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This volume presents new insights on marginality, i.e. the situation of people living on the edge of socio-economic and ecological systems. The marginality concept leads to different development policies. While the prevalence of poverty declined by about 50 percent in the past two decades, any further reduction of poverty will be more difficult, because of high diversity of extremely poor people, and complex interrelations between poverty, exclusion and ecology. The marginality concept provides guidance to address this issue. Marginality entails addressing the structural forces of poverty, such as exclusion, discrimination and ecological degradations which lead to vulnerability of the poor. In this volume economists, ecology experts, geographers, agronomists, sociologist, and business experts come together to address marginality. The inter-disciplinary research offers conceptual innovations and presents the dimensions of marginality in developing countries. Economic, political, and environmental drivers are assessed and mapped globally and in detail for countries in Africa and Asia, especially Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia. Economic growth especially in rural areas remains and farming communities is central to poverty reduction but needs to be complemented with specific actions to reach those at the margins. The social policy actions and measures to end exclusions are highlighted, and the roles of the state, local government, business and community in them are pointed out for overcoming marginality.

This volume presents new insights on marginality, i.e. the situation of people living on the edge of socio-economic and ecological systems. The marginality concept leads to different development policies. While the prevalence of poverty declined by about 50 percent in the past two decades, any further reduction of poverty will be more difficult, because of high diversity of extremely poor people, and complex interrelations between poverty, exclusion and ecology. The marginality concept provides guidance to address this issue. Marginality entails addressing the structural forces of poverty, such as exclusion, discrimination and ecological degradations which lead to vulnerability of the poor. In this volume economists, ecology experts, geographers, agronomists, sociologist, and business experts come together to address marginality. The inter-disciplinary research offers conceptual innovations and presents the dimensions of marginality in developing countries. Economic, political, and environmental drivers are assessed and mapped globally and in detail for countries in Africa and Asia, especially Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia. Economic growth especially in rural areas remains and farming communities is central to poverty reduction but needs to be complemented with specific actions to reach those at the margins. The social policy actions and measures to end exclusions are highlighted, and the roles of the state, local government, business and community in them are pointed out for overcoming marginality.

Les pauvres en milieu rural diffèrent largement en ce qui concerne leurs capacités et le potentiel agro-écologique des zones où ils vivent. Ainsi, l'intensification durable ne constitue pas seulement un autre problème d'optimisation pour assurer une productivité plus élevée avec moins d'impact sur l'environnement. Il s'agit plutôt d'une tâche complexe de création de valeur par l'innovation dans les systèmes institutionnels, organisationnels et technologiques des sociétés. Il est important de noter que l'intensification durable n'est pas un défi à relever seulement par le secteur agricole, mais par la société dans son ensemble. Les stratégies pertinentes peuvent aller de l'augmentation de la récolte ou de la diversité par zone à l'augmentation des possibilités de revenus en dehors de l'agriculture.

The rural poor differ widely with regard to their capabilities and the agro-ecological potential of the areas where they live. Thus, sustainable intensification is not just another optimization problem for ensuring higher productivity with less environmental impact. Rather it is a complex task of creating value through innovations in the institutional, organizational and technological systems of societies. Importantly, sustainable intensification is not only a challenge to be met by and within the agriculture sector alone, but by society as a whole. Relevant strategies can range from increasing crop harvest or diversity per area to increasing income opportunities outside agriculture.

The aim of this paper is to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework for the analysis of institutions, policies and farming systems for agri-environmental sustainability in Central and Eastern European countries in transition. The basic unit of analysis is the 'agri-environmental action scenario'. The action scenario consists of a set of components which together shape the outcomes of an agri-environnmental action situation. The framework consists of 1) the environmental effects of transition, 2) policies, 3) institutions, and 4) farming systems. We aim at characterising these key elements of the framework, their relationship and interactions, and their role in achieving sustainability at the interface between agriculture and the environment. Environmental areas of concern are: water, soil and biodiversity. The paper intends to create a common understanding of basic concepts and a shared conceptual model among the members of the Central and Eastern European Sustainable Agriculture (CEESA) Network. The framework will be adapted according to new insights and findings during the course of research activities of the CEESA research project.

"Das Recht auf Leben" ist in zahlreichen Ländern verfassungsrechtlich garantiert. Obwohl Nahrung zweifelsohne eine notwendige Bedingung für menschliches Leben darstellt, ist es anders als das Recht auf Leben zwar völkerrechtlich garantiert, nicht aber in der deutschen Verfassung verankert. Daraus ergeben sich im Hinblick auf Nahrung und Ernährung und ihren Zusammenhang mit dem Recht auf Leben zahlreiche Aspekte und Fragen. Neben der Quantität des Nahrungsangebotes spielt die Qualität für eine gesunde Ernährung eine wesentliche Rolle. Überernährung einerseits und Fehl- bzw. Unterernährung andererseits sind nicht nur in einem globalen Kontext wahrzunehmen, sondern betreffen auch die westlichen Industrieländer. Die Erzeugung von Nahrungsmitteln muss zunehmend regionale, nationale und globale ökologische Aspekte in den Blick nehmen. Die Ökologie, jedoch auch der Handel mit Nahrungsmitteln werfen ethische, religiöse, anthropologische und grundsätzliche philosophische Fragen auf. Verfassungsrechtlich stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit sich in dem Recht auf Leben auch ein Recht auf Nahrung abbildet, oder ob Letzteres immer schon in dem Recht auf Leben grundgelegt ist. Das Buch greift verschiedene Aspekte eines Rechts auf Nahrung aus den Perspektiven der Medizin, Biologie, Psychologie, Ökologie, Ökonomie, Theologie, Philosophie, Ethik und Rechtswissenschaften auf und stellt damit einen in unserer Gesellschaft als selbstverständlich verfügbar wahrgenommenen und zu den Grundbedingungen eines guten Lebens gehörenden, jedoch in der gegenwärtigen Praxis keineswegs unproblematischen Begriff in den Mittelpunkt.

"In this paper, the author discusses two different beliefs of how institutional change towards sustainability in agriculture and environment works: the institutional view and the evolutionary view. Both perspectives are studied in the context of restructuring the agricultural sectors and rural environments in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). The specific nature of the 'agri-environmental problem' calls for specific institutions and may require a specific building process. Case study results are presented showing the effect of EU accession on institutional change towards sustainability in several CEECs. The results provide evidence that the quality of institutional change required for sustainability goes beyond the building of legislative frameworks and requires more time than was envisaged by the roadmap to accession. Finally, the paper explores the role of social and human capital stocks in rural areas of CEECs outlining a number of differences in environmental governance in the agricultural sectors between various CEECs." (author's abstract)

"This paper aims at explaining the role and importance of the evolution of institutions for sustainable agri-environments during the transition process by referring to examples of agri-environmental problems faced in Central and Eastern European countries. It is often stated that the replacement of institutional structures in post socialist countries would bring a unique opportunity to implement new policies and institutions needed to ensure that economic growth is environmentally sustainable. This idea stems from the assumption that the breakdown of the socialist system resembles that (of the Schumpeterian type) of creative destruction - a process that incessantly revolutionizes economic structures from within. However, not all kinds of institutions, especially at local level, can simply be implemented, and even more, not incessantly. Instead, they evolve as a response to ecosystem and social system characteristics, and this is a rather slow process. A central question therefore is whether the required institutional arrangements for achieving sustainability in the area of agri-environmental resource management can be built more easily in periods of transition as they fill institutional gaps, or whether processes of transition make institution building a more difficult and far more time consuming task than previously thought. Above all, we want to find out, how these two processes of institution building at different scales affect the sustainable management of resources such as water and biodiversity in agriculture? It will become clear that the agri-environmental problem areas faced during transition are complex and dynamic and require adequate institutions both by political design and from the grassroots, to be developed by the respective actors involved. Transition from centrally planned to pluralistic systems has to be considered as a particular and in some respect non-typical process of institutional change. Popular theories of institutional change do not necessarily apply. The privatisation experience from many CEE countries will serve as an example. Finally, we will provide some examples of missing or insufficient interaction between political actors or agencies and people in CEE countries. Substantial investments into social and human capital, particularly regarding informal institutions are needed for institutions of sustainability to evolve." (author's abstract)

This paper aims at explaining the importance of the democracy stance as compared to the efficiency stance in order to deal with complexity in biodiversity conservation. While the efficiency stance refers to the realm of relatively simple systems, individual rationality, and instrumental values, the complexity stance transcends these boundaries into the realm of complex systems, social rationality and intrinsic values. We argue that the task of biodiversity conservation is impossible to achieve in economically efficient ways, because (a) it is impossible to come to a (fully informed) complete account of all values, not only because it is costly but also because (b) moral values are involved which (by their nature) exclude themselves from being accounted for, and (c) biodiversity conservation can be regarded as an end in itself instead of only a means towards an end. The point we raise is, that in order to cope with biodiversity conservation we need to apply valuation methods which are from the complexity stance, take better account of intrinsic values and feelings, as well as consider social rationality. Economic valuation methods are themselves 'value articulating institutions' and as biodiversity conservation confronts us with the complexity of social-ecological systems, the choice of the 'value articulating institutions' needs to consider their ability to capture instrumental and intrinsic values of biodiversity. We demonstrate a method, based on cybernetics, which is able to take into account the issues raised.

"The aim of this paper is to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework for the analysis of institutions, policies and farming systems for agri-environmental sustainability in Central and Eastern European countries in transition. The basic unit of analysis is the 'agri-environmental action scenario'. The action scenario consists of a set of components which together shape the outcomes of an agri-environmental action situation. The framework consists of 1) the environmental effects of transition, 2) policies, 3) institutions, and 4) farming systems. We aim at characterising these key elements of the framework, their relationship and interactions, and their role in achieving sustainability at the interface between agriculture and the environment. Environmental areas of concern are: water, soil and biodiversity. The paper intends to create a common understanding of basic concepts and a shared conceptual model among the members of the Central and Eastern European Sustainable Agriculture (CEESA) Network. The framework will be adapted according to new insights and findings during the course of research activities of the CEESA research project." (author's abstract)