policy makers in the future direction of agricultural research priorities and policy support. If addressed, we anticipate that these questions will have a significant impact on global agricultural practices worldwide, while improving the synergy between agricultural policy, practice and research. This research forms part of the UK Government's Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures project

Rules governing human behaviour are at the heart of every system of natural resource management. Without compliance, however, rules are meaningless so effective enforcement is essential if conservation is to be successful. There is a large body of theory concerning enforcement and compliance with rules spread over several disciplines, including psychology, economics and sociology. However, there have been few attempts to extend this theory to conservation applications and there is little practical guidance for managers and conservation planners on the optimal design of enforcement programmes. We review approaches to understanding why individuals break rules and how optimal policy choices can reduce rule-breaking, highlighting research which has specifically dealt with natural resources. Because of the difficulty of studying rule-breaking behaviour directly, modelling approaches have been particularly important and have been used to explore behaviour at the individual, group and institutional levels. We illustrate the application of models of enforcement and compliance to conservation using the African elephant Loxodonta africana as a case study. Further work is needed to create practical tools which can be applied to the design of enforcement measures in conservation. Particular challenges include understanding the importance of violations of rationality assumptions and incorporating intertemporal choice in models of decision making. In conclusion, we argue that a new field of robust theory and practice is urgently needed to ensure that issues of enforcement and compliance do not undermine conservation initiatives.

Despite considerable effort to understand and represent decision making by farmers, there has been little attempt to integrate socio‐economic, psychological and farming variables within a comprehensive framework. This paper attempts to do this in the context of two types of farming behaviour ‐ business and environmental ‐for a sample of over 200 Scottish farmers. Using variables covering their attitudes, objectives and behaviours relevant to many aspects of farming, we proposed mediating variables models of business‐oriented and environmentally‐oriented farming behaviours. Structural equation modelling was used to test the adequacy of the proposed models. The results of the study emphasise the importance of psychological factors in the decision making of farmers.